Criminal cases provide Trump with media spectacle and victimhood, the two pillars of his political career

It promises to be a legal and especially political spectacle. The reality television star known for The Apprentice, two breathtaking election campaigns, four years of chaos in the White House and the storming of the heart of American democracy returns from never before. His new show, The Defendantwill be shown in all living rooms in the coming season and will go viral on social media.

The defendant in four criminal cases seems likely to win an important prize in the spring, perhaps before the first court hearing takes place: the Republican nomination for president. Although even the Supreme Court will get involved. The climax will follow in November, like that law and order party may participate in the election for the most powerful office in the world with a convicted candidate. There is no way around it, the leading role in the American spectacle will once again be for Donald Trump in 2024.

The Republican primaries, which start in just over ten days in Iowa, are exceptional in advance. It is not entirely unique, nor a formal obstacle, that an American presidential candidate being prosecuted or even convicted. However, it is historic that it now concerns a former president, indicted for actions committed from the White House, who is the confirmed nominee of one of the two determining parties.

Since George W. Bush in 2000, no Republican candidate who was not already in power at this stage has had the poll lead that Trump now has. More than 61 percent of Republican primary voters Trump, who will soon be 78, wants to be back on the ballot and therefore as president. He even polls better than the ailing President Biden of 81.

Short-term relief

Nearly three years ago, Trump seemed politically played out. He had lost the 2020 election by a wide margin to Democrat Joe Biden, but continued to spread the lie that it had been stolen from him. After about sixty unsuccessful procedures to challenge the results, he called on his supporters to come to Washington and they violently entered the Capitol. Five people were killed when thousands of Trump zealots tried to stop politicians from certifying the votes. Representatives, senators and Vice President Mike Pence had to fear for their lives.

There is no way around it, the leading role in the American spectacle will once again be for Donald Trump in 2024

In February 2021, a (second) impeachment against the president – who has now left sulking – ten Republican votes short of convicting him of the riot to disqualify for a possible new presidency. The Republican establishment, which never got used to his rhetoric, isolationism and alternative facts, did not formally drop him, but sounded happy to be rid of him. House leader Kevin McCarthy had “had it all with that guy.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that “former presidents are not immune from prosecution.”

When Trump declared his candidacy at the end of 2022, the party had just completed mediocre midterm elections in which Trumpian candidates in particular performed poorly. Governor Ron DeSantis, the equally populist culture warrior from Florida, seemed the promise of the future. Trump no longer had access to his social media accounts. Even Fox News temporarily banned him.

The relief turned out to be short-lived. Just like the public and internal criticism. Viewing figures win over the anathema.

Republicans who supported Trump’s impeachment have almost all resigned or been voted out by the base that continues to embrace him. He largely controls the faction in the House of Representatives. DeSantis is losing: not neck and neck with Trump, but with Nikki Haley, for marginal second place. Fox will give Trump a one-man show next week when the two debate each other on CNN. He has succeeded in several states to bend the rules of the Republican primaries to his willdiscovered The New York Times last year. Many voters still believe the 2020 election was not fair.

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this is how his criminal cases stand

Trump is extremely popular again, not despite, but because of the four criminal cases filed against him in the past year. There is a serious risk that he will go to prison for his conspiracy to sabotage the 2020 election results nationwide and in the state of Georgia, withholding and lying about state secret documents after his presidency and paying hush money to a porn star during the campaign of 2016. But for now, the cases offer him the two corks on which his political career floats: spectacle that the media cannot get enough of and vindictive victimhood.

Threat to democracy

Trump’s campaign slogan ‘They’re not after me, they’re after you’ is now not only based on abstractions about an elite that targets ordinary Americans, but on concrete criminal cases against “their favorite president”. Since it emerged at the end of last year that Colorado and Maine want to ban him from the elections, there has been a broader response among Republicans that not he but judges, civil servants and Democrats are a threat to democracy.

Trump is peddling it as a conspiracy against him: election interference. But if there really was a bigger plan behind all the legal matters, it is stupid that they waited until 2023. None of the criminal cases are expected to be completed all the way to sentencing before the 2024 elections.

Now the processes and the campaign are completely intertwined. Even before the primaries in Iowa, the closing arguments are heard in a civil case that is also pending against Trump for fraud surrounding his real estate company. A day after the caucus starts a defamation case, brought by a woman he would have assaulted. In principle, Trump must make his first appearance on March 4 at the federal criminal trial over the attempt to overturn the election results, while fifteen states will vote in the primaries on Super Tuesday, March 5.

Although the case in Washington will probably be delayed. Trump has appealed against prosecution because he says he has immunity for what he did during his presidency. That issue will likely be fought out in the Supreme Court early this year. Just like the disqualification in Colorado. The nine-member Supreme Court has six conservative judges, three of whom were appointed by Trump himself. Whatever decision that court makes, its already diminished authority will further diminish in part of America.

Contingency plan

The upcoming prosecutions and appeals attract voters and campaign donations, but also cost a lot of money and time that cannot be spent in crucial states. Moreover, Trump’s court appearance is not necessarily good campaign material. It is still uncertain whether cameras will be allowed into the courtrooms and whether that would work in Trump’s favor.

During the fraud case against the Trump Organization in New York he appeared incoherent and lied again. His lawyers appear to have advised him against testifying again. Outside the court he can attack judges and their employees, but inside he cannot get away with it so easily.

Republicans who supported Trump’s impeachment have almost all resigned or been voted out

In addition, polls show that a significant number of Republicans who currently support him would no longer do so if he is convicted. Not to mention voters who have not yet made a choice. Within the Republican Party, despite Biden’s unpopularity, it is thought that Trump cannot become president again. Although hardly anyone says that out loud. It is unknown whether an emergency plan is being worked on with an alternative candidate at the last minute.

In any case, the fact that Trump is leading within the party means that his unexpected election in 2016 was not a one-off outburst, but the start of a peat fire that old-fashioned conservatives are still unable to control. Whether he really has a future as a candidate is not only up to the voters, but also up to the judiciary. It may not become clear until the end of the year when and to what extent that decision will weigh.

For some Republican voters, a conviction won’t matter either. Then news site Politico asked Trump fans during the 2021 impeachment proceedings how they could continue to support him, a Texas Republican responded: “It feels like he’s our OJ.” He was referring to the murder case against OJ Simpson, the black man American football player and actor, who was unsuccessfully prosecuted – live on television – for the murder of his white ex-wife in the 1990s. After the verdict, public opinion polls showed that a majority of black people in the US believed he committed the murder, but felt that justice had prevailed through the acquittal. It doesn’t matter to people who really identify with Trump whether he is guilty. The Trump show of 2024 will make it clear whether it is decisive for becoming president.

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