Former US president Donald Trump makes his way inside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York on April 4, 2023. Trump made an unprecedented appearance before a New York judge on the day to answer criminal charges that threaten to throw the 2024 White House race into turmoil. Trump pleaded not guilty in the criminal court to 34 felony charges.Photo:IC

Former US president Donald Trump, who is actively running for the 2024 presidential election, has been indicted for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, including trying to block the transfer of power. He is due to appear in court on Thursday in Washington, DC. 

The former president now faces 78 criminal counts overall in three different cases, the other two cases being mishandling classified files and falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a former porn star. 

What adds to the irony is that Trump is the forerunner in the Republican Party's contest to pick its next presidential candidate, currently holding a massive 37-percentage point lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to a new poll by The New York Times/Siena College conducted July 23-27.  

The possibility of electing a criminal as president is just one episode in the US' political farce as its election-centered democracy has decayed to being "a choice between worse and the worst," Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

The new indictment caps an inquiry into events surrounding the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol. The man leading the inquiry, special counsel Jack Smith, said the attack was "an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy," the Associated Press reported. 

The Trump campaign said in a statement that Tuesday's indictment amounted to election interference and "persecution" of Trump and his supporters, according to BBC. 

Yet it is hard to say the new indictment will deal a heavy blow to Trump's election campaign, since the legal process will take a long time, Lü said.

Smith pledged a "speedy trial." According to Lü, if Trump is jailed before the election, it would narrow his chance of winning over Joe Biden as he will be unable to attend campaign events, otherwise the charges will not affect his voter base very much. 

According to the joint poll, Trump's dominance extends to nearly every corner of the GOP electorate. The former president led the field in favorability among men and women, younger and older voters, college-educated and those who did not attend, moderates and conservatives, and those who live in cities versus rural and suburban areas.

The legal cases could even pump up his support rate as most Republican voters see charges as politically motivated, according to analysts. 

Even if he is put behind bars, Trump can still run for election and the US laws do not restrict a path from prison to the White House, Lü said. 

Lü pointed out one apparent impact of being involved in multiple lawsuits is that it has drained his campaign money. Trump's political action committee, Save America, has spent more than $40 million on legal fees since the start of 2023, CNN said citing a source familiar with the matter whose name was not given. 

The expert believes when the legal process does not influence much, Democrats can hardly use the impeachment process to thwart Trump. The 2021 riot in Congress led to Trump's second impeachment in the House of Representatives - making him the first US president ever to be impeached twice - and ended up nowhere. 

The unfolding of the 2024 presidential election is dramatic enough but the political farce is far from conclusion. Since 2016, US democracy has entered an accelerated track of decadence and Americans have no alternative but to choose between the worse and the worst, Lü said.