Trump: If the man is back !

On May 30 former US President Donald Trump earned the ‘distinction’ of becoming the first person in the United States who has held the presidential office to be convicted in a criminal case. In the trial, presided by Judge Juan Merchan in New York, the jury found Trump guilty of falsifying financial records for hush-money payments in 2016 to an adult movie film star named Stormy Daniels. This was the time when his presidential campaign was in full swing.

Stormy Daniels claimed that Trump and she had a physical ‘encounter’ in 2006 which Trump has consistently denied. Judge Merchan has set July 11 as the date for deciding the quantum of punishment to be given to Trump. It can range from fines to a prison sentence of a maximum of four years to the sentence given being probated. Trump will surely appeal against his conviction. He also called the trial “disgraceful” after the jury’s finding.

Trump is facing three more criminal cases. Two of these relate to trying to promote an insurrection on January 6, 2021 when his supporters ‘stormed’ the United States Congress to prevent then Vice-President Mike Pence to formally announce that the 2020 presidential election was won by Joe Biden.

In the third Trump has been charged with violating official secrets laws for keeping classified documents with himself after his presidency was over. Media reports indicate that it is unlikely that these cases will commence before the presidential election in November this year.

The Republican Party Convention to announce the name of the party’s presidential nominee is scheduled to be held on July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Irrespective of the sentence Judge Merchan may give, the party is sure, unless something entirely unexpected were to happen—which is extremely unlikely—to make Trump its presidential nominee. Trump has, despite his 2020 defeat, retained the loyalty of his vast base in the party. That enabled him to ward off all challengers for the nomination. Many of his supporters also continue to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Besides, there is nothing in US law which prevents a person convicted in a criminal case or even serving a prison sentence to contest the presidential election. There is no precedent for what would happen if such a person is elected as President. It is possible that Trump could become that person. It is probable that Judge Merchan will be conscious of the difficulties that may arise if he were to award Trump a prison sentence or even if he were to put Trump on probation. As a ‘judge’ in a Bollywood movie observed: justice may be ‘blind’, judges are not.

There will inevitably be increasing interest all over the world in the US presidential election. Though China’s rise has increased the global clout of its leader, the US President continues to hold the most powerful political office in the world. His choices impact every nation. This time around too the presidential election is likely to be close. It is too early to anticipate the outcome of the re-match between Trump and current President Joe Biden, who is certain to win the nomination of the Democratic Party. The US polity is complex and advanced but its election processes are antiquated. Certainly, this is so in the case of the Presidential election. The contest is decided by an electoral college in which each state has a certain number of electors. The electors of the states, barring a few, are given en-masse to the winning candidate in that state. This sometimes means that the candidate who gets the highest votes country-wide can still lose the election. Indeed, in 2016 Hillary Clinton won a larger number of votes countrywide but lost the electoral college and consequently the election.

Since electoral college votes are given altogether to a candidate who secures the highest number of votes in a state, a few ‘swing’ states emerge which determine the election result. If the US polity is fractured, as it now, it is known through experience and precedents, in advance, which way the other states will vote. For instance, California and New York which have substantial votes in the electoral college inevitably go with the Democrats while most of the southern states favour the Republicans. The swing states where the election will be won or lost in 2024 are seven. These are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Recent polls indicate that Trump currently has an edge over Biden in a majority of these states. This is because even though the Biden administration has been asserting that the US economy is doing well many persons in these states do not share that opinion. Biden’s stand on Israel’s military operations in Gaza has also alienated many traditional pro-Democratic Party voters.

That is a principal reason for Biden to press Israel to accept a truce followed by a ceasefire. The latest media reports indicate that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted Biden’s ideas and indirect talks between Hamas and Israel are on-going. Biden’s instinct is to support Israel to crush Hamas. He has given Israel a long leash to do so. However, he cannot ignore the realities of what is happening in to public sentiment in the swing states on this issue.

The international community will soon begin to follow each twist and turn of the US Presidential election and all countries will have to take into account the high possibility of Trump winning the election. Then the world will have to once again get used to his erratic ways.