When Donald Trump takes the oath of office for his second term as US president next week, a convicted felon will enter the White House for the first time. Democracy was already bent when the US Supreme Court allowed him to stay on the ballot despite being an insurrectionist who tried to steal Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 race.
Despite determination by a bipartisan congressional hearing that Trump instigated the mob that stormed Capitol Hill when he saw defeat staring at him, and a Colorado court arriving at the same conclusion, the Supreme Court gave him a free pass to the 2024 race.
His official anointment will drag democracy further down. The man—who uses whining as an instrument of statecraft, has been an abuser of women, cooked his company’s books, and lied to suit his convenience—finally got his first felony sentence last week.
The court did judicial gymnastics to sentence Trump to ‘unconditional discharge’ despite a jury finding him guilty on all 34 counts in a hush money case involving a sex worker.
He had paid her to buy her silence in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, but hid it in his company’s books through opaque accounting. For lesser mortals, the case would have attracted up to four years in prison. But Trump was spared the punishment since the people’s court had granted him victory in the polls despite his known depravity.
Trump is more of a trader than a warrior while pursuing his MAGA (Make America Great Again) goal. Reviving the economy through a tariff war is his primary play; geostrategic games are secondary.
Major nations racing to Trump-proof their economy indicates the disruption they expect. His comments about buying Greenland and insulting outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by suggesting Canada’s annexation are, at best, distractions.
The days of using aggressive cartography to redraw national boundaries are long gone in that part of the globe. His churning of the ocean of global power may stop the war in Ukraine, though not within a day of his signing in as earlier promised.
It could aggravate the situation in West Asia, where he set a deadline for Hamas to free all hostages by his inaugural. His impact on diversity programmes is another cause for concern. As for India, it can only keep its fingers crossed.