Post debate, Biden’s Democrats don’t look quite so different from Trump’s Republicans

This op-ed was published by The National on July 1, 2024

My reaction to the appalling debate between US President Joe Biden and former president and convicted felon Donald Trump on Thursday was primarily anger. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says he wept. Many reported feeling panic or despair.

But on the night, and even more since, I remain profoundly angry at, and disappointed by, a Democratic Party that has proven itself far more like the Trump-era Republicans than I imagined.

The differences remain staggering. The Republicans are morphing into a virtual personality cult that is openly and aggressively hostile to democracy and the US constitutional order. It is shot through with racism, extreme personal and unheard-of institutional corruption, and both real and feigned radical Christian fundamentalism.

The Republicans still pose a range of dangers that the Democrats simply don’t. One of the worst Trump-dominated Republican characteristics is their reliance on gaslighting. They appear to have made an art form of lying, insisting that obvious facts are not true and telling Americans to believe them.

Denying verifiable reality and sowing mistrust of knowledge and perceptions is routine for Republicans both for political expediency and to protect the interests and feelings of their leader, Mr. Trump. It has been a degrading spectacle, and one in which Democrats, for all their faults, did not appear to be replicating.

The debate, however, revealed that Americans have been systematically hoodwinked by Mr Biden’s inner circle who insisted that, despite “senior moments”, Mr. Biden remained sharp and mentally agile. It’s likely that Mr. Biden does not realize the extent of his deterioration. But his most important enablers, especially his wife, Dr Jill Biden, have apparently not only failed to inform most of the party and public about his actual condition, but don’t seem to have told him the truth either.

Now the party has rallied around Mr. Biden, ensuring he will remain its candidate. But now we know why he has given so few interviews and press conferences, and has been shielded, to an unprecedented extent from unscripted public events. Mr. Biden huddled with his family on Sunday and was reportedly unanimously urged to stay the course.

Most major party leaders and donors have waved away his public mental implosion as “a bad night”. Former president Barack Obama assured the public every candidate has such stumbles. But this was manifestly not an ordinary “off day”, or the consequence of an illness or other circumstance likely to improve or not be repeated. Mr. Biden lacks the ability to roll back the hands of time.

It makes raw political sense for the Democrats to stick with him. Trying to replace him now risks a collapse into infighting by the interest and identity groups that make up the coalition, and take numerous ballots at the convention to decide a nominee. That candidate might be hobbled by resulting recriminations.

But such a candidate might inspire and electrify the party and public. Voters are clear they don’t like either candidate and are keen on a younger, new face. The Democrats have many plausible such candidates, most notably Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

But the party obviously doesn’t want to take that risk and has made no effort to convince Mr. Biden to voluntarily step aside, free his delegates and decline to endorse anyone, which is what would set up the high-risk but high-reward gamble of a highly charged and very quick open process to find an alternative.

It’s obvious why Democrats want to stick with Mr. Biden. Replacing him might constitute political malpractice if all you care about is winning. And it can be plausibly argued that defeating Mr. Trump, given his authoritarian tendencies and adjudicated corruption, is all-important. Changing candidates is probably a much bigger risk than sticking with a tried-and-true president who enjoys the advantage of incumbency and several other invaluable qualities that an alternative would lack.

Many Democrats persuasively argue that the fundamentals will eventually favor Mr. Biden, current opinion polls notwithstanding. They would indeed be toying with those fundamentals if they charge off in search of someone else, assuming there’s no repeated public meltdown.

So, political expediency, the probability of victory, the need to preserve the existing Biden coalition, and a reluctance to hurt the feelings of their own leader, even without a cultic devotion to him, all explain this wagon-circling. Yet this also means that Americans must recognize that Democrats share some of the very worst qualities critics of the Trump-era Republican Party have most deplored. By waving the debate performance away as merely “a bad night”, a typical campaign “setback”, or, most preposterously, the result of “a cold”, Democratic bigwigs are gaslighting the public.

They are urging us to pretend we didn’t see what we saw, that it doesn’t mean what we know it means, or that it somehow doesn’t matter. For the party, maybe it is and must be only about winning. But even the imperative of defeating Mr. Trump, which remains crucial, does not excuse a shoddy exercise in deception that urges people to ignore an obvious and devastating reality they witnessed in real time.

Closing an election sale is certainly vital, but sober and patriotic political marketers should also care a little about the nature of the product. Democrats are probably right to stick with Mr. Biden if all they care about is beating Mr. Trump and taking no wild gambles. But even given the risks, it might be important to field a fully cognisant and competent candidate who doesn’t regularly have “bad days”, and who will surely have increasing numbers of them in private and public.

Above all, asking voters to ignore what they saw – rather than stressing the need to defeat Mr. Trump, or insisting that Mr. Biden will be a capable chief executive surrounded by strong lieutenants – is unforgivable.

The bottom line is that the Democrats are not nearly as different from the Republicans as many of us thought and hoped. That even implies that they might be almost as bad if they had their own version of Mr. Trump, which is, thank goodness, a remote prospect.

Democrats are still dramatically preferable to Republicans. But Americans and people around the world are discovering the contrast is not nearly as stark as previously imagined.

Arab Americans angry with Biden should note Trump’s use of ‘Palestinian’ as a slur

This op-ed was published by The National on June 30, 2024

Since the Gaza conflict, critics of US President Joe Biden, particularly Arab and Muslim Americans, insist that he can no longer be viewed as a “lesser of two evils” because of his support for Israel’s savage war of vengeance. But this stinging case against Mr. Biden doesn’t actually render him indistinguishable from his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump’s words ought to remind everyone that he advocates policies and spews much more repugnant hateful rhetoric. It’s reasonable to be angry with the President, but not to refuse to see the clear difference with Mr. Trump.

