What can stop Donald Trump’s giant? Nor, apparently, having been found liable by a civil court jury for the sexual abuse of a female journalist in the 1990s. This week’s $5 million damages award to E Jean Carroll for battery and defamation — although Trump has been cleared of a separate rape charge — was, as Carroll noted, a victory “not just for me but for every woman who suffered because they were not believed”. It was also a demonstration that the US legal system is capable of holding Trump to account. Sadly, it seems to be the only part of the US political and institutional set-up that can.
The difficulty of the “mainstream” media in curbing the former president was highlighted by his pugnacious appearance in the town hall on CNN the day after the sentence. Not only did Trump continue his verbal attack on his accuser. He launched a barrage of falsehoods — that the 2020 election was stolen, that he had quickly tried to avoid the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol — that came so thick and fast that one anchor admitted the channel ” he hasn’t had time to check every lie he’s told.” The audience of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters in New Hampshire responded mostly with laughter and applause.
Many senior Republicans and presidential hopefuls continue to be woefully unable or unwilling, meanwhile, to hold Trump to account, a sign of his grip on the party. Most he avoided criticizing him after the Carroll verdict. And it seems likely that the case will not change opinion among his supporters, even after his own commercial fraud report, and the January 6 congressional committee findings that it was part of a plot to overturn the US election. Trump’s base increasingly inhabits an alternate reality to the rest of America, ready to overlook his most glaring flaws.
It is by no means certain that this will be enough to bring Trump back to the White House next year. Female voters could be further repulsed by the Carroll case and her stance on abortion (Trump called the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court reversal”a big win“). Some moderate Republicans and influential donors who are wringing their hands in private may still decide to leave him, especially if he faces further charges over his role in the Capitol riot or his alleged attempt to get Georgia state officials to “find ” the missing votes.
For now, however, the impression that Trump was a waning force seems premature after the lackluster performance of Republicans in midterm last November. A recent poll gave him a six points clear in a potential rematch against President Joe Biden, which most Americans would do I prefer not to run again and facing an economic tailwind.
Trump’s renewed ascendancy has important implications. One is his ability to throw grenades into the US political process, as he urged Republican lawmakers this week to let the US insolvency on its debts unless the Democrats allow “massive” spending cuts. The other is that the world must at least prepare for the possibility of a second term for a President Trump, one who is vengeful and vituperating and has a better understanding of how to get what he wants.
US allies in Europe and around the world should take note, especially the NATO alliance, and the United Kingdom and Australia, which sided with Washington in the Aukus pact. After Trump’s refusal this week to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win in its war against Russian aggression, Kiev too will feel even more pressure to deliver decisive results in its upcoming counteroffensive. It needs strong allied support. All who support the US-led international order will continue to hope for the best in 2024. But it is only prudent that they prepare for the worst at the same time.
—————————————————-
Source link