The historic verdict against Trump causes an unprecedented earthquake in US politics

Donald Trump has become the first former president of the United States found guilty of having committed a crime (34, in his case). Not only that: the Republican is also his party’s candidate for the presidential elections on November 5 and leads the polls to return to the White House. Never before has a convicted felon been a candidate for a major party with a chance of winning elections. The historic ruling of the popular jury against Trump represents an unprecedented earthquake in American politics, whose shock wave is unpredictable.

The Republican has already advanced his intention to turn the electorate into a new popular jury, made up not of 12 members, but of the more than 150 million citizens who go to the polls. “The true verdict will be on November 5 for the people,” was one of the first phrases he uttered when leaving the court. He had just heard how the foreman of the jury declared him guilty one by one of the 34 charges against him for falsifying invoices, checks and accounting records to hide the payments with which to silence the scandal of his relationship with the porn actress Stormy. Daniels, who threatened to ruin his campaign in the 2016 presidential election.

After hearing the jury’s ruling, Trump called the judge in charge of the case “corrupt” and said, without providing any evidence, that the trial “was rigged from day one.” His thesis is that he is the subject of political persecution by the Government of Joe Biden, although the president has stayed out of the proceedings against his predecessor and in this case the accusation was carried out by the attorney general of New York and not by federal prosecutors from the Department of Justice.

Americans are forced to choose on November 5 between re-electing a president who is clearly unpopular with the public or a convicted felon. Trump will carry that label in the remaining five months of the campaign, or less, if early voting is taken into account, but the legislation does not prevent the election of a convicted person.

In other times, it would have been unthinkable for a criminal to run for the White House, but Trump has taken it upon himself to break all the patterns of American politics. He has survived sexual scandals, convictions for fraud in his business, two political trials (impeachments) in Congress, to his political responsibilities for the assault on the Capitol and to four charges. He is capable of overcoming a sentence. His fundraising website crashed after the jury’s ruling was announced due to the large number of supporters who wanted to make donations. Without even being convicted, Trump already proclaims himself a “political prisoner” in appeals to his followers to give him money.

A martyr of the system

It has worked for Trump so far to present himself as a martyr to the system. Each of his four charges boosted donations from his supporters and raised his voting intentions. Trump swept the Republican primaries against a majority of rivals who were willing to support him even if he were convicted and has been at the top of the polls.

The big question is whether the ruling against Trump, and the sentence that the judge will hand down on July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, will serve to move the electorate enough. Although polls prior to the ruling indicated that the vast majority of Republicans would continue to support him even if he were convicted, the result is expected to be so close that a small movement of voters from his party and independents could tip the balance. An NPR/PBS poll published this Thursday indicated that 10% of Republicans and 11% of independents were less likely to vote for Trump if he was convicted. In any case, since they were surveys about a hypothetical situation, their value is relative.

The lead is relatively small in three of the six swing states. A limited vote shift can change everything. If Biden retains the constituencies in which he clearly won in 2020 and prevails in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where the difference with Trump is slim, he could allow himself to lose in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, where the former president has a greater advantage.

The sentence handed down on July 11 will hardly prevent the Republican candidate from campaigning. In theory, each of the 34 crimes of which he has been convicted is punishable by a maximum of four years in prison, but the judge can decide that the sentences be served simultaneously, which in practice would reduce the total maximum to four years. . However, given the lack of a criminal record, the judge can say that he does not go to prison and is released on conditional release. And even if he decided to have her serve the prison sentence, it is likely that he would not do so until he was firm, which could take years.

The former president faces three other criminal proceedings and will likely have to attend some hearings, which he will take advantage of to continue presenting himself as a victim. Of those three charges, one, in Florida, is for classified documents that he illegally retained. Two others, in Georgia and Washington, for their attempts to rig the electoral results of the 2020 elections and maneuver to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.

Trump, however, has been successful in his strategy of delaying these processes, which accumulate one delay after another. It is difficult for any of these three trials to be held before the November 5 elections. In addition, Trump has claimed before the Supreme Court immunity for acts carried out in the exercise of his office (something that he does not apply to the Stormy Daniels case). A favorable ruling would limit the accusations against him.

Biden, for his part, measures his reaction. The president of the United States learned of the jury’s ruling in Delaware, where he had gone for the anniversary of the death of his son Beau. After meeting, he tweeted from his personal account and not from the president’s: “There is only one way to keep Donald Trump from the Oval Office: at the polls,” without referring to the trial. The White House avoided an immediate reaction to the jury’s decision, which could have turned against it, and left it to the Biden and Kamala Harris campaign to speak out. “Today in New York we have seen that no one is above the law,” he said in a statement, in which he insisted on the need to beat him at the polls and added: “The threat that Trump represents to our democracy has never been greater.” ”.

Biden successfully used the defense of democracy as an argument in the mid-term legislative elections, in November 2022. Now, he is preparing to repeat that script, in which abortion also plays a prominent role, as he has demonstrated since the first campaign event of this year.

After the jury’s ruling and its hangover, the next big milestone of the campaign is the debate between Trump and Biden on June 27 in Atlanta, the first of the two agreed so far between both candidates. The jury’s ruling this Thursday will be one of the key points of confrontation. How each person handles their arguments can decide the debate. Before the Republican National Convention, which takes place from July 15 to 18, Trump must choose the person on the ballot as his vice presidential candidate, an announcement for which there is no timetable.

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