In particular, Mr. Trump’s use of the word “Palestinian” as an insult, aiming to render its target unacceptable and disreputable, cannot be ignored. It is new and especially repugnant since innocent Palestinians are being killed in unprecedented numbers by Israeli occupation forces. Innocent Palestinians – although not, of course, Hamas – deserve sympathy, support and protection from a terrible onslaught. Using their identity as a schoolyard taunt displays crassness and inhumanity.

There’s been limited pushback from Arab and Muslim Americans about this outrageous and disgraceful conduct, aimed squarely at our very identity, because of an ongoing effort to convince community members that Mr. Biden is unworthy of support, and to at least stay home. But, what would the reaction have been if Mr. Biden, particularly given his Gaza policies, began using “Palestinian” as a free-floating and transferable insult in American political schoolyard bullying?

In the most embarrassingly terrible presidential debate in US history last Thursday, Mr. Trump scolded Mr. Biden that he should “let them [Israel] finish the job” in Gaza. But, he argued, Mr Biden “doesn’t want to do that” because “he’s become like a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian, a very weak one”.

It was one of dozens of moments in which the former president provided Mr. Biden an obvious opening for counterattack, virtually all of which the sitting President inexplicably failed to take. But the scandalous insult largely faded into the background amid widespread incredulity about the ineffectiveness of Mr. Biden’s bumbling and confused performance, which seemed to reinforce the most damaging characterizations of him.

Mr Trump quickly moved to dispel any doubts or arguments that he was using “Palestinian” as a bigoted political epithet, when he immediately repeated the intended insult against another of his favourite targets, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer.

The day after the debate, last Friday, Mr Trump hurled “Palestinian” as an insult against Mr Schumer, telling a rally audience: “I know Schumer. He’s become a Palestinian. He’s a Palestinian now. Congratulations … He’s Jewish. But he’s become a Palestinian because they have a couple of more votes or something.” Obviously, though, we don’t.

Mr. Trump was presumably referring to Mr. Schumer’s speech in March, in which he accurately described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “an obstacle to peace”, and urged immediate new Israeli elections to replace him.

The implications are clear: Mr Trump wants everyone to know that he’s more anti-Palestinian than any Democrat, including Mr Biden and Schumer; wants a more brutal Israeli war in Gaza; views Mr Biden’s policies as unduly constraining of Israel; and that any blunt criticism of Mr Netanyahu renders even a lifelong Jewish-American supporter of Israel a “Palestinian”.

Moreover, according to Mr Trump’s racist worldview, being a Palestinian is plainly inherently a bad thing. It’s particularly objectionable to be a “weak Palestinian”, making one a “bad Palestinian”, but his rhetoric plainly identifies “Palestinian” a particularly bad thing to both be and to be called.

Meanwhile, it’s finally become clear, after weeks of typical incoherence on the Gaza war, that Mr Trump considers Mr Biden indefensibly “weak” in support of Israel and holding it back from attacking Gaza even more intensely.

Palestinians have now joined migrants as a particularly stigmatised identity group, to be targeted by Mr Trump’s shocking hate-filled rhetoric during this phase of his second effort for a second term.

The two issues effectively dovetail in Mr Trump’s rhetorical landscape because one of his earliest positions in this campaign was a promise to bring back the “Muslim ban” prohibitions on entry into the US by nationals of more than a dozen countries, almost all Muslim-majority. This bigoted policy was a key feature of the incompetent and chaotic first months of his presidency, but it was eventually imposed after some adjustments, including the removal of Iraqis.

The bottom line is obvious. Many Arab and Muslim Americans, their friends and family, and supporters around the world are justifiably outraged by Mr. Biden’s policies towards Gaza, which for months emphasized conflict containment over conflict mitigation or resolution.

This misguided approach indirectly implicated Washington in numerous Israeli outrages and alleged war crimes, which damaged American regional interests and global reputation. That has changed over time, because of growing administration concern that Israel was going too far for US interests.

Such outrage is justifiable. The Biden administration adopted a rational but amoral policy that essentially accepted unacceptable levels of civilian death and suffering in Gaza in order to achieve the strategic goal of preventing conflict from spreading, particularly into Lebanon, thereby possibly dragging the US and Iran into a widespread regional war.

This op-ed was published by The National on June 30, 2024

But Mr. Trump has made it clear that he would go further in supporting Israeli attacks in Gaza; he has demonstrated that he views the very term “Palestinian” as a potent slur to smear adversaries; and that he still intends to prevent as many nationals of Muslim-majority countries as possible from entering the US.

Mr. Biden’s Gaza policy was misguided and remains certainly objectionable. His wretched performance at the “debate” raises significant doubts about his acuity. But Arab and Muslim Americans can only help Mr. Trump by voting for him or a third-party candidate, or just staying home in November, because of the mistaken conclusion that Mr. Biden is not preferable in any meaningful way.

Given their obvious, well-founded and near-consensus perspectives, Arab and Muslim Americans, in fact, have no rational choice but to do their best to prevent a second term for a man who thinks calling someone “Palestinian” is one of the worst insults he can muster these days.

Biden must drop out of the race before it’s too late

This op-ed was published by The National on June 28, 2024

It was an unprecedented fiasco. US president Joe Biden‘s re-election candidacy crashed and burned spectacularly at the debate against former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. On policy, Mr. Biden had the better of the conversation, such as it was, but on style he failed miserably. He came across as bumbling and often confused.

