Donald Trump Photo:VCG
After weeks of speculation, former US president Donald Trump, who is also running for the 2024 elections, was indicted in Manhattan on Thursday, making him the first former president to face criminal prosecution in US history.
Experts said this further revealed the dysfunction of the American political system amid increasingly extreme political polarization, warning of the possibility of more violent protests from Trump's followers.
A grand jury in New York City voted Thursday to indict Trump. The specific charges against him are not yet known, but two people with knowledge of the matter told The New York Times that there are more than two dozen counts in the indictment.
The charges are expected to stem from a payment that was made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who in October 2016, during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, tried to sell her story of an affair with Trump, the New York Times reported.
Trump has been briefed on the process he will go through, and is expected to surrender next week, the New York Times said, citing people familiar with the discussions.
The indictment was seen as an unprecedented moment for the US that signals ever fiercer partisan struggles, according to analysts.
The move also indicated that the polarized political and legal system is not bringing about order but chaos to the country, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday.
Experts also warned of a normalization of indicting former presidents in the US as politics of retaliation has become routine, with political and legal tools being further weaponized to attack political opponents.
Members of the media gather outside Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, on March 31, 2023. Former US President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury a day before, a historic reckoning after years of investigations into his personal, political and business dealings and an abrupt jolt to his bid to retake the White House. Photo: VCG
Systemic dysfunction
Just 20 minutes after the vote, Trump and his GOP allies responded to the indictment with an email to his supporters urging them to contribute to his 2024 presidential campaign, according to media reports.
In the email, Trump called the vote "political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history."
Some observers believed that the indictment may become an opportunity for Trump to increase his visibility for the 2024 election and win more support. His legal travails are likely to further suck up media oxygen and blot out other coverage of the presidential race, the New York Times said.
Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, disagrees with this prediction. He believed that, on the whole, the negative impact of the indictment will see Trump lose more reasonable and centrist voters.
Only some extreme supporters of Trump will probably continue to stand close to him, Da said. He warned that these extreme supporters could carry out more violent actions and protests in the period following the indictment and leading up to the 2024 election.
As the indictment process will last for a certain period, it is also uncertain whether Trump will still be able to represent the Republicans in the 2024 election, as no one is likely to want a candidate charged with a crime to be the party's presidential nominee, experts pointed out.
The awkward situation the Republican party finds itself in can be seen from the reaction of Trump's allies to the potential charges against the former president and one of the strongest Republican 2024 candidates, as they have been reportedly eager to attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who launched the investigation into Trump, but aren't necessarily keen on defending Trump.
Trump had been calling on his supporters to protest his potential arrest over the hush-money payment charge since March 18, a dangerous incitement that echoed his rhetoric ahead of the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. But analysts pointed out that it is less possible for Trump's supporters to stage another event like the Capitol Hill riot, given that authorities are fully prepared for this kind of eventuality.
Despite support from his more radical supporters, "Trump mania" has cooled a little over the past few years as more people have gotten a clearer understanding of the severe consequences of the Capitol riot, analysts noted.
However, the US had apparently failed to learn from the event, in other words, they have been unable to fix the systemic dysfunction that led to the riot, experts noted, referring to the increasingly fierce partisan fight in the last few years.
The upcoming election season will amplify the confrontation and division in American society, with chronic problems such as racism, gun violence and political violence witnessing a possible surge, they noted.
The political polarization has also expanded to normal Americans. A New York Times/Siena College poll in October 2022 showed that 71 percent of respondents believe that American democracy is under threat and a majority of respondents in both parties identified the opposing party as a major threat to democracy.
The indictment may somehow become an advantage for Trump himself, but this indicates that the system has become more like a child's game with mounting stunts, and more dramatic twists will probably be played out, observers predicted.
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