Trump’s indictment shows America one thing – they’re better off with Biden

No stranger to a courtroom, Donald Trump was reportedly “angry but prepared” for his latest set of criminal indictments. Predictable.

A grand jury in the state of Georgia handed an indictment with 13 counts of racketeering, and accuses him of orchestrating a criminal enterprise. It is the fourth set of criminal charges he is facing and, if his two impeachments and a recent civil lawsuit for sexual abuse are taken into account, he’s had more legal actions to deal with this year than he has children.

Mr Trump, short-sleeved on the golf course, wielding a copy of Playboy and wearing a Maga baseball cap, projected an air of business as usual, but this is going to be far from the case as the 2024 presidential election approaches.

More and more of his time is going to be spent closeted with lawyers, and making speeches at his rallies about witch hunts and conspiracies rather than what passes for policy in Trumpworld.

Never a man famed for his attention to detail or levels of concentration, he is going to find himself constantly distracted as he tries to get his presidential campaign under way.

Such is the extent to which he has captured the Republican Party that his eventual nomination to fight Joe Biden is not in doubt, but victory is surely less likely than if he was, as in 2016, running unencumbered by continuing legal attacks.

The significance of the charges from Georgia is that they are serious, apparently well-evidenced (including records of telephone calls and exhaustive examination of ballots and procedures at the 2020 election) and, most alarming of all, they may well be televised.

The once and possibly future president of the United States of America will be seen in the dock and, despite his familiarity with such surroundings, will not be able to bully and bluster his way to an acquittal. If, as seems likely, he chooses to turn a court of law into a Maga rally, then things will turn even worse for Mr Trump than they have already. At any rate, it will be a spectacular sight.

Many Americans have long since made their minds up about Donald Trump, who has, after all, been in the public eye for decades; but for those whose memories of his chaotic presidency may be fading, the wall-to-wall coverage of his past alleged crimes and misdemeanours will be a timely and uncomfortable reminder of just how disruptive, divisive and misguided a second Trump term would prove.

The ex-president declared to his conservative followers a few months ago, chillingly: “I am your retribution.”

Anyone hoping that there is a “new Trump”, more statesmanlike and rational, to emerge in the coming months should hold no such delusions. The next Trump presidency, if there is one, will be bad for America, bad for her allies and bad for the world. No wonder Vladimir Putin is digging in over Ukraine, waiting for Trump’s reappearance as a weak, vain and easily duped leader of the free world.

Yet it is not only Mr Trump who will be on trial in the coming months and years, but American democracy itself. The US constitution barely survived its last encounter with this man-child and, with retribution in mind and, potentially, control of Congress, who could say what damage could be inflicted on American society?

The best thing that could happen is that Mr Trump is given his free and fair trials, treated with respect, and has all of his constitutional and human rights protected through the process. If he is acquitted then that should be accepted. If he is convicted, he should have a right to appeal under the law, and if a conviction stands he should suffer the consequences, as with any other citizen.

He need not be victimised, nor given special treatment. If Americans want a convicted criminal for a president, possibly even serving time, then that is up to them. But they won’t.

What will be revealed about Mr Trump as the legal actions grind on will persuade many Americans that they cannot take a further risk on Trump, and they are better off with Biden, whose frailties and weaknesses don’t run to the criminal. It’s not much of a choice but, in the end, it ought to be an easy one.