I warned on these pages that style would outweigh substance. Mr. Trump had a far better night on style, seeming confident and controlled. He avoided outrageous outbursts. He contained himself emotionally, which was his main task. Mr. Biden, by contrast, had a meltdown on his primary assignment, which was to reassure Americans that he is capable, focused, engaged, mentally acute and ready to continue in this highly challenging job.

On substance, Mr. Trump was dreadful. He mainly relied on outrageous falsehoods, claiming credit for accomplishments, like job growth and deficit reduction, that were in fact secured by Mr. Biden.

He occasionally displayed bouts of excessive nastiness, but between the disgracefully disengaged moderators and Mr. Biden’s misguided effort to remain “presidential”, he faced remarkably few provocations.

Mystifyingly, Mr Biden barely mentioned Mr Trump’s criminal record, and no one seriously interrogated his status as an adjudicated sexual abuser and serial fraudster. He also astonishingly failed to mention strengthening NATO by adding Finland and Sweden despite Hungarian and Turkish recalcitrance.

Mr Biden had some strong moments, observing that Mr Trump has the “morals of an alley cat,” and is a “whiner” who can’t accept a legitimate defeat. Mr Trump’s performance had extremely serious flaws, including his predictable refusal to commit to respecting the election outcome and dodging questions on issues such as childcare and climate change.

The “debate” degenerated into farce during a preposterous argument about golf. But Mr Trump came closer to laying out a vision for a second term. The president’s misguided insistence on rising above Mr Trump’s sordid criminality and adjudicated abuses should at least have facilitated a laser-like focus on how he proposes to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. He wretchedly failed to do either effectively.

Mr. Biden displayed surprising and impressive vigor during March’s State of the Union address when he was robust, forceful and at his best as he sparred extemporaneously with Republican hecklers. Last night, he seemed a different person altogether.

Democrats have been insisting that behind closed doors he seems fine. Obviously, those who reported that he has “good days and bad days”, typically said of someone who’s fundamentally unwell, were telling the truth. That fact is now on full display because of the contrast between the two performances. And it’s likely catastrophic for his chances.

The administration insiders who have been insisting Mr. Biden is sharp and focused have much to answer for. What, after all, are the chances that the bumbling and confused president of the debate never exhibited those characteristics before?

I greatly admire Mr. Biden. In my assessment, he has headed the most successful presidency in my adult lifetime, despite some obvious blunders — worst of all his failure to clearly explain his administration’s wise preference for job salvation and growth over low inflation. And he adopted a badly misguided policy towards the Israeli rampage in Gaza, which for many months emphasized conflict containment. It was more an amoral rather than an immoral policy, but it has damaged American interests by implicating the country in obviously indefensible levels of killing and mayhem inflicted on Palestinian civilians.

Arab and Muslim Americans should note, though, that Mr. Trump called Mr. Biden “a bad Palestinian” as an attempted insult. It was clear he didn’t mean the US president should be a better Palestinian, but rather that being Palestinian is simply a terrible thing. But Mr. Trump’s deep-seated racism is not news, and for part of his base it’s actually a selling point.

Yet, taken as a whole and on a relative basis, I assess Mr. Biden’s presidency as remarkably effective and positive. Therefore, it is extremely painful for me to confront the fact that he’s apparently no longer a plausible candidate for the job – except in contrast to his felonious and profoundly narcissistic opponent.

It’s simply unreasonable to ask the American people to choose someone who is no longer up to the task simply to avoid giving the presidency back to a thoroughly bad person.

Those of us who fear the consequences of a second Trump term must accept now that Mr. Biden should immediately retire and give his party a chance to either elevate the vice president as their standard-bearer or, more wisely, find a way to tap into the deep and talented Democratic Party bench around the country. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is an obvious and appealing option, but there are many other plausible alternatives.

Some pundits are insisting it’s impossible for Democrats to change their ticket at this stage. But it obviously isn’t; a candidate can suddenly retire for health-related reasons. If a presumptive candidate were to suddenly pass away, there are mechanisms for addressing that. Given that his candidacy is probably now so implausible, it amounts to the same thing politically.

Democrats are panicking, shocked to discover their leader is too old, if not in years then in focus and acuity. The US president’s main role is that of a chief executive who primarily must appoint the right people. In general, Mr. Biden has done that and could continue to. But too much individual power and decision-making is vested in the office to confidently give it to someone who suffers from so much evident, even if intermittent, mental fog.

Democrats can and should find a new candidate. It is by no means too late. But it’s up to Mr. Biden. If he truly loves his country and believes it’s imperative to stop Mr. Trump’s re-election in order to protect the US democratic and constitutional order – a very reasonable evaluation – he must face the music and step aside, not as President but as the Democratic candidate, without much delay.

If the Democrats stick with Mr. Biden, he could certainly still win, just as Mr Trump survived the disgusting 2016 Access Hollywood video, in which he boasted about grabbing women by their genitalia. But such a gamble would be unconscionable, given that Mr. Trump genuinely poses a significant threat to the US constitutional order.

Mr. Biden must get out of this race as soon as possible.

This week’s Biden-Trump presidential debate could be the most significant in US history

This op-ed was published by The National on June 25, 2024

The American commentariat is virtually unanimous that Thursday night’s first presidential election debate between US President Joe Biden and former president and convicted felon Donald Trump is potentially the most significant since the very first one held in 1960 between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

While these candidates are extremely well known to the public, both require a breakthrough moment in what has been a remarkably steady and even campaign. But if neither achieves a noteworthy success, or falls into one of the pitfalls yawning before them, it’s also possible that nothing will happen to significantly shift this race.

