The news of the conviction of Donald Trump in a New York court sent shock waves around the world. The news had been met with outrage from Mr Trump as well as members of the Republican Party. While on the other hand, the news had been met with praise by liberals and democrats alike. However, this conviction and possibly sentencing of Mr. Trump is not the victory many democrats see it as.
I have written before that Donald Trump’s actions and rhetoric during and after January 6th have been incredibly damaging to American Democracy. His refusal to accept the results of his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden and spreading of falsehoods about electoral fraud have been, at its core anti-democratic. Even members of his party have acknowledged the fact that he did indeed lose the election, but he has continued to spread these false accusations.
It is important to acknowledge that this rhetoric from Mr. Trump is anti-democratic in its nature. He seems to believe that he is simply unable to ever lose an election without there being some instance of cheating or fraud involved, which is simply untrue. His claims about widespread voter fraud without any evidence have served to severely undermine faith in America’s electoral process among a large swatch of the American population.
However, as this election has carried on, Trump along with other Republican politicians and pundits has begun pointing the finger at Democrats for what they say are anti-democratic practices. They use the numerous cases that have been filed against former President Trump as evidence of Democrats’ anti-democratic nature.
The bevvy of legal cases Mr Trump has experienced so far throughout his election campaign have been staggering to witness. Likewise, the fact that so many of these cases are being handled now, during an election year, gives Republicans the ammunition to attack the legal cases as election interference, and it is difficult to rebuff those claims. It cannot all just be a coincidence that all these lawsuits only arrived months before election day.
To make matters worse about this conviction specifically, is that among all the numerous cases faced by the former President, this was by far the weakest and clearly the most politically motivated case. Yet, this is the case that has resulted in a criminal conviction of Donald Trump and has meant that he is officially a registered felon.
Moreover, this is the case that many would look at and be unable to see what serious crime has allegedly been committed. The case is centred around the claim that Donald Trump had an extramarital affair with the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and had his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, give her a hush money payment to prevent the story from spreading to the public during the 2016 election. The crime that was committed was that when President Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen, he listed the payment as a legal expense rather than a hush money payment. It’s worth noting Trump denies ever having an extramarital affair with Stormy Daniels.
While, of course, misclassifying business documents is a crime, the idea that it should amount to a criminal conviction is a stretch. One would normally expect a fine or something along those lines for such an offence, not a felony charge or even a potential jail sentence that Mr Trump may face.
The fact that all of this is happening, literally just months before the US elections, gives weight to the accusations by Mr Trump and his fellow Republicans, that these cases are part of an attempt to keep him off the ballot in the November election. Especially when they could have potentially been brought months or even years in advance before Trump had become a nominee for President.
The fallout of the case has been and will continue to be incredibly testing of American democracy. The hyper-partisan nature of American politics has meant that such a sensitive and divisive issue has not been addressed in a manner that is acceptable. The unfortunate consequence of this decision is that, it will only serve to reinforce the major divisions within American politics and put its democratic principles and values at even greater risk.