The mugshot and the meltdown: Trump and US politics
Here's a thought experiment. Imagine a major Western country where a former president is booked in a county jail and the police take his photo for their records – colloquially called a "mugshot." It's the ultimate ignominy. Surely this is the kiss of death in politics, right?
Think again. The owner of the mugshot has been going from strength to strength with each indictment (four, according to the last count). He is giving his competitors for the Republican nomination such a thrashing in opinion polls that only one of them is polling above double digits.
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This is the mind-boggling scale of breakdown in political mores that former President Donald Trump has wrought. Trump's transgressions are too numerous and well-known to bear repetition here. Here's a former president who was caught on tape bragging about lewd unwanted advances to women, who for the first time in US history refused to concede a presidential election and egged on irate supporters as they went on a rampage on one of the most sacred symbols of US democracy, the US Capitol.
Trump once bragged that he could shoot someone on New York City's Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose a single supporter. After seeing him survive these extraordinary outrageous acts repeatedly, one has to concede he might be on to something.
If the Republican Party goes off the deep end, governance in the US will have all the flying power of a one-winged bird.
Here's a man who shows up at the county jail, gets his mugshot taken. What for any normal politician would be a matter of painful, cringing shame has become just another opportunity for shameless braggadocio and – Trump being Trump – another opportunity to make a quick buck. Before you know it, merchandise featuring his mugshot is out for sale, on top of another quick mass email blast for raising money for his legal defence fund.
Don't get me wrong: Trump's legal peril is genuine. It's not just that he lies; it really appears that he can't tell the difference. In real estate, in politics, it has worked out really well. But what will happen when he has to testify in a courtroom?
Meanwhile, the bigger threat is the utter failure for the Republican Party to take him on. After all, US politics is not as pure as the driven snow, and misbehaving politicians have been around for a long time. The more egregious ones have been brought to book. In the 1920s, President Warren Harding's Interior Secretary Albert Bacon Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison for his involvement in the infamous "Teapot Dome" scandal, where he leased Navy petroleum reserves without competitive bidding. Much later, in 1974, President Richard Nixon avoided the possible disgrace of impeachment by resigning. But twice-impeached Trump today struts around like a peacock.
Sometimes, slick politicians were able to get a temporary reprieve. In 1991, former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, who had a terrible reputation for corruption, faced a runoff for governor. The man he faced was former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, a notorious racist.
Well, a bumper sticker was distributed with a pithy message: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important." Enough people listened, and Louisiana was spared the shame of electing a governor who was a former KKK grand wizard. Edwards, a Democrat, was elected governor for an unprecedented fourth time. However, his deeds caught up with him. In 2000, he was convicted of extortion and racketeering, and served eight years in prison.
Today, Trump shows an uncanny ability to defy political gravity. Just before he got booked, the Republican Party hosted a debate among candidates seeking the party's nomination for the 2024 US presidential elections. It was a debate Trump dismissed with distain. During the debate, most contestants refused to bite the bullet. So there again, we stumbled upon a surreal situation where candidates refused to take on their biggest hurdle to the nomination – they refused to criticise Trump.
They figured discretion is the better part of valour. Few politicians in today's Republican Party can take on Trump and live to tell the tale. There is a reason why Republicans who criticise Trump are mostly retired from office. The Republican base reacts to any criticism of Trump ferociously. Like many other elected Republicans who tried to take on Trump, Congressman Mark Sanford, a former governor of South Carolina, found out the hard way when he was beaten in a 2018 primary – something almost unheard of for an incumbent Congressman.
The Republican problem is now a US problem. The US is essentially a duopoly, and the Democratic and Republican parties are best imagined as twin partners in governing the country. Barring the south, few states give complete control to one party or the other. The same is true for the federal government. This means effective legislation is impossible without give-and-take between the two parties. If the Republican Party goes off the deep end, governance in the US will have all the flying power of a one-winged bird.
What makes it all so heartbreaking is that US politics used to function in a proper way during a more collegial political time. Former President Ronald Reagan, a die-hard conservative Republican, struck up a warm working relationship with Democratic giant and former House Speaker Tip O'Neill. In Georgia, former Republican Governor Nathan Deal came together with Democratic Mayor Kasim Reed to expand the Port of Atlanta – which both sensibly realised was to their mutual benefit.
That political savvy in the US is gone. It has been replaced by vitriolic Republican hatred of their political opponents. Shrill invective is the order of the day. I am not convinced Trump is responsible for all of this himself. He is just a cunning observer who gauged the zeitgeist of the Republican base with extraordinary acuity and exploited it for his political advantage with staggering success.
Whether Trump will face his just desserts remains to be seen. The US, in the meantime, faces a crisis of governability, and there is no sign at all that it will be resolved anytime soon.
Ashfaque Swapan is a writer and editor based in Atlanta, US.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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