There are several unique characteristics to this week’s debate.

It will be the first between a sitting president and a former incumbent. It’s the first in decades to be handled purely by a single news organization, CNN, rather than an independent national commission (which Trump has refused to work with). And it involves by far the oldest presumptive presidential candidates (both will be formally anointed at their party conventions next month) who are well over 75 (Mr. Biden is 81 and Trump is 78). It’s also the earliest debate in any presidential election campaign, because Mr. Biden is an essentially unchallenged incumbent and Trump was able to secure his party leadership with no effective opposition.

The campaign is now in full swing, even though the conventions lie ahead, and in the run-up, Trump held a narrow lead nationally and in crucial swing states. However, as the campaign has gained pace and, especially, after Trump’s conviction on all 34 felony counts in the Manhattan adult film star hush money trial, Mr. Biden has gained noticeable ground, and is now leading very narrowly in the most recent polls.

But the campaign remains balanced on a knife edge. Neither candidate has clearly developed a winning coalition or decisive edge over the other, and both will be looking for a breakthrough moment of some sort.

Trump, in particular, needs that. Despite his continued popularity among Republicans and gains among non-college educated African-American and Latino males, the momentum, such as it is, appears to be with the President, who also enjoys the distinct advantage of incumbency. But Trump, too, is running as a kind of incumbent, and the outcome probably boils down to which of the two unpopular and uninspiring men proves to be the dominant focus of attention.

A de facto referendum on either candidate probably secures victory for the other.

It’s no mystery that both candidates need to overcome negative assumptions about themselves. American voters are rarely moved by policy arguments, but rather respond to atmospherics, general impressions, likability and respectability. On both counts, each man must, above all, avoid pitfalls.

Republicans have painted the President, who is undoubtedly showing his age, as senile and incompetent. If Mr. Biden can repeat his performance at the State of the Union address in January, in which he looked engaged, fully competent and even sprightly, especially during rhetorical sparring with Republicans, he will probably have had a good night. It’s imperative that he does not come across as confused or bewildered, although voters may be patient with some rhetorical stumbling.

Trump, by contrast, will have to control himself. He is more given to extreme rhetorical outbursts and excesses of outrage than he already was in the past, and if he comes across as overly aggressive, boorish and obnoxious – as he did in his debates with Mr. Biden four years ago – he could sustain considerable damage.

If, on the other hand, he is able to remain calm and controlled – and especially refuses to rise to the bait that Mr. Biden certainly should be judiciously throwing at him or bristle at uncomfortable questions from the moderators – he could reassure voters that he’s not as unhinged as he often appears these days. He must also avoid the strange rambling that he appears to be increasingly given to at both public and, as widely reported, private appearances.

The President will need to goad his opponent without unduly mocking or appearing to cynically provoke him. The former president must absorb these taunts, and incontrovertible facts such as his status as a convicted criminal, without appearing to lose control of his emotions or respond with transparently crude and preposterous lies.

Trump continues to run as an outsider, even though he’s commanded a major party for almost a decade and served as president for four years. That presents him with the opportunity to continue to challenge the system, but if he appears ready to run roughshod over it or dismiss the Constitution when convenient, he will confirm many of the worst fears about his political evolution. Mr. Biden, by contrast, will have to defend the constitutional system without seeming to apologize for structures that unduly advantage the few over the many.

The debate provides a golden opportunity for the President to keep harping on a few key facts that can refute widespread misapprehensions that the economy under his leadership is in a recession (in fact, by most measures, it is exceptionally robust), or that crime is at unknown and rising highs (in the main, it isn’t).

Trump has the opportunity to reinforce the nostalgia many voters appear to feel about his presidency and avoid being stung by reminders of the failures, particularly during the worst year of the Covid-19 pandemic, that contributed heavily to his defeat four years ago. And he’s certainly going to have to resist relitigating the 2020 election or harping on conspiracy theories that few swing voters believe and fewer still consider relevant to the next four years.

But most of all, both men must avoid significantly reinforcing the stereotypes that haunt them: that Mr. Biden is a virtually senile servant of an unjust status quo, and that Trump is a mentally unstable would-be authoritarian.

Atmospherics and general impressions will be key. If either man strongly reinforces these impressions, it could be disastrous. But if both avoid the pitfalls, little may change. Nonetheless, this has all the makings of one of the most consequential presidential debates in US history.

Anyone interested in US politics must watch it carefully. But remember: style will prevail over substance, and general impressions or breakthrough moments will, as always, carry the day.

The dishonest spectacle of Trump being interviewed by Dr. Phil

This op-ed was published by The National on June 14, 2024

Former president and convicted felon Donald Trump got a surprise boost in a strange and fawning interview with TV psychologist Phillip McGraw. Dr Phil had a very popular and long-running network TV show that recently moved to his own fledgling channel. He did his best to help Mr. Trump spread conspiracy theories to soften the blow of his recent 34 felony count conviction in New York and promote distrust of the judicial system.

The TV psychologist sagely shook his head as the former president vented against the endless conspiracies that “they” have launched against him from the beginning of his political career. Dr McGraw never challenged Mr. Trump’s falsehoods. Indeed, he endorsed many of the worst of them either through obvious body language or open agreement.

Dr McGraw floated a bizarre legal theory that it was improper for Mr. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to testify because he had taken a plea deal in a prosecution on separate charges arising from the same payoff to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He suggested that there was something unusual about those who have already pled guilty testifying against those who allegedly caused them to break the law.

