Truth can be stranger than fiction, assuming one can tell the difference between the two to begin with. In America, the homeland of cults and conspiracy theories, the distinctions have become increasingly blurred in recent years. Ex-President Trump’s performance for the year 2023, as he sets his sights on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, can thus be judged through various alternative and contradictory interpretations of American political events, even as his own social media platform bears the name “Truth Social” to apparently set the record right.
Donald Trump has outpaced all other contenders for the impending Republican presidential nomination, to the extent that he has not found it necessary to stoop to the level of televised presidential debates, instead campaigning on his own, backed by his many political, corporate, and media allies, not to mention his still formidable core supporter base.
Whatever the “truth” may be, it is still worth noting a few undeniable facts. This is the first time, in 234 years of American presidential history, that any serving or former American president is being tried on criminal charges. Donald Trump has been criminally indicted four times in all, including a total of 91 counts of felony. Despite all the imminent litigation, Trump was also the first to announce his presidential campaign in November 2022, in his third presidential bid, hoping to become the second president to serve two non-consecutive terms as commander-in-chief after Grover Cleveland, who was 22nd and 24th President in the late 19th century.
As 2023 rapidly draws to a close, the remaining competition is down to past and present Republican Governors Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Asa Hutchinson, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, a maverick tech entrepreneur. Only Christie, a former Trump loyalist and ex-Governor of New Jersey, has openly criticised Trump, while Ramaswamy has positioned himself as heir-apparent to Trump. The other candidates have been more non-committal in passing judgement on Trump, as they seek to woo anti-Trump Republicans while staying mindful not to antagonise the ex-President’s powerful voter base. With the Iowa caucuses set to launch the GOP nomination calendar on 15 January 2024, national and state polls indicate that Trump remains the favoured candidate among Republican voters.
Meanwhile, Trump has to contend with a number of civil and criminal trials, which will inevitably compete for his time and attention during his Presidential campaign. Two criminal indictments, at federal level-with the United States of America as plaintiff-relate to the DC Election Interference Case (March 2023), which charges Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the November 2020 presidential election, and the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents Case (June 2023), which alleges he illegally removed top-secret government documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, shared classified information with third parties, and then tried to destroy the evidence. The other two criminal indictments, at state level, relate to the New York Hush-Money Case (March 2023), involving covert payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to ensure her silence during the Trump presidential campaign, and the Georgia Election Interference Case (August 2023), which accuses Trump and eighteen others of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 Georgia election under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Trump has repeatedly requested that the crucial DC Election Interference Case be televised, so that his base of diehard supporters can judge the proceedings for themselves, hopefully in his favour.
In addition, there are a number of civil trials, which do not require Trump’s attendance. Of these, the New York Defamation Case, a lawsuit by the journalist E. Jean Carroll alleging sexual abuse, was settled in favour of the plaintiff on 9 May 2023. A second defamation trial based on additional information has, however, been scheduled for 15 January 2024, which coincides with the Iowa caucus. The New York Civil Fraud Case (September 2022), which alleges Trump, two of his sons (Donald Jr and Eric), and Trump Organisation executives knowingly defrauded financial institutions over a decade with inflated estimates of Trump’s net worth and assets to secure favourable loan and insurance terms and business deals, and 14th Amendment Cases in Colorado and Minnesota, seeking to remove Trump from the respective state Republican ballots, are yet to be settled. It must be noted that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly prohibits those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after swearing to uphold the Constitution from holding public office in the future.
Donald Trump has a busy year ahead, as he fights his cause in the law courts at the same time as he promotes himself as future president. In the law courts, he considers himself the victim of a political “witch hunt”, in which “biased” lawyers are complicit of “scams”, “vindictive persecution”, and “election interference”. Indeed, he feels the whole process most unfair as he considers himself protected by “presidential immunity”. His vicious personal attacks on prosecutors and jurists, as part of his determined efforts at extra-judicial self-defence, have even required judges to impose limited gag orders. Apart from Trump’s many ongoing battles in the arena of public opinion, which he continues to fight in typically combative fashion and along unorthodox lines, he will then have to fight another assorted bunch of “bad” people if he were to become President, including establishment “elites”, Democrats, socialists, communists, fascists, anarchists, and even RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) as he is enabled to take forward his Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda.
Trump’s many MAGA supporters include a diverse cast of American “patriots” of all shades, lower-income Whites, rural voters, those without college degrees, evangelical Christians, right-wing Latinx, conservative Blacks and Asians, as well as many conservative, college-educated, middle-income, suburban voters-most of whom appear to accept the ex-President’s allegations of election fraud in 2020. Trump has the potential to become President of an America where no number of alleged flaws in his character and no amount of unfavourable litigation can persuade his many supporters to vote otherwise. There can be little doubt that were he to be elected in November 2024, Trump will take the opportunity to settle past scores, handpick a pliable administration to rubber-stamp his decisions, and pardon convicted January 6 rioters, apart from stamping his idiosyncratic mark on the world stage. Judging by recent events, come November 2024 anything is possible-you have been prepared!
Ashis Banerjee