Putting him in prison would be “very dangerous”, warned Donald Trump at the end of July, because his supporters “are much more upset than in 2020”. The following day, the ex-president posted on Truth Social, his social network, a video in which he said: “If you piss us off, if you hurt us, we will attack you like no one has ever before. done before.” The video was originally addressed in 2020 to Iran. But this time, no mention was made of Tehran. In March, just before his first indictment in New York, he announced that there could be “potential deaths and destruction” if he was prosecuted. A few hours later, the Manhattan district attorney’s office received a letter with white powder, thankfully non-toxic.
Since leaving the White House, Donald Trump has continued to use the same inflammatory rhetoric that led to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. In December, he even said that “massive voter fraud ‘justified’ the abolition of all rules”, including the Constitution so that he can be reinstated immediately in the Oval Office. And he is more and more unleashed as the indictments multiply. He violently attacks the various prosecutors whom he calls “crazy”, “impostor”, “corrupt”… The persecutions of which he is the object, affirms one of his press releases, “recall Nazi Germany in the 30’s”.
“The rest of the primaries will revolve around Trump”
We expected a soporific remake of the 2020 campaign, with two elderly and unstimulating candidates. But it was without counting on Donald Trump who, as a great master of reality TV, knows how to renew himself each season. These repeated indictments plunge America into a completely new and rather worrying situation for the future of democracy. Besides, the Watergate scandal under Richard Nixon or that of Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton’s intern, seem almost trivial…
All this makes for a surreal campaign. Forgotten Ukraine, immigration or abortion: we only talk about the legal troubles of the ex-president who monopolize the media and eclipse all his rivals. Instead of trying to take advantage of his pans to put themselves forward, the other candidates continue to defend him for fear of alienating the Trumpist base. “The rest of the primaries will revolve around Trump, his trials, his legal costs, the judges,” said Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the UN and now contender for the White House. It’s going to continue to be a bigger and bigger distraction.”
Donald Trump’s legal troubles
© / afp.com/Olivia BUGAULT, Sophie RAMIS
All of this bodes well for a very tense political climate, no doubt more deleterious than that of the previous election. By dint of telling them that elections are rigged and justice is biased, Donald Trump has succeeded in ensuring that millions of his supporters, including Party bigwigs, no longer have confidence in the institutions. They consider the ex-president a victim and sincerely see in these lawsuits a political machination of the Democratic government to torpedo his campaign. According to a recent AP/Norc poll, 57% of Republicans think Joe Biden is not legit. And nearly 70% believe Trump did not act illegally in his extraordinary efforts to stay in power.
The number of threats against elected congressmen soars
His popularity rating jumped in the polls following the first indictment in early April, followed by another, more modest rise after the second in June. It is too early to measure the impact of the new criminal prosecutions. But there is little chance that his voters will abandon him. Seven in 10 Republicans have a favorable opinion of Trump, up from 60% two months ago, according to the same poll. In mid-August, he was 54% in the Realclear politics poll average, ten points more than in March, and nearly 40 points ahead of his closest rival Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida.
If these legal misfortunes effectively mobilize his base, at least so far, they risk on the other hand to serve him with the moderate voters whom he absolutely needs to defeat Joe Biden. A small majority of Americans – 51% – believe that his attempts to manipulate the results in Georgia are illegal. 47% think the same about his interference in the elections. This shows a country more than ever cut in two. Whatever the outcome of the 2024 presidential elections and criminal prosecutions, they will only reinforce divisions and increase the risk of violence. According to the Capitol Police, the number of threats against elected congressmen has more than doubled in four years. One in six poll workers have been harassed… And a few days ago, at the annual big fair in Iowa, Trump and DeSantis supporters came to blows.
Only certainty, if the former president loses the election, we can expect for the third time in a row, (after the controversy of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 and Trump’s efforts to prevent the handover of power in 2020) that the presidential election will be the subject of many disputes and legal proceedings.