Such testimonies, are however, a cornerstone of American law enforcement against unlawful conspiracies, particularly organized crime, and above all the Mafia. It’s normal and typical. Yet Dr McGraw claimed such testimony is unduly prejudicial to the defendant. In so doing, he’s condemning many hundreds of the most important organized crime and racketeering prosecutions over the past century.

Even more telling was what Dr McGraw didn’t ask Mr. Trump. He developed a reputation as a no-nonsense TV host who would not allow guests to obfuscate by denying the written record of a case, such as police reports and, especially, jury verdicts, with vapid and groundless conspiratorial denials.

But that’s exactly what he allowed Mr. Trump to do, and encouraged his viewers to accept the former president’s baseless claims that US President Joe Biden and the Justice Department secretly control state-level prosecutions like the one in Manhattan in which Mr. Trump was recently convicted.

In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Biden, attorney general Merrick Garland, or anybody else in Washington played any role in the Manhattan case, or had any communication with the prosecutors. Instead, district attorney Alvin Bragg was authorized to bring the case forward by a grand jury, and Mr. Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers on all 34 counts in less than two days of deliberations.

Clearly, the jury believed that Mr. Trump had a sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels, as she testified. Dr McGraw asked Mr. Trump how he felt about being persecuted, but never asked him how he felt about having cheated on his wife when she was pregnant with their child, or whether he had any regrets about the affair or the hush money payoff. Apparently that was of no interest, psychologically or socially.

Worse, he allowed Mr. Trump to insist that he had “never met” E Jean Carroll, even though two separate juries decided in civil suits that he was culpable of abuse against her, which a federal judge later ruled constituted “rape” in the commonly understood definition of the term, and that he had twice defamed her. None of that seems to have been relevant to Dr McGraw, who nodded sympathetically when Mr. Trump insisted he had “never met this woman,” despite at least one photograph of the two of them together, not to mention the outcome of the two civil suits.

In his now-defunct TV show, Dr McGraw never tired of boasting that he had spent most of his career working within the legal system as a “forensic psychologist,” specializing in jury selection. So he knows better than to pretend that these convictions and civil rulings don’t matter or are extraordinarily tainted.

And the recent conviction of Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on paperwork-related charges regarding a gun purchase, demonstrated the absurdity of claiming that the Biden Justice Department or the courts are instruments of the President’s will. Instead it shows that prosecutions and convictions are proceeding according to law, and not personal or political corruption.

In his transition away from his TV show, Dr. McGraw began to spread his media wings by starting a podcast that began with a multi-part series on pathological narcissism. Much, and arguably most, of what he described appears precisely illustrated by Mr. Trump’s public behavior, and Dr McGraw is no doubt aware of that. Ignoring this and instead allowing his audience to buy into Mr. Trump’s self-serving lies and distortions about his political travails (including demonstrably false claims about a “stolen election” in 2020) and legal crises does a cynical disservice to his audience.

But Dr. McGraw is familiar with strategic dissembling. One of the hallmarks of his show was the constant and adoring presence of his wife, Robin, and never-ending references to their decades of wedded bliss. His show would routinely reserve the last quarter hour to infomercials about her latest skincare or other products aimed at his largely female audience.

Unmentioned to the point of deception was that Robin is Dr Phil’s second wife, and that his first marriage to Debbie Higgins McCall ended with her divorcing him for alleged infidelity. But, to his largely female TV fanbase, he was the ideal husband of the adoring Robin, with the couple typically walking offstage hand-in-hand at the end of each episode.

Dr McGraw didn’t afford quite that level of affection to Mr. Trump, but he not only never challenged him with the facts adjudicated in several recent cases that the former president had an affair with an adult movie star while his wife was pregnant, that he sexually abused and defamed a noted columnist, and has been a serial fraudster and tax evader.

Instead, Dr McGraw endorsed, either overtly or implicitly, Mr. Trump’s baseless and paranoid conspiracy theories about being unfairly persecuted, and buttressed that with misinterpretations of the rules of evidence and standards of prejudicial material in order to suggest that Mr. Trump’s recent conviction was somehow tainted.

The two former television celebrities bonded so tightly over conspiratorial and legally unsound theories that it’s likely to be one of Mr. Trump’s most supportive media appearances between now and the election. But recent polls show Mr. Biden already drawing even with him, rather sooner than I would’ve expected, and it’s hard to see momentum shifting back to the former president. To win, Mr. Trump is going to need a lot more than this kind of intellectually and psychologically dishonest boost from the likes of Dr Phil.

Netanyahu fighting Biden’s plan to end the war bodes ill for the ‘special relationship’

This op-ed was published by The National on June 5, 2024

In a dramatic news conference last week, US President Joe Biden outlined “an Israeli peace proposal” to end the war in Gaza. But the speech didn’t add up.

The plea for acceptance of the “Israeli peace proposal” was, bizarrely, aimed mainly at Israelis. As he spoke, it became apparent the proposal was not Israeli, but his own, albeit marketed by Mr. Biden as “Israeli” to pressure its government to agree to what he was craftily branding as its own idea.

Mr. Biden appealed to ordinary and elite Israelis for help. “I know there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely,” Mr. Biden stated, adding that “some are even in the government coalition”. This invited casual observers to assume he was referring to Jewish supremacists such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“The people of Israel should know they can make this offer without any further risk to their own security,” with the operative word being “can”. In effect, he means that Israelis could and should “make this offer”, although they haven’t.

Anyone reading between the lines could immediately see that Mr. Biden was attempting to enlist the support of the Israeli public, particularly the huge percentage that favors a negotiated agreement with Hamas to retrieve hostages over an indefinite continuation of the quixotic and even absurd effort to secure the complete destruction of that organization.

