It's now a challenge at the Ok Corral, the law against Donald Trump. One can be comforted by a clash between an unreliable and narcissistic character and the proven principles and rules that made the United States the first country governed by law and not by force, despite everything, in the modern era. But it is good to be on guard because no law will be able to prevent that in some of the most poised realities, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and three or four others, a sufficient number of Trumpian voters bring the electoral votes of the state to the candidate who wins ( by a whisker of 85 votes) in 2000 and is now back to take back what he declares his, that is, the White House. All this while, some polls say, Americans are reflecting on a choice between an old president, 82 years old on November 20, 2024, and a challenger who is corrupt to the core, especially in principles, and an enemy of the law; and neither will he, at 78 when the election takes place in early November next year, in his prime.
The law against Donald Trump and the US electoral campaign
What opens these days, and officially in January 2024, will be a unique, surreal campaign against Donald Trump, and against about 30 million, just under 40% of Republican voters, of irreducible supporters who believe in his accusations of fraud, all denied by the judiciary, in its lies, in its promises and in its methods. The result will tell us whether the United States is regaining its balance or is still in the throes of an exaggerated political climate, coldly wanted as a method of political battle beyond any rule, based on the total delegitimization of the adversary and which has plagued Washington, and the country, for about 40 years now. Trump didn't create this, he expanded it beyond words.
Donald Trump and his four trials: what he is accused of and what can happen
Trump has four proceedings and everyone will see him in the courtroom during the election campaign. Two managed by the state judiciary, in New York (falsifications also falsified to pay for the silence of a porn star in 2016) and in Atlanta, due to the accusations and pressure on the local republican government, so that in November 2020 it found about 12 thousands of votes that the outgoing president needed to win the state electoral votes. In Atlanta there is a big risk, because there are 18 co-defendants and someone could change sides during the trial or before, even if the complexity of the process offers the defense various opportunities. The allegations are clear, the recordings of Trump's threatening phone calls are well known, and the fact that in May Trump's notoriously friendly Russia added the name of Brad Raffensperger, a Republican and Georgia secretary of state, to Moscow's enemies list he rejected presidential pressure even before the Governor and who has never dealt with foreign policy, does not help in terms of image. Furthermore, if convicted and if in spite of him he should win the election, Trump will not be able to forgive himself as in proceedings under federal law because in Georgia it is only a special state committee that can grant pardons.
Then come the two federal cases, one in Florida for the history of the secret documents found in his possession, and the other, the most full of meanings, in Washington on his responsibilities in the incredible assault on the Congress building on January 6, 2021, while the Senate ratified the results ballots supplied by states with the President, outside, continuing to insist that they be invalidated. Added to this is that out of 64 legal appeals presented by the Trumpian front in 6 states narrowly won by Biden, only one, in Pennsylvania, found the match of some suspicious votes, but absolutely too few to ultimately affect the result. Everything is examined very carefully in a report entitled Lost, not stolen, that is, elections lost and not stolen, presented a year ago by eight Republicans of impeccable conservative credentials, two former senators and the other former federal magistrates with a Republican nomination. The text repeatedly stigmatizes Trump's irresponsibility, speaks of repeated falsehoods with obstinacy and contempt for the country's tradition, and recalls how the principle "no one is above the law" is the basis of civil coexistence.
The assault of the Republicans on power: the precedents
This and more only gets vituperations and insults from the Trumpian front. This is a story that began many years ago, at the end of the 70s, when the House had consistently had a Democratic majority since 1954 and in the end the exasperated Republicans set out to reconquer. The tactic was ruthless, at first to sideline the then strong moderate current within the party, then to always attack the Democrats at the same time, with insults, insinuations, accusations of incapacity, demonstrated by a House that no longer functioned and in which the New Republicans did everything they could to make sure it didn't work. Plus, conspiracy theories, the need for a counter-conspiracy, and the dream of a fairytale America.
Newton Gingrich from Georgia was the main protagonist of the season, deputy since 1979, theorist of constant guerrilla warfare in the name of the country's superior interests, group leader of the minority since March 1989, and architect of the republican victory in the midterms of 1994 and therefore since then president of the Chamber. He rode great the Monica Lewinsky case aiming for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. But the voters did not follow him, as the 1998 midterm vote showed. Meanwhile it had emerged that he too had his Monica Levinsky, who later became and still is his wife, and ambassador to the Vatican under the Trump presidency, and in 1989 he resigned by Congress. But the party had become something else with Gingrich. “He created a situation – explained Mickey Edwards some time ago, Republican deputy from 77 to 93 for an Oklahoma constituency and a prominent figure – where the only loyalty is to the party at any cost and at any time, no matter what happens. Our system is based on Madison's concept of power controlling another power. Gingrich played a key role in eroding all of that." And he paid for a long time, for the Republicans, who became the dominant party in local politics especially in the Obama years, where even today out of 7386 state deputies and senators, 4055 are Republicans and 3273 Democrats.
US presidential elections: Trump's star shines but less than before. There will be twists and turns
Trump, confirming the accuracy of Edwards' diagnosis, continues to move as a shadow president and as if no other power can control him, in a perfect populist logic (the boss and his people and that's it) that we too in Europe, and in Italy, we know. The consensus, still strong, is however declining because the null credibility of his accusations of a stolen election (in 2020) is evident to most, but those who believed in the messiah are struggling to become apostates. Gingrich was an effective Baptist in his day. Let's expect an unprecedented campaign, with possible twists, even an attempt by the Republican leadership to marginalize Trump despite the primaries in the strong belief that he is a loser. We do not exclude anything. Even if the polls, most recently from Politico/Ipsos five days ago, say that the majority (61%) of Americans, a large third of Republicans, almost all Democrats and 63% of the decisive component, the independents, want a ruling on the proceedings against Trump ahead of the next vote. Which comes very close to a death sentence for the former real estate developer's presidential hopefuls.
