What a conviction for Hunter Biden will mean for criminal, Donald Trump

Last week, it was Donald Trump, the first former president convicted on felony charges of falsifying his business records. This week, it is Hunter Biden, the first son of a president to go to trial on felony charges for falsifying his application to possess a gun. Trump was guilty and could be sentenced to jail. Biden is seen as highly likely to be found guilty and headed to jail.

These head-spinning developments invade and assault our screens; our news cycle attention spans cut into fractions of days. The new atrocity is immediately given rough equivalence to the old. Fates are blended. The former president is disgraced – at least in the eyes of the law, if not with his base of supporters. The current president’s fight for re-election is tainted and clouded by his son’s sordid affairs.

Joe Biden and son Hunter (left), who could face up to 17 years in prison.Credit: AP

With Biden’s son on trial, there is less focus on Trump whose fall has not resulted – yet – in Biden’s rise.

Each man is defining, in searing fashion, what happened in that Manhattan courtroom. The day after his conviction, Trump went on a rant. The Trump playbook when under attack never varies: never apologise, recant or retreat. Deny, denounce, discredit, defame. “This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are, in many cases, I believe, sick people … This is all done by Biden and his people … And this is done by Washington and nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”

After the trial, Biden told a fundraiser that Trump, “wants you to believe it all rigged ... It’s reckless and dangerous and downright irresponsible for anyone to say that it’s rigged just because you don’t like the verdict … Nothing could be more dangerous for the county, more dangerous for American democracy.”

The descent of American politics into this chasm has unsettled many voters. Initial polls showed that 10 per cent of registered Republican voters, and 25 per cent of independent voters, said that Trump’s conviction made them less likely to vote for him in November. Indeed, in Republican presidential primaries this week, about 10 per cent or so of Republican voters in Montana and New Mexico chose not to vote for Trump. Biden needs those voters to stay disaffected. There has been a slight tightening in the polls towards Biden.

But November is a long way off. Trump meanwhile has capitalised immediately on his persecution, raising a record $US53 million ($79 million) for his campaign war chest in the days following the trial.

Trump further buttressed his intent to never become a political prisoner. On Fox News two days after his conviction, Trump claimed – falsely – that he never said, “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. In order to save his neck, Trump believes his own lies. “And I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about it.”

Trump also sent a signal to the extremist militias who revere him and attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try to overturn the 2020 election. Trump said that if he was sentenced to prison or house arrest, “there’s a breaking point”.

Which means, if this potential threat to Trump’s freedom is carried out, violence could break out across the country.

Joe Biden is not in the dock. Republicans in the House of Representatives tried for over a year to prove that Joe Biden benefited financially from Hunter Biden’s business activities. They wanted to impeach Biden for those alleged crimes and to avenge Trump’s two impeachments. But after months of investigation and public hearings, Biden has no case to answer.

Biden has drawn a further contrast through the trial of his son. As president, Trump pardoned his former national security advisor, five former campaign aides and other close political allies. Biden will not pardon Hunter. What Biden and his wife Jill offer his son is “boundless love, confidence in him and respect for his strength”. Biden also said, “I am the president, but I am also a dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. Our family has been through a lot together, and Jill and I are going to continue to be there for Hunter and our family with our love and support.”

There is an added dimension to the Hunter travails: the toll of drugs on the lives of millions of Americans. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die by drug overdose each year. The political gut punch hitting Joe Biden from Hunter’s trial will be cushioned, to some degree, by families across America whose lives have been ravaged by drugs and who can recognise true empathy when they see it. If anything, President Biden is the empathiser-in-chief.

Hunter Biden’s ordeal is not over with this trial. He faces tax charges in September, just weeks before the election. Whatever crisis is engulfing Trump at that time will be offset to a degree by Hunter being back in court facing conviction and prison for tax evasion.

The only equaliser between Donald Trump and Joe Biden from now to the election is this: the degree of vengeance held by Trump to punish his enemies matches the degree of grief, sorrow and love Biden holds for his son. Trump believes he can avenge the election Biden “stole”. Biden believes the American people will reject Trump for the man he is.

Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.