US President elect Donald Trump. PHOTO/REUTERS
When Donald Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records in connection with a payoff to a porn star named Stormy Daniels, he told reporters after leaving the courtroom: “This was a rigged, disgraceful trial.”
He went on: “The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”
Mr Trump, who was not sentenced, bought Ms Daniels’s silence to stave off a possible sex scandal in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign. He went on to win the election and left the White House after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden — but what he predicted this past May has come to pass in a big way.
Indeed, the people delivered the verdict. Mr Trump is now a comeback king, as The Economist called him, and he told his supporters in Florida, just as he was inching closer to the 270 threshold, “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing.
”Political indeed! If Mr Trump was seeking a job that has nothing to do with politics, he would probably have zero chance of getting hired in the United States.
In theory — and in view of what the media has published about him, all of which is based on incontrovertible evidence — Mr Trump is simply unelectable.
At least not in a country that prides itself on being a paragon of democracy and where individuals seeking political leadership should/must have unquestionable integrity.
The New York court that delivered the May verdict found Mr Trump guilty of all 34 charges as he sought to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment. The president-elect awaits trial in two other criminal cases, including for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Some senior politicians in his party do not think he is a good fit for the job. Republican Senator and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has called Mr Trump a “despicable human being”.
The endorsements he gets from the media also suggest he is not taken seriously. For example, of the 13 US newspapers that endorsed presidential candidates in the November 5 election, only three endorsed Mr Trump.
In 2020, 47 major newspapers endorsed Mr Biden while only seven endorsed Mr Trump. And in 2016, while Hillary Clinton was endorsed by 57 major newspapers, Mr Trump received just two: from the Las Vegas Daily and the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, according to the Boston Globe.
So, how does a politician with not just a history of being a liar but also having a criminal record end up leading Americans? I am not an expert on US politics and I suppose there may be reasons I do not know, but I know perfectly well that in politics, as in religion, people really do not care about the truth.
In their endorsements, newspapers provide evidence of why a candidate is not a good fit, but many voters will ignore the evidence. For them, truth is not everything. They do not need it, just as Christians do not need the truth of how Mary gave birth to Jesus when she was a virgin.
They just want to believe.In June 2023, for example, Mr Trump was speaking at a CNN town hall and “overpowered moderator Kaitlan Collins, with a continuous blast of distortion, hyperbole and lies”, according to The Atlantic.“The audience of Trump devotees delighted in his aggression toward Collins, cheering him on so loudly and so purposefully [...]”, wrote The Atlantic.These are the people who voted for Mr Trump. They like him.
