Donald Trump has hit a new low, even by his standards

There’s been a strange quality to the continuing tension in the air of American politics of late. On the surface, the usual things are happening – “usual” in this context means actions and statements by prominent politicians that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But there’s something else going on as well.

Donald Trump before his speech at the California Republican Party Convention last Friday.Credit: AP

Donald Trump is making the biggest headlines, of course. He went on trial on Tuesday in a civil case, brought in New York, about what the state says are shady business practices by his various real estate companies. A judge last week ruled that the companies were guilty of a massive fraud – and took the organisation’s business licences away, a step so extreme that no one has as yet been able to fully grasp the implications of it. (If Trump owned a restaurant, it would be forced to close its doors; but it is not yet clear what happens when the business is owning and managing skyscraper office buildings.) The trial this week is to assess financial penalties.

The case has clearly been on Trump’s mind, and his various speeches have taken on a dark cast. During a talk at a meeting of the California Republican Party in a suburb of Los Angeles, he paused at one point to mention Nancy Pelosi, the onetime democratic speaker of the House. He then said, feigning innocence, “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?” This was a reference to a brutal and almost fatal beating Pelosi’s husband, then 82, received a year ago from a deranged Trump fan wielding a hammer. His smirking words were treated as a punchline by the audience. It was a new low, even for him.

A new low, that is, until you consider his remarks about General Mark Milley, who he suggested was treasonous, noting that the death penalty might be in order. To be clear: Trump himself had named Milley as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He thus joins the long list of Trump’s own appointees he has disowned and tried to discredit.

But even in that context, the death penalty part stands out. Legal commentators have noticed that Milley may well be a witness in one of the several federal cases against Trump. Threatening witnesses when you are on trial is generally frowned upon in the US court system; accordingly, a new legal parlour game has emerged as experts debate whether or when a judge will take the steps that would ordinarily be taken about such activities, which might include a species of gag order or even the revocation of bail.

Such violent talk is catching. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is trying to out-Trump Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, went on a rant about illegal immigrants, who he said were carrying fentanyl into the US. Under his potential administration, DeSantis vowed that these people would be shot at the border. “Of course you use deadly force,” he said. “... They’re going to end up stone-cold dead.” Whether border agents would shoot first and then look for the fentanyl, or wait to find the fentanyl and then shoot, wasn’t clear.

Meanwhile, one of Trump’s most rabid Congressional supporters was getting into trouble. Lauren Boebert, a loose cannon from rural Colorado who spouts things about family values, was thrown out of a Denver theatre during a stage musical performance. The theatre said she’d been disruptive and was even vaping. The representative denied it … until CCTV footage from inside showed her vaping and being disruptive. Then more footage came out, in which you could plainly see Boebert and her date engaging in some not-very-family-friendly activities. (In the parlance of American high schoolers, Boebert’s date had rounded second and was heading fast toward third.)

Trump’s trial will continue for weeks; his legal calendar is packed with even more serious criminal charges in 2024. Other Republican-induced chaos proceeds in Washington; the Republican-controlled House of Representatives nearly shut the government down this week. A temporary deal was made, but now the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, will have to fend off a pack of rabid attack dogs on his right, Lauren Boebert among them. In the balance: aid to Ukraine, an America ally under attack from one of America’s enemies.

Yes, in a way this is more of the same. Many Americans seem to get off on the spectacle at this point. Sometimes it seems that democracy, and perhaps the liberal West, is at stake. But there’s an argument to be made that a lot of Americans don’t think all of this is desirable. There’s a real world out there, and no one in it thinks this is, or should be, normal. It’s possible what we’re seeing isn’t the effects of a growing movement of destructive force, but rather the shaking and rattling of a poorly built car whose doors and wheels are about to fall off.

Bill Wyman is a former assistant managing editor of National Public Radio, in Washington. He lectures at the University of Sydney.

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