Opinion Express View on Trump indictment: A trial in America

The world’s oldest democracy is in uncharted waters. A former US president and the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination in the next election is facing criminal charges on multiple counts. The most significant of these are the four alleged felonies that occurred between Election Day 2020 and the January 6 Capitol riots in Washington two months later. Is this, at last, the beginning of justice being served, as the former president’s detractors are bound to argue? Or is it the “deep state” and a Democratic Party-led executive using the courts to clip the wings of their most formidable rival, as the MAGA crowd contends? As another election year approaches, the US justice system is caught in a political quagmire. And, given how adept Trump has been in playing victim to great political effect, the legal proceedings may end up shoring up his base.

Unlike the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case in New York or even, to a lesser extent, the federal indictment for taking secret documents out of the White House, the January 6 matter strikes at the heart of democracy. The House Select Committee on the Capitol attack and the indictment accuse Trump of trying to overturn the election by putting pressure on the then Vice-President Mike Pence to ensure that the legislature does not ratify the election.

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Trump is also accused of voter suppression. In essence, the prosecution is making a case that he tried to subvert the peaceful transition of power. To be fair, Special Counsel Jack Smith has been cautious, even conservative in his approach. He has not, for example, charged Trump with outright insurrection, which the Committee had recommended. The White House, too, has maintained a studied distance from the case. Yet, in an era of deepening polarisation, there may be little impact of these nods to propriety.

The fact remains that Trumpism has significantly, if not fundamentally, altered the US polity. The challenge he represents is not merely a sum of his alleged crimes. It is this: How does a liberal, centrist politics face up to demagoguery? Is there a form of political communication that can combine and package empathy, complexity and the importance of institutions, in opposition to “us vs them” binaries, lies and exhortations to return to “the good old days”? Trump’s legal troubles may or may not affect his electoral standing. But the answer to what he has unleashed in US society must be political. How the US system deals with this will be watched across the world — as an example to emulate or a warning.