He was also attempting to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu every opportunity of siding with Washington, at least in public, and blame any categorical opposition on his radical cabinet colleagues. Mr. Netanyahu, however, declined to co-operate.

His public responses, which stressed that the war must continue until an undefined and unachievable “defeat” of Hamas, amounted to an obvious and categorical “no” to what Mr. Biden had presented as an Israeli proposal. Mr. Biden’s plan envisages three loosely defined phases, leading from a phase 1 ceasefire and mutual release of captives to a phase 2 permanent cessation of hostilities followed by a phase 3 reconstruction in Gaza and establishment of a new post-conflict order there, which he did not describe.

Mr. Biden also said that if talks over phase 2 had not concluded in the six weeks allotted for phase 1 negotiations over phase 2, talks and the ceasefire would continue as long as all parties were abiding by phase 1 commitments. Neither side, therefore, would be able to simply pocket the gains from phase 1 and reinitiate conflict, willy-nilly, because they’re not interested in phase 2, most notably permanent cessation of hostilities, meaning an end to the war under the conditions that effectively exist whenever such an agreement is reached.

By insisting that the war must continue until additional unspecified, undefined and probably undefinable military and political goals are achieved, Mr. Netanyahu was categorically rejecting the logic of the three-phase plan and the American position that the goal is to permanently stop the fighting.

Mr. Biden concluded his remarks by bluntly saying, “it’s time for this war to end and for the day after to begin”. Mr. Netanyahu’s response was unmistakable, albeit slightly less explicit, amounting to “this is no time for this war to end”. He didn’t put it that way, but by insisting that Israel has a good deal more fighting to do and leaving the scope, aim and timetable of additional hostilities completely undefined, he only added to the impression that he would prefer to see this war go on, perhaps, as Mr. Biden said, indefinitely.

Hamas leaders understood this dichotomy immediately, and played on it, saying that they would accept the proposal as long as Israel “agreed to end the war”. Their intention is obvious: to exploit and exacerbate the split between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu and, indeed, between the US and Israel in general, over the continuation and purpose of the war. However, Hamas leaders in Gaza almost certainly also want the war, which they apparently believe is going according to plan, to continue indefinitely. The insurgency and “permanent state of war” they intended all along has already begun in Gaza city and elsewhere, after all.

Mr. Netanyahu tried to manage the latest crisis with Washington caused by his intransigence by saying he is open to phase 1, which includes a 42-day pause in fighting in exchange for return of many remaining hostages. But he insisted that Mr. Biden had not presented “the whole picture” in his speech. Once again, however, it was clear that he did not embrace the logic of Mr. Biden’s three-phase plan or his goal of securing an end to the war.

Mr. Netanyahu not only effectively rejected Mr. Biden’s proposal, he also batted aside the opportunity to blame his extremist coalition partners for the Israeli refusal to co-operate, welcoming the opportunity to play that role himself. However, Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvir refused to allow him to monopolize Israeli hawkishness, threatening to leave and bring down the government if it ever agreed to what both of them separately described as a “surrender”.

Mr. Biden and his administration will continue to pressure Mr. Netanyahu, the entire Israeli leadership and even the Israeli public to get behind this proposal that he unconvincingly claims was their own offer, but his chances look decidedly slim.

Mr. Netanyahu has clearly decided that the best way to stay out of prison, given that he is facing serious corruption charges in an ongoing trial, is to stay in office, and the best way to remain in power is to continue the war into the foreseeable future. Mr. Biden implied as much in a recent interview with TIME magazine. And Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to risk losing his coalition and face incarceration just to please Washington.

The rift between the Israeli government and Mr. Biden, and indeed between Israel and the US, over Gaza – not to mention a possible invasion of Lebanon and the necessity of creating a Palestinian state – appears to be widening at every phase.

This is not, as I’ve noted on these pages before, an ordinary rift in the US-Israeli partnership. It has, instead, all the makings of the beginning of the end of the “special relationship” that has existed between the two countries since the late 1960s. And, as things stand, it’s only likely to get worse over time.

The verdict on Trump is in, but the jury is still out on Biden and the election

This op-ed was published by The National on June 1, 2024

After decades of carefully skirting lawlessness in his business, political and “romantic” affairs, Donald Trump has finally been held to account by the US legal system. Mr. Trump was found guilty in the adult film star hush money case in Manhattan, making him the first former president to be an adjudicated felon. But the impact on the 2024 election is unclear.

Mr. Trump was condemned by a jury of his peers in the city that knows him best. He was strikingly convicted on all 34 counts after only two days of deliberations. It’s a decisive legal defeat, though each of his other three pending criminal cases – the purloined top-secret documents case in Florida, and the federal and Georgia state prosecutions over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election – are far more serious both legally and politically.

It is still possible that the federal anti-democracy plot case could go to trial before the election, but the Supreme Court is dragging its feet on a simple and unnecessary ruling upholding a lower appellate court finding that, obviously, former presidents are not immune from criminal prosecutions.

Both the Trump campaign and that of his presumptive opponent, US President Joe Biden, issued statements agreeing that the historic conviction won’t have much impact on the campaign or the election. Both have vowed to continue as planned. But, although both sides are likely to indeed persist with their existing strategies, the guilty verdict in fact could have a huge impact on the outcome.

Mr. Trump’s team and supporters are breathlessly insisting the convictions actually help his chances in November. They point to a potential fundraising surge, just as occurred when he was indicted in Georgia. That could well happen, and one of his key fundraising websites crashed immediately after the verdict, possibly because, as the campaign claims, it was overwhelmed by small dollar donations from his base.

