The Memo: Trump cases will stress-test American democracy

The latest case against former President Trump will stress-test American democracy itself, almost three years after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 2021.

In some ways, the nation is even more disunited now than it was then. 

There was relative unanimity in the hours after Jan. 6 that something disgraceful had transpired — and even many Republican politicians lined up to condemn Trump for his behavior.

Now, many elected Republicans have backed Trump, condemning what they consider to be the “weaponization” of the justice system against him. 

There is even some sign of equivocation, on the part of GOP voters, around the events of Jan. 6 itself.

An Economist/YouGov poll released at the start of this year indicated that the share of Republican voters who approve of the breach of the Capitol had doubled, from 16 percent in the immediate aftermath to 32 percent at the start of this year.

Those tensions are about to rise even further, as Trump faces trial, the events of Jan. 6 are once again put under the spotlight, the presidential election campaign heats up, and claims and counter-claims are thrown around about the nature of the justice system itself.

At the center of it all, of course, is the former president.

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday, a day after he had agreed not to intercede with likely witnesses in his case over his efforts to overturn the election.

The former president continues to propagate his false claims of election fraud. He also blasts special counsel Jack Smith in personal terms, including frequently calling him “deranged.” He has repeatedly alleged that the prosecutions he faces amount to election interference on the part of President Biden.

Amid all that, Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.

In the weighted polling average maintained by data site FiveThirtyEight, Trump was leading his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 39 points on Saturday evening.

Trump drew the support of 53 percent of Republicans in the FiveThirtyEight average, while DeSantis drew 14 percent. No other candidate was higher than seven percent support.

The unparalleled situation causes serious concern among some experts.

“It is totally unprecedented that you have a president who has tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election, which is at the heart of American democracy,” said Mark Updegrove, the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation, and a presidential historian for ABC News. 

“Inherent in American democracy is yielding to the will of the people and adhering to the peaceful transfer of power — neither of which Trump did.”

Yet even so, Updegrove acknowledged, Trump is “the leading candidate of the Republican Party.”

In the view of other observers Trump is both an accelerant and an emblem of the extreme polarization that appears to be growing ever more potent in American society.

“We have two completely different narratives about what happened on Jan. 6 so the country can’t come together,” said Heidi Beirich, the cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

“Trump continues to sow the seeds of doubt even now.”

On the right, of course, there is an entirely different view. 

Conservatives hold, basically, that Trump is being unfairly pursued; that malfeasance regarding Hillary Clinton’s emails and Hunter Biden’s business dealings is being overlooked; and that the media is, for the most part, complicit in minimizing the misdeeds of liberals and exaggerating those of conservatives.

That, in turn, becomes part of a bigger cultural complaint about double standards, encompassing issues like a purportedly muted media response to disorder around Black Lives Matter protests.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reacted to Trump’s indictment and arraignment on four charges this week by seeking to put the spotlight on what he considers comparable actions —  efforts by Democrats to question the legitimacy of Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ (D) equivocations around the result of her race in 2018.

“Were any of them prosecuted? Were any of them put in jail?” McCarthy said at an event in California on Thursday. “When Hillary Clinton said it, nothing happened to her. When they said it in Georgia’s election, nothing happened to them either.”

Critics would contend there is a world of difference between raising questions about an election outcome and pushing for different slates of electors to cast votes in the electoral college process or pressuring a vice president to refuse to certify the result, as Trump and his allies did.

But the nation at large seems to be broken into two camps, each living in an entirely different reality. 

An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday found 46 percent of Americans believing the charges against Trump to be politically motivated while 40 percent did not. 

Yet, even so, 52 percent asserted Trump should have been charged with a crime pertaining to his efforts to overturn the election while only 32 percent said he should not have been.

If Trump were to be found guilty in any of the three cases against him, it seems all but certain that a significant number of Americans would refuse to accept those verdicts. If he were to win the presidency back and use his powers to thwart any outstanding cases against him, that would provoke a whole new crisis.

The situation looks bleak, particularly to those who see Trump as a destructive force.

“Not only is Donald Trump on trial but so is our judicial system,” said Susan Del Percio, a GOP strategist and Trump critic. “He wants to tear it down because he knows he is going to be held accountable.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.