Never before in US history has a former president been treated like this, let alone one who is in effect the de facto opposition leader, and the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president for 2024. Former president Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal, explaining to the nation that he didn’t want to tear it apart politically. Presidents following the Civil War even refrained from prosecuting military and political luminaries of the American South in the interests of national cohesion.
Democrats in this century have chosen a different path, the deliberate humiliation of a major political figure for contesting an election he lost and liaising with a handful of party officials, lawyers and bureaucrats to prepare alternative state electors if his legal theories ultimately stood up in court – which they were never going to.
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Whatever the outcome of the four indictments in court rooms across America over the next few years, the Georgia mugshot will become the visual embodiment of Trump’s status as a martyr for Republicans, at the same time as it’s the symbol of his criminality for Democrats.
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Naturally, Trump, speaking to reporters after his arrest, said it was a “very sad day for America”. “I thought the election was a rigged election, a stolen election, and I should have every right to do that.”
His supporters care little for the legal arguments. Trump might be a bastard, as the saying goes, but he’s their bastard, and in the US by the most prominent politician in memory who’s paid any attention the concerns of the massive lower and lower-middle class.
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Could these indictments pave the way for one of the biggest political comebacks in US history?
So far, the polling isn’t auspicious for Democrats. Far from guaranteeing the end of his political career, the charges have successfully ratcheted up his political standing among Republicans to the point where he’s almost guaranteed to be the GOP nominee for president.
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Could these indictments pave the way for one of the biggest political comebacks in US history? So far, the polling isn’t auspicious for Democrats. Far from guaranteeing the end of his political career, the charges have successfully ratcheted up his political standing among Republicans to the point where he’s almost guaranteed to be the GOP nominee for president.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/donald-trumps-mugshot-a-big-gamble-f...