ORF: The Observer Research Foundation
April 7th.

The last few days have been dramatic in the US polity with former
President Donald Trump becoming the first US president in history to face
a criminal trial after he was charged with 34 counts of falsifying
business records in a Manhattan court in New York. Though there was
nothing the world did not know before in the case involving hush money
paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election,
the spectacle of a former “leader of the free world” facing charges of
orchestrating “a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential
election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to
suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects”
stands testimony to the persistent decay in American politics over the
last few years.

https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-riveting-trump-reality-show-starring-american-democracy/

In the court, Trump was silent but outside, he thundered that the “fake
case” was a Democratic Party conspiracy to influence next year’s
presidential election, in which he is the Republican front runner so far,
and suggesed that “the only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly
defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.” He also targeted his
successor Joe Biden saying that the “country is going to hell” and “the
world is laughing at us.”

Even as Trump was being arraigned inside the courthouse, hissupporters and
detractors were outside, trading barbs and waving signs, laying bare the
faultlines in American polity and society in full glare of world’s media.

This trial is expected to begin in January 2024, if the case is not
dismissed before by the court, and this would mean Trump’s trial could be
at the very centre of primary season when the two parties select their
respective nominees. The legal battle would not only take away from
Trump’s ability to fight with full vigour but it would also be the
harbinger of chaos for the Republicans, something that has now become
Trump’s trademark. And of course, this is not all. Three other
investigations have Trump at their centre – from the attack on the Capitol
and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results to his
handling of classified information. It’s a minefield out there for Trump.
He knows it and the stridency of his rhetoric has already started
betraying a sense of nervousness.

But he has managed to unite the Republicans in their condemnation of the
indictment and support for him. The Republican Party has been quick to
frame criminal charges against Trump as political vendetta by the
Democrats. Even those who are likely to challenge him for the Republican
nomination, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have been strongly
critical of the investigation for its “partisan nature”. Trump and his
ideas continue to resonate strongly with the Republican base and the road
to Presidential nomination cannot be traversed by being on the wrong side
of Trump. The full impact of Trump’s indictment on grassroots Republicans
will only be seen over the next few months but supporting Trump today is a
poisoned chalice for every Republican, especially the ambitious ones.
DeSantis has been presenting himself as a Republican who can carry forward
Trumpism without the associated chaos. But for now he has no option but to
rally around Trump.

And this is what Trump is hoping would allow him to, once again, frame the
narrative for the Presidential elections. Right after his court
appearance, he got to the task of rallying his supporters by saying that
“radical left” prosecutors across the country were out to get him “at any
cost.” Arguing that the US is a nation in decline, he underlined that
“these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using
law enforcement” and that his supporters “can’t let that happen.” Because
of all the attention he has been receiving, he has already been able to
raise large funds for his political campaign.

For the Democrats this is a tricky terrain. However much they may want to
gloat, they have to hold their horses as they have seen Trump’s political
mastery in using such displays to his advantage in the past. Mum’s the
word for the Democratic Party, including President Joe Biden. Yet there
remains a concern that a legal approach to this problem is unlikely to
help the Democrats at a time when they face a tough presidential election.
Joe Biden’s popularity remains a challenge with Biden not recording a
positive net approval rating since August 2021, resulting in intense
speculation about the possibility of him seeking a second term. He is
confronting a resolute Republican majority in the House that also is keen
to launch its own investigations into issues as wide ranging as Hunter
Biden’s businesses, the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Covid-19 response.

This political polarization is a reflection of the contrasting views in
the American society about Trump and his prosecution. While for some this
might be a moment where even the most powerful have to be accountable to
the law of the land, for others this is needless hounding of a political
opponent by a Democrat District Attorney so as to make Trump’s road to the
White House as difficult as possible. While 60 percent Americans approve
of Trump’s indictment, around 52 percent also believe that this was a
political move.

Trump, in all likelihood, will use his legal battles ahead as a spectacle
to continue to be in spotlight. He has challenged conventional wisdom in
the past and it is too soon to predict what his present challenges will
bring for him. But the world will once agaIn be riveted by a drama in
which the legal and the political will collide in a high stakes saga. The
spotlight will also be on American polity and its institutional fabric.
For a nation that is often quick to pronounce judgements on other
democracies, the shoe is on the other foot. America’s first reality-show
president is hell-bent on making American democracy a reality show. It
remains to be seen if after the theater ends, the US will still have the
resilience to continue to be a “City upon a Hill.”

### - amusing/illuminating article from an observer's pov ;)