Yet this is almost certainly empty bluster. His core supporters won’t care that he is now a convicted felon, as well as an adjudicated sexual abuser, defamer, fraudster and tax cheat, as determined by other recent civil cases. And they would have the same reaction to convictions in any of the other cases. The same applies to the disgraceful response by most elected Republicans who have rallied to his defence and condemned the process as “entirely political” and utterly illegitimate. There is nothing, apparently, whatsoever, that would shake the dedication of his party to its dear leader.

But the fact that the core of the Republican Party has become something of a personality cult does not mean that the relatively small number of uncommitted voters in swing states share this bizarre blind allegiance. They may well find this conviction, and the despicable reaction of Trump and other leading Republicans in attacking the US judicial system to be the last straw.

Mr Biden is unpopular. And many Americans insist that the country is in an economic recession when, in fact, it is economically robust and they report that their own finances are doing well. Many also believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high rather than the actual 50-year low. Some of this is because of relatively high inflation and interest rates, meaning that the cost of borrowing and keeping money is high. But it is also the result of persistent and shameless propaganda by right wing media that have pushed narratives about crime and economic rates that have been highly misleading, to put it charitably.

But Mr Trump appears to be even more unpopular, and that will only be exacerbated by these criminal convictions. Mr Trump’s reaction, lashing out not merely at the prosecutors but at the jury, the judge and the legal system as a whole, is characterised by the kind of unpatriotic and, let’s face it, downright anti-American outbursts that won’t help him with the swing voters he must win over.

Because both men are distinctly unpopular and are effectively both incumbents running for second presidential terms, the election probably boils down to a simple formula. If it is a referendum on the president, as a re-election campaign normally would be, Mr Biden is likely to lose. But, if it is instead a referendum on Mr Trump, then it is the former president who has chance of prevailing. The criminal convictions as well as earlier devastating civil judgments only underscore that reality.

Mr Biden’s campaign will not only focus on making the case about his own presidency and plans for the next four years. It will goad and provoke Mr Trump, and sit back and watch him expertly make the case against himself. Age, his party’s seemingly endless adoration and the recent pseudo-monarchical trappings of the presidency have all combined to increase his arrogance, raging narcissism and shocking inability at self-control.

Unless Mr Trump’s rhetoric and personal behaviour suddenly moderate, his potential for creeping self-destruction as the campaign moves along is enormous. And his own fixation on himself, his endless grievances and his antipathy for all existing American institutions, now focused on the judicial system as a whole, may make it impossible for him to shift the focus onto Mr Biden.

The candidates have agreed to two debates, but it was always questionable whether Mr Trump would ultimately show up for them. That potential evasion is now even more plausible, since Mr Biden could and certainly should hammer on the point that only one of the two candidates on the stage is a convicted felon, as well as an adjudicated sexual abuser and fraudster.

Mr Trump still retains a huge amount of public support and has been leading by small margins in most polls of swing states. Polling data in the next few weeks, as the impact of the criminal convictions is measured, will be very significant.

But the campaigns are both right that this probably will not be determinative. Neither side has yet found a key breakthrough moment that creates decisive momentum and forms a winning coalition.

But the bottom line is that Mr Trump’s conviction cannot possibly be a positive for him in winning back the presidency. It is, at the very least, a serious blow. And while, on its own, it may not guarantee Mr Biden another term, it could well be a key part of an overall message about Mr Trump’s fitness for office that ultimately secures victory for the Democrat.

Biden’s mapping a different route to the White House this time

This op-ed was published by The National on May 30, 2024

In a huge change from his strategy in 2020, US President Joe Biden is running to hold the political center and even attempt to pick off disaffected parts of the political right.

He is seeking a strikingly different winning coalition than four years ago. Then, as now, he presented himself as the “normal” and “sane” candidate running against an opponent he depicted as distinctly outside of the normative spectrum of all American political traditions and as of questionable emotional stability. He may find it easier to depict former president Donald Trump as eccentric and, in his own words, a would be dictator, if only, as he vowed, “on the first day.”

In 2020, Mr. Biden ran on uniting the Democratic Party, working hard to court the progressive left. This time he’s casting himself as preventing the Democratic Party from falling into the grip of the far left, which may have overplayed its hand with much of the US electorate.

He isn’t repudiating the left, but appears to be essentially telling them to take it or leave it, relying on a dramatic contrast with Mr. Trump. That’s likely to become clearer and starker as the campaign progresses.

Mr. Trump and his backers are proposing a range of extraordinarily radical new policies, including the unprecedented mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers.

Right-wing think tanks are planning radical policy shifts, including a thoroughgoing purge of the federal administrative workforce, replacing tens of thousands of civil servants with handpicked ideological replacements.

The purpose would not merely be to seize control of the apparatus of government into the indefinite future, but more immediately to conduct a vast rollback of regulatory administration by the federal government that has insured compliance with environmental, health and safety, diversity and inclusion, and other public interest standards developed over the past half century.

Mr. Trump has reportedly been courting millions in de facto campaign contributions from super wealthy donors, promising additional tax cuts and de-regulation. He has even been asking donors to specify precisely what regulations they find most irksome to their business interests, linking major donations to specific attempted administrative rollbacks.

Mr. Trump will counter attack against a left-wing cultural agenda that has alienated many ordinary white Americans, though Mr. Biden will cast himself as an effective force of attenuation and containment. Even more important will be the Republican emphasis on immigration and the economic, ethnic and racial anxieties it often represents.

Mr. Biden will counter that, to the chagrin of many progressives, under his leadership Democrats in Congress voted for immigration legislation that amounted to a Republican wish list but that was rejected, at Mr. Trump’s insistence, by House Republicans who refused to take yes for an answer. The legislation contained no aspect of the liberal immigration agenda.

