The Manhattan District Attorney has taken the unprecedented action of indicting former United States President Donald Trump, via a grand jury, on 34 felony charges related to falsifying business records with intent to commit another crime, which has Term has been set for the campaign cycle which will end. 2024 US Presidential Election.
On the one hand, there is no doubt that the 45th president toyed with the limits of legality through his presidency (2016-20), whether it was his efforts at election interference in Fulton County, Georgia, January 6, 2021 His role in instigating the rebellion, or possessing classified information after he left the White House. Indeed, there is an ongoing criminal investigation for each of these potential cases for prosecution.
lots of cases
First, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney/Prosecutor Fannie Willis is investigating the actions of Mr. Trump and his allies following the 2020 presidential election, specifically the pressure on state officials to undo Mr. Trump’s defeat His efforts to make The state in the election – including the now-infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, during which Mr Trump demanded that the secretary “get 11,780 votes”. The investigation has also delayed plans to send bogus voters to the Electoral College that would claim Mr. Trump won, and the Trump team to pressure Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and others to contest the election result. While the probe was completed in January, its report is currently under wraps.
Second, as for the House of Representatives panel probing Mr. Trump’s role in the January 2021 insurgency, the committee in question closed earlier this year after an 18-month investigation that culminated in an 814-page Reported. The Justice Department that recommended prosecuting Mr. Trump. While the committee’s referral has no legal weight to compel an indictment by the Department of Justice, the vast store of evidence documents, statements of facts and evidence is likely to be of considerable importance to the Department as it begins its own investigation.
Third, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland last year appointed special counsel Jack Smith to lead a series of investigations into Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents following the end of his term in office. Whereas Mr. Trump’s lawyer testified in June 2022 that a “diligence search” for classified documents conducted at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida obtained all classified documents on site and then turned them over to federal authorities. Granted, a brief while later a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid discovered over 100 declassified documents.
Each of these lines of inquiry, along with an investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings, has led to a massive mega-investigation of Mr. Trump and his associates. This implies that the first indictment against him in the hush-money case is only the beginning.
hate agenda
Stepping back from the cases against Mr. Trump, it is fair to ask what impact these investigations might have on his supporter base across America, especially in light of their labeling of the inquiries as a “witch hunt” and “political harassment.” as described. , On the one hand, it should come as no surprise that the American electorate is as bitterly polarized as ever. A Pew Research Center poll last year found that the proportion of Republicans and Democrats who view not only the opposing party but its members as close-minded, dishonest, unethical, mindless and lazy increased significantly from 2016 to 2022. For example, it was striking that in 2016, 47% of Republicans and 35% of Democrats said that people of the other party were either very or somewhat unethical compared to other Americans; Yet as of August 2022, 72% of Republicans consider Democrats more immoral, and 63% of Democrats say the same as Republicans.
This means that through the administrations of Mr. Trump and current US President Joe Biden, Americans are now talking to each other and the feeling is that both sides have completely different worldviews, with almost no common ground. is – for example in relation to reproduction rights in the wake of the US Supreme Court striking down the constitutional right to abortion.
However, in its ‘purest’ form, as a political movement, Trumpism has less to do with conservative social values, faithful to the core of the Republican Party, than it does with transactional nationalism. . In fact, some have characterized Mr. Trump as a socially moderate, not an extreme, conservative. The forces that brought the Trump administration to power and the policy chaos unleashed by his White House, however, were an act of populism that revolved around economic policies that protect the disenfranchised, white, blue-collar worker in Middle America. used to do.
Mr. Trump’s political rhetoric and executive actions have also prioritized institutional disintegration over global treaties – whether his administration regards the Paris climate accord and the US exit from the UN Human Rights Council, or the World Trade Organization and its broader stand on the North Atlantic. attack. Alliance Organization.
These forces are still alive and well. Domestically, through the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been opposition to vaccine mandates and restrictions on movements and gatherings. Anti-science conspiracy theorists routinely use disinformation to attack public health professionals – including Dr. Anthony Fauci, former chief medical advisor to the US president – designed to stoke hatred and prevent the spread of science Viruses to blunt the effects of policies.
Mr. Trump was at the center of this campaign message in several instances, including at the start of the pandemic, when he variously questioned the efficacy of masks, and touted unproven and unscientific treatments. He also crippled the federal government’s ability to slow the spread of the coronavirus in 2020, when his administration quickly shelved an effective COVID-19 testing plan to create a comprehensive national strategy to distribute protective equipment to medical professionals. failed to implement, and to rapidly ramp up contact tracing.
On the global front, the retreat of the US from its unipolar position has progressed rapidly. After pulling out of a variety of international treaties, the focus of Trumpist rhetoric has now turned back to domestic economic concerns. On the one hand, the Biden administration’s effort to implement a $1.9 trillion stimulus package and reduce the unemployment rate from a peak of 14.7% in April 2020 to 3.6% in February this year – with the economy adding more than 10 million jobs during that period Timing – has failed to gain political traction for Democrats due to a toxic combination of rising inflation and supply chain disruptions. The latter event stems from a slowing of business activity related to both the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In parallel, the relentless attacks on minorities, especially immigrant workers, for “stealing” American jobs are a convenient diversion to shift the debate back to the sensitive issues of race and migration. Should Mr. Trump, or even another Republican, enter the Oval Office, Indian high-skilled migrant workers could also be affected under this paradigm, for example through stricter conditions for the grant of H-1B visas. I through.
Amid growing levels of hatred among social and political groups and apparent support for Trumpism as a movement, it is likely that even if the cases against Mr. Trump work their way through the courts and result in convictions, the US It is also very far from actually living up to its founding fathers’ promise of E Pluribus Unum, or ‘one out of many’.
Narayan@thehindu.co.in