When the insurrection on January 6th happened, the possibility of Trump ever becoming president again felt inconceivable. This was an extreme assault on democracy and should have ended his career. But last week’s election victory merely served as a reminder to us all that Donald Trump is untouchable.
You Can’t Keep a Bad Guy Down
Trump has been aware of his invincibility long before the 2021 insurrection, having remarked in 2016: ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? … It’s, like, incredible.’ At the time it seemed like an insane statement, but all that we have witnessed from him since then shows that he was in fact correct.
In May 2023, Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and was fined $5m.
Later that year in August 2023, a judge ruled in a defamation trial that Carroll’s allegations that Trump had raped her, were ‘substantially true.’
He has also been accused of sexual assault by multiple women. So far, 26 women have come forward with disturbing accounts of Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct.
Generally, rape and sexual assault allegations tend to ruin men’s lives. Not this man’s. The sexual accusations have only further highlighted Trump’s baffling invincibility, revealing how violence against women is not taken seriously when it involves rich white men.
A President Who is Above the Law
In May this year, Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes, after a US court found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
The prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, said:
‘This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election — to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behaviour, using doctored corporate tax records and bank forms to conceal those payments along the way. It was electoral fraud, pure and simple.’
Along with these criminal convictions, Trump is a known serial liar, misogynist, racist and threat to democracy. He is the antithesis of democracy having shown time and time again that he is willing to undermine it when it suits his needs. More importantly, Donald Trump lacks integrity and stokes fear and division in pursuit of his aims.
What’s Trump’s Secret?
Perhaps the bigger question to ask is how the man manages to sustain his diehard, cult-like following.
At the end of the day, it’s clear that his supporters do not care about his colourful past. They are willing to throw all morals out the window because they believe that he will make their lives better.
As pointed out by Daniel Finkelstein:
‘An alarming number of people don’t care at all about liberal democratic norms as long as things are all right for them. And they rather think “strongman” rule might be a better idea than rule by a load of squabbling politicians. They like that Trump is (as he is thought to be) a successful and ruthless businessman. They like that he belittles others. They think he is doing that on their behalf.’
It seems that the strongman authoritarian-style rule is appealing to certain voters. People are losing faith in democratic processes because they no longer believe that it gets anything done.
America has become so polarised and divided that people no longer look at the bigger picture when they vote. A unique concern for one’s welfare, wrapped up in the fanfare of hatred towards those whom you think have done you wrong, has blinded Americans to the reality of whom they just elected president.
People should have the right to vote for the candidate they want to represent their interests. But anyone with common sense knows the danger that a Trump presidency holds for the fabric of democracy, the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of colour. And yet, we have to sit here and accept that this is who was chosen to be the leader of the free world.
Donald Trump’s victory sets a dangerous precedent that you can be a criminal, a detestable character, and still win the most powerful seat in the world.
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