Facing a criminal case

Former US president Donald Trump is currently being tried in a New York court on criminal charges which basically originate from a controversy relating to his ‘relationship’ with an adult movies film actress Stormy Daniels in 2006. Daniels had alleged that they had a physical encounter which Trump has consistently denied. She was then 27 years old while Trump was 60. It may be clarified that the question if Trump and Stormy Daniels had a physical encounter is not central to the present case proceedings.

In 2016, during the final period of his electoral campaign for the presidency, Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, paid US$ 1,30,000 to Stormy Daniels as ‘hush money’. Trump reimbursed Cohen for this amount. The question before the jury is if the reimbursement came out of Trump’s campaign funds and that fact was not disclosed in his statement of election expenses as required by US and New York state law. The non-disclosure of election expenditure is a criminal offence. If Trump is found guilty can lead to a prison sentence.

It is noteworthy that Trump is the first former US president to face a criminal case in a law court. It is also clear by now that the presidential election this year will be between Trump and the current president Joe Biden. The real political issue therefore is if the case that Trump is facing will impact on the presidential election this year.

Whatever may be the decision in the ongoing criminal trial it is unlikely to adversely impact Trump’s electoral base. Trump’s character flaws have been known for a long time. They had emerged when he was a businessman. He also had made no secret of his colourful love life. Certainly, the nature of his personal character was known to all those who had voted him to the presidency. Yet, they had ignored it for his message of an insular America which was focused on its interests rather than those of its allies or the world had resonated with the US electorate sufficiently to send him to the White House.

Trump had refused to accept the 2020 presidential election results and faces a large number of potential cases for promoting ‘insurrection’ on January 6, 2021 when the US Congress was to formally accept the election results and declare Biden as the winner. An enraged mob had ‘invaded’ the Congress. It was an unprecedented and shameful day for American democracy. But all that too did not reduce his support base; the proof lies in there being no member of his party to really challenge his nomination to become the Republican Party nominee for the 2024 election race. Now only the formal nomination act remains which will be done and the Party convention which will be held on July 15-18 in Wisconsin state. Unless something dramatic and entirely unforeseen occurs between now and the Republican Party Convention, Trump will be formally anointed as the Party’s nominee for the presidential election against Biden.

The Trump phenomenon raises the fundamental issue of the significance of personal character of those who are in public life. This applies not only to the United States but also to other countries. It is also a question which has been relevant throughout history.

First, to take recent US history. No questions were ever raised about any aspect of the personal character of Trump’s immediate predecessors—Barack Obama. There was some talk that Obama’s predecessor Bush the junior had taken narcotics in his youth but there were no allegations relating to physical relationships out of marriage. However, that was not so about Bush’s predecessor Bill Clinton. Yet, Clinton’s presidency is not defined by his known physical relationships outside his marriage even though he was impeached by the US Congress. The charges did not succeed in the Senate.

In the context of personal character of US politicians Senator Gary Hart’s case is noteworthy. Hart belonged to the Democratic Party and was expected to be its presidential nominee in the 1988 elections against Bush the senior. He was married but there were rumours of his having a roving eye. In May 1987 he bowed out of the presidential race after a scandal where he was photographed with a young woman on his lap aboard a yacht named ‘Monkey Business’. The young lady was seen entering his house in Washington sometime after he had been on the yacht. Many US political analysts consider that Hart would have been successful against Bush and therefore but for the scandal would have been a US president. There are also accounts that the ‘Monkey Business’ scandal was a set-up against Hart. In any event the Hart matter shows that when his personal character was publicly impugned, he chose to walk away. This is so entirely different from Trump’s approach. The difference endorses the question raised in this article: How much does personal character of political people really influence the public’s attitude towards them?

History offers no definite answers to that question. Nor, does it conclusively demonstrate that high qualities of personal character necessarily contribute to the greatness of leaders or the public work they do. Indeed, some leaders who had great personal qualities adopted policies which did enormous harm to their peoples. Others, whose personal characters were questionable changed the course of events in their time and left enduring legacies.

Therefore, do the people and history judge leaders by different yardsticks then ordinary men and women are assessed? While only political and social scientists can give scholarly views, prima facie it seems that it is so.