DC Edit | Trump is a convicted felon: Will US still vote for him?
The former US president Donald J. Trump is now a convicted felon who is awaiting sentencing. He has made history of the worst sort in being the first US head of state to be convicted in the first of four criminal cases he is accused in. The irony is he could still end up in the White House in January 2025 after the presidential elections on November 5.
It would need no stretching of the imagination to envisage Mr Trump wearing an electronic bracelet when on probation and in the White House while his appeals are being heard or in jail and managing the affairs of state while incarcerated. He also faces cases relating to election interference, mishandling government documents while an alleged role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol Hill casts its shadow too.
There was no ambiguity in the verdict in a New York court in a city of which he was a resident. He was pronounced guilty by 12 jurors on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star in a bid to keep the sex scandal from affecting the 2016 presidential elections which he won.
Such is the astounding nature of politics and public life today that the scenario of a felon in an orange suit governing the country while also being the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful armed forces, one who cannot be far from “nuclear football”, is not as outrageous as it should be.
Given that he plays the injured innocent in this very serious issue, Mr Trump might find little humour in the situation even if he may have tripped after building up a record of falsifying business records, using bluff, bluster and an outsized media image by borrowing on overestimated assets, misusing his contacts to expand in realty internationally and skirting rules, regulations and laws freely.
Considering that every politician who is potentially guilty of a felony believes the only verdict should be that of the people at the polling booth in a democracy, Mr Trump is no different in his belief in the force of his public appeal to garner votes to public office.
Such is the power of image projection in these days of saturation media and social media exposure that Mr Trump may yet convert his conviction into a badge of honour, as he compares himself to a political prisoner like Nelson Mandela, while claiming martyrdom in a cause against an establishment determined to hound him and deprive him of his freedom.
The US presidential election will be running into uncharted territory as Mr Trump wades into a close race against the incumbent President, Joe Biden, who makes the case that his predecessor’s conviction proves that in the United States no one is above the law.
How the American public, especially the undecided and those who are not diehard Republicans visualising Mr Trump as their saviour, views the conviction is going to matter and a tight contest in many states could hinge on how much of a threat Mr Trump is seen to be to the rule of law and democracy.