The US Presidents just got more powerful. They can virtually do anything while holding office and get away with it as the US supreme court, in a 6-3 majority judgment, has ruled that Presidents are entitled to a degree of immunity from criminal prosecution.
The challenger to the White House Donald Trump may have had a tough six months in court, but the horizon just got cleared for him. If he were to be elected President on November 6, not only would the 34 felony counts for which he has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing mean nothing, perhaps just a few dollars more in fines to pay, but also he would perhaps not be prosecuted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election result.
Mr Trump once said that, as US President, he could shoot someone in the street and get away with it. Like life imitating fantasy, fact following fiction and make-belief becoming reality, it has become the truth now that Presidents can have a free run and, perhaps, even order the assassination of a political opponent.
What that may mean with Mr Trump in the White House, absolved of any wrongdoing by the court, if it takes up the case in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, is too scary for anyone, including the current President to contemplate.
What it means for the US, and by extension to the world, is that authoritarianism, a very popular trend in many world capitals these days, has just got a big boost. Elected representatives who hold the highest executive office can act like totalitarians and dictators and not face condemnation by courts in a traditional balance of powers as contemplated in the writing of many a democratic nation’s constitution.
The ruling is a virtual green flag for the loser to encourage a mob to overthrow the results of any free and fair election. Mr Trump may have been guilty of sitting idly when one of the most emotional symbols of democratic power in the US Capitol was violently attacked, but therein lies a message.
There may be no limits on what a President can do as a democratic ideal of no one being above the law is challenged by partisan politics that also determines who can sit on the supreme court bench of judges. “The President is now a king above the law,” said a dissenting judge.
