The End of an Era?

Donald Trump, the former U.S. president, unwilling to admit defeat in the 2020 presidential election, is turning the judicial charges against him into political capital and trying to make a comeback.

Whether it’s the series of hearings on the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021 that ended in July, or the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in August, Trump considers all to be part of a political persecution by the Democrats aimed to prevent him from running for president again in 2024. In the context of the increasingly serious political division in the United States, Trump’s self-created “martyr” status will arouse strong reaction from his supporters, as they, for example, rallied to defend him after the FBI removed boxes of classified materials from Mar-a-Lago, and further enhance his popularity among Republicans. As former Republican strategist Ron Bonjean put it: “The Joe Biden administration is only adding rocket fuel to Trump’s campaign prospects and energizing his supporters who want him to run again.”

For the Democrats, any actions against Trump are looking more and more like the unwise thing to do. At a sensitive time like this, when the midterm elections are just around the corner and the Republican Party is leading in the polls, it is hard not to raise suspicion when suddenly investigating the political figure with the highest approval ratings in the opposing camp.

Nevertheless, Trump is by no means as innocent as he would like his supporters to believe. It was Trump who first broke an important principle of the U.S. electoral system, that is, the losing side should abide by the rules of the game and honorably accept defeat. But Trump chose to set an extremely unusual precedent. Until now, he has not admitted defeat, continued to question the election results, and denied responsibility for the Capitol riot that shocked the world.

The riot is considered a landmark event that shook American democracy to its core; the country now still suffers a huge crisis of political faith. According to the 42nd Harvard Youth Poll, published by Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics (IOP) on December 1, 2021, more than half of Americans aged 18 to 29 felt democracy in the country was under threat, and over a third thought they might see a second U.S. civil war in their lifetimes. On June 15, Yahoo News and YouGov polls released a survey regarding “views on American democracy,” with results showing that some 75 percent of Americans believed the American democracy was moving in the wrong direction.

Some politically active American citizens believe that their democracy has a relatively perfect error correction mechanism. They argue people may elect a terrible president, but they can use their vote to right the wrong in four years. But, it seems the rules are no longer rules.

The U.S. political system is the result of the meticulous efforts of countless participants for more than 240 years, but it may very well take just one generation to cause its downfall.