Two and a half years after he incited his followers to attack the House of Congress in Washington because he did not want to leave the White House, Donald Trump’s chances of returning to the White House now look better than ever. The circumstances should have surprised any political observer, but are not at all surprising in Trump’s case.
On Tuesday afternoon New York time, the former president’s fingers were inked at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Then he appeared in a district court, and heard the 34 counts of the indictment, the result of an investigation that lasted five years, was on the verge of being dismissed at the beginning of last year, but was revived during the summer. Her case is forgery and fraud. The man who once described himself as “the greatest president since George Washington” became the first president ever to be formally charged with crimes after his term ended. “Not guilty,” he told the judge, whom he had already accused of bias, based on a previous conviction of one of his assistants in his private business.
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The background to the accusation is his relationship with a former porn star. He paid her an unspecified fee, $130,000, on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. The payment itself was not illegal, but the manner in which it was done allegedly violated the election laws of the United States and the state of New York where he was a resident at the time. At the end of his presidency, he moved to Florida, where he lives, from where he came to report to the police and the court to hear the details of the charge against him.
Minor matters from the current suspicions against him have brought promising careers of senior politicians to an end. But Trump comes to him as a flower whenever his name is involved in scandals. This is the opportunity to return and present the narrative of a president, or a former president, who is persecuted for doing no wrong, and falls victim to the “witch hunt” of the judicial system, of the “deep state”, of the bureaucrats, of the “elites”, of the false media and of The extreme left’ (almost all those standing to the left of him are included in this category).
“Trump or death” – a flag is raised outside the courthouse in Manhattan / Photo: Reuters, Eduardo Munoz
Some of Trump’s complaints have merit. The eagerness to harm him did make individuals and organizations lose their minds from time to time. But it’s a bit difficult to blame someone else for bribing a porn star, or encouraging a violent attack on political opponents.
The greatest political mystery of our time
Trump’s career repeated and disproved basic assumptions about the political behavior of individuals and collectives. In October 2016, in the midst of the presidential election campaign, a recording of Trump was revealed, in which he was heard bragging in vulgar language about sexually assaulting women.
The revelation of the recording made it almost certain that he would be defeated in the elections a month later. He won, if only by a tiny margin, and if only thanks to the archaic institution called the ‘member of the electors’ (he lost by a margin of two million in the total number of votes).
A series of scandals during his presidency did damage his image, but did not overturn his presidency. In the 2020 elections, he received, as he repeats and mentions, “more votes than any president serving before him.” His problem in 2020 was that Joe Biden got seven million more votes than him.
But the greatest political mystery of our time is his success in staying alive and flourishing after his followers’ attack on the House of Congress, in January 2021. A few days after that, almost the entire Republican Party aligned itself with him and accepted his leadership. His golf club in South Florida became a site of pilgrimage, something almost equivalent to the seat of an exiled government. It was a simple result of arithmetic: Trump brought with him an irreplaceable dowry – the enthusiastic support of millions of voters, whose mere presence put them on the Republican side of the map.
“Trump lies all the time” – a sign outside the courthouse in Manhattan / Photo: Reuters, Jasper Colt
The Republicans knew they would pay some price. Trump’s presence drove away millions of voters classified as “independent” in 2020. The demographic equation in the US requires massive support of independents to win the elections. And so the great paradox developed: although the independents are necessary to win the general election, they are not necessary to win the primary election.
The strange equation and the pendulum of expectations
In primaries, radical voters often have the upper hand. This strange equation made Trump seemingly the inevitable winner of the intra-party struggle and the inevitable loser of the bipartisan struggle. The party is therefore captive in his hands, perhaps to its detriment.
His enormous advantage within the party gave him the ability to influence the selection of its candidates for Congress and state governors last year. Some of his preferences seemed crazy almost to the core, but the unpopularity of President Biden raised expectations that the Republicans would have a sweeping victory in Congress, in the presidential mid-term elections.
In practice, they lost in the Senate and received only a small majority in the House of Representatives. This result confirmed the worst fears of the Republicans. Exit polls showed that voters punished the party, among other things, for Trump’s sins.
The pendulum of expectations has thus returned and changed. The impression remained that the party would not come back and nominate Trump as its presidential candidate in 2024. A poll in February gave for the first time an advantage in the party’s primaries to a much younger opponent, the very right-wing and very popular governor of the state of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Trump has also struggled to raise funds, an ominous, sometimes fatal, matter for any US political candidate.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the leading contender against Trump in the internal elections for party leadership / Photo: Shutterstock
The expectation of the filing of the indictment against Trump returned and changed the direction of the wind blowing. From the day Trump warned that the lawsuit against him was imminent, two weeks ago, his political and financial stocks were on a steep rise.
Instead of escaping him, the party’s voters flock to him in droves. The polls show that he now has an overwhelming advantage, almost 20%, in the party primaries. An influential Republican senator announced this week that no one has a chance to thwart his appointment as the party’s presidential candidate. In the last week, donations of seven million dollars flowed into his coffers.
2024 is not 2016
This man’s ability to take advantage of developments that would have destroyed almost any other mortal requires observers to consider the possibility that he will defy further expectations.
The Democrats are sure that his candidacy for the presidency will benefit them. 2024 is not like 2016, they say.
In 2016, Trump’s breakthrough was the result of innovation. He was a fresh entrant into politics, and shocked the Sip mothers. Millions did want such a shock.
In 2024, Trump is a familiar figure, perhaps too familiar. A common assumption is that most voters don’t like incessant noise in their politics. Such noise is tiring and distracting. Division and polarization are good for fundraising, but not good for family or community peace. Trump’s candidacy will remind voters of the dark, divisive and polarizing moments of his presidency.
But this is where natural expectations end and Trumpian expectations begin. Although Trump was defeated by a huge margin in the 2024 election, the margin of his defeat in a number of key states was small, even tiny. If he succeeds in taking advantage of Joe Biden’s unpopularity, and winning a tiny extra, only a few tens of thousands of votes in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, he will be able to win in the Electoral College, the margin of his defeat in the general quorum will be will be. This is one of the great absurdities of the American electoral system.
The gloomy shadow
Trump’s problem is that the indictment against him in Manhattan is only the tip of the iceberg of his legal problems. A series of potential cases are pending against him in other countries, with the potential to be much more serious than the consequences of paying hush money to a porn star.
In the state of Georgia, for example, he has been investigated for many months for trying to disrupt the counting of votes in the 2020 election. This is a different category of offense. It is hard to imagine a political party choosing an election criminal as its presidential candidate.
A special independent investigator is looking into the affair of the classified documents, which Trump removed from the White House when his presidency ended. The very removal involves punishments, but even more serious is the suspicion that he tried to mislead his investigators.
And of course, the darkest shadow hanging over him is the role he played in the attack on the House of Congress, in January 2021. The possibility that he will be indicted in this matter is real, although not highly probable. The Attorney General (in the USA this is the title of the Minister of Justice) is a moderate and cautious person, who is not inclined to take steps of a distinctly political nature. An indictment against Trump during the election campaign will be interpreted as an attempt to prevent the voters from deciding for themselves who will be their president.
Israeli women, even Israelis, observe this process with a strong sense of familiarity. Sometimes they have to pinch themselves to be sure that the whole process is not happening in modern Hebrew.
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