Few people familiar with American politics and law ever doubted that Donald Trump would be found guilty by a jury in a Democrat-dominated city in front of a New York judge on charges brought by a prosecutor elected as a Democrat who had campaigned specifically on a pledge to bring an indictment against the former president, whatever it took.
And so, despite what much of the media hailed with undisguised glee as the “historic” nature of the unanimous verdict delivered by the 12-person jury in Manhattan on Thursday evening, the real significance of the trial and its outcome is not what it might appear.
When historians come to review the moment, in fact, it’s more likely it will come to be seen as another — giant — step in the steady American descent away from a stable democratic society governed by the impartial rule of law.
To be sure Trump is no angel, and his behaviour — in and out of office — has frequently tested the reach and rule of justice. But this particular case against him — on charges of falsifying business records relating to payments made to a porn star to keep her from revealing an affair with the then presidential candidate him in 2016 — was a legal stretch, as even many Democrats acknowledged.
Under New York State law, the crime is itself normally a misdemeanour, punishable by a fine, not a felony that results in jail time. So to upgrade it to the more serious offence, the prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, whose office routinely lets muggers and thieves terrorise the streets of New York with impunity, had to connect it to a federal crime relating to the misrepresentation of campaign funds before the 2016 presidential election. Yet the federal body responsible for regulating election law had already declined to investigate the former president.
In case that wasn’t enough of a reach for the legal system, the prosecution benefited throughout from a friendly judge whose ruling frequently went their way and against the defence.
Trump will presumably appeal against the verdict to the state appeals court, and if he loses there, will presumably take his case all the way to the US Supreme Court. No one knows how long that will take — but consider this possibility: imagine Trump now loses the election by a narrow margin in the key states in November, and then wins his appeal against conviction some time next year.
His claims about the rigging of the 2020 election were always far-fetched, but who could seriously argue against the claim he will doubtless make that his bid for election this year had been derailed by a subsequently overturned, heavily politicised trial and conviction?
As it happens, the immediate political implications this year may not be that significant. It will confirm for Biden supporters the imperative of preventing Trump from returning to office, will confirm for Trump supporters the iniquity of compromised justice and will leave the shrunken middle ground still largely focused on weighing the pressing policy issues in the election against the two main candidates’ characters.
Joe Biden still trails Trump in every swing state that will determine the election’s outcome, and he is even losing altitude in states he won comfortably in 2020 such as Virginia and Minnesota.
Before Thursday’s verdict, there had been much chatter among the American political classes this week about a Politico story that documented in detail the Democrats’ “full-blown ‘freakout’ over Biden”. The article quoted numerous well-placed anonymous sources attesting to the alarm at the president’s apparently failing campaign.
But the most revealing comment came in a quote from Ritchie Torres, a Democratic congressman from the Bronx. “In a properly functioning democracy, Donald Trump should have no viable path to the presidency,” he said.
It was a revealing observation because it highlighted the combination of denial and bewilderment that is paralysing the Biden campaign. The suggestion that Biden is losing because America is no longer a “properly functioning democracy” is a perfect encapsulation of the political elites’ inability to see things as ordinary, less “enlightened” people do.
It is not just Trump’s unfitness (for anything other than prison) they think voters are blind to. The masses apparently can’t see either what an incredibly successful job Biden has done for them and what an extraordinary act of ingratitude it is not to acknowledge their many blessings.
In this telling, US economic performance is stellar (even though consumer prices are more than 20 per cent higher than they were before Biden took office and interest rates more than double); the nation’s borders are secure (even though up to ten million migrants have crossed them illegally in the last three years); and Biden foreign policy is making the world safer (even though two major wars involving US allies on two continents have started since the president took office).
If the Biden team were better able to see things as most voters see them they might also understand that while Trump may indeed be a scoundrel, enough Americans are willing to look past this if he might just restore some stability to the country, and they certainly are not impressed with what looks to many of them like a nakedly political weaponisation of the law.
So critical days now lie just ahead for the campaign — and for American democracy. Trump will be sentenced on July 11, days before the start of the Republican convention at which he will be crowned by acclamation.
Before that, on June 27, the first debate between the two men could be pivotal. Biden proposed the early exchange in an effort to dislodge the campaign from its stable trajectory — and Trump eagerly accepted — but it is a big risk for the president. If the 81-year-old wilts in the glare of 90 minutes of a live televised debate, the gathering chatter about replacing him will grow louder.
There have been rumours again this week about Biden’s health; a conveniently timed geriatric malady could yet emerge to enable him to make a graceful exit just ahead of August’s Democratic convention in Chicago, at which a new contest for the party’s presidential nomination could be held.
But the age-old — forgive the pun — problem remains. If not Biden, then who? There is no agreement on a late new candidate. So don’t bet on a switch.
Instead, the few remaining Democrats not consumed by panic caution calm.
Expectations for next month’s debate have been set so low that Biden will only have to stay alive on the night to surpass them. Trump, no longer confined to a courtroom, will be back on the trail, delighting supporters, terrifying opponents, and perhaps scaring just enough of the undecided to keep Biden on his fraying lifeline.
And so the race remains as unpredictable as ever, even after this verdict. But in the end, the outcome of this election may matter less for the health of American democracy than the outcome of the show trial just concluded in Manhattan, which — if its verdict holds up on appeal — will have laid bare the raw and fragile state of a dangerously polarised nation.
The Times
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