Mr. Biden will certainly argue that Mr. Trump cherishes the crisis at the southern border as a political issue, but wants nothing to do with a solution.

And Mr. Biden has been handed a tremendously powerful issue by the US Supreme Court. The wholesale attack on reproductive freedom, in vitro fertilization and even contraception in Republican-dominated states, even extending to efforts to limit free speech and the freedom of movement within the country, could prove to be Mr. Biden’s most powerful issue.

Realizing this, Mr. Trump has moderated his own stance on the matter and now backs a nationwide 15-week standard, after which states would be free to impose strict and even total restrictions. But Mr. Biden is far closer to the national mood, which opposes the Republican commitment to draconian limitations.

The issue of reproductive rights has not proved a short-lived source of backlash. To the contrary, in every election in which it has been a major feature, even in the most right-wing constituencies, anti-abortion candidates have lost to those favoring protecting reproductive rights.

Mr. Biden will be hoping for a massive turnout by Americans, especially women, appalled at the once-Trump-inspired turn towards totalizing restrictions and the drive among many Republicans for a national ban on all pregnancy terminations, often with no restrictions for rape and incest, even among children.

Unlike in the past where a Democratic push for greater reproductive freedom was essentially a liberal or even left-wing agenda, in this case Mr. Biden will be appealing to the broad center he is targeting.

Should Mr. Trump be convicted, as seems entirely plausible, of a major felony in the adult film star hush money case, Mr. Biden would have further opportunities to make inroads beyond the center and into the political right. He could at least persuade Republicans who cannot countenance voting for a convicted felon to stay home if not hold their noses and vote for the Democrat.

Mr Biden may feel that much of the progressive left simply cannot be won over on the merits. His strong support for Israel‘s war of vengeance in Gaza, only recently involving clear limitations and sharp, albeit limited, criticism, is an obvious example. Nonetheless, the President can point to an impressive record of liberal legislative and executive order domestic accomplishments.

Americans will ultimately have to choose between two candidates representing very different visions. Mr. Biden will be running as the embodiment of the Constitution and traditional political order, whereas Mr. Trump has displayed an open hostility to national norms and traditions, particularly with his vow to be a dictator, albeit only, he says, for the first day. But many Americans will realize that this authoritarian first day can extend itself indefinitely if the goals it is supposed to accomplish are not secured in 24 hours, as seems virtually inevitable.

So the President is gambling that many otherwise alienated progressives will, eventually, feel impelled to support him no matter how reluctantly, and that he has a real shot of not only holding the political center but also convincing many disenchanted Republicans to break ranks for once in order to preserve the constitutional order, or at least stay home rather than voting for a convicted felon.

That’s a very different course of action from 2020. Given the increasingly radical politics and unstable personality of his opponent, it may yet prove to be a wise gamble.

The US is in a bind over the ICC seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas officials

This op-ed was published by The National on May 21, 2024

The application by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan for major indictments against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant could constitute a significant step in international jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But it has also drawn the ire of the Joe Biden administration in Washington, for two reasons. First, the US has always rejected the very concept of the ICC (fearing the potential prosecution of its own military and civilian officials); and second, it exposes significant weaknesses and contradictions in the President’s policies. The Prosecutor’s brief was remarkably well-balanced, fact-based, compelling and impartial.

It laid out clear grounds for the international criminal indictment of both Hamas and Israeli leaders. Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas would be charged with authoring, organizing and overseeing murder and kidnapping against Israeli civilians. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant would be accused of using starvation of civilians as a matter of policy and, therefore, a weapon of war.

All five appear manifestly guilty of these transgressions, and the key point of Mr Khan is that it makes absolutely no moral or legal sense to hold one party accountable for its lawless brutality, but not the other. Through this symmetry, or balance, Mr Khan has revealed precisely the bleeding heart of the tragedy.

Hamas led an attack into southern Israel that involved hunting down, killing and kidnapping innocent civilians in kibbutzim and a nearby music festival. It was a bloodthirsty killing spree. Armed struggle against military occupation does not exempt insurgent groups from the laws of war. Fighting occupation doesn’t allow anyone to murder and kidnap civilians.

Israel responded with what Mr Netanyahu promised on October 7 “a mighty vengeance”. That’s practically the only thing that’s happened. Israel hasn’t achieved any other stated aims, such as eradicating Hamas, freeing hostages or restoring security for its public.

Instead, it has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in addition to an untold number still buried under the rubble. Several entities – including South Africa in an application to the International Court of Justice (which has jurisdiction over states, while the ICC has jurisdiction over individuals) – have accused Israel of genocide for this mind-boggling death toll.

Yet genocide charges will take years to adjudicate and hang on a difficult claim to prove, namely intent.

Where Israeli leaders are most vulnerable is the systematic denial of food, water, medicine and other essentials to the Palestinian population, which it has driven from one part of the Gaza Strip to another, willy-nilly, as its military has rampaged through the territory often shooting anything that moves, including escaping Israeli hostages, journalists and humanitarian aid workers. Israel’s de facto blockade has strangled Gaza, creating a man-made famine in the north, and a dire situation everywhere.

The biggest problem for Mr Biden is the manifest truth of the accusation. He dismisses it at his peril, especially because he implicitly made the same point about Israel using food as a weapon of war during his own State of the Union address in January. His professed outrage is both a reflection of traditional, yet indefensible, US policies and entirely political.

The problem for Mr Biden is not just that he knows about the horrendous impact of Israel’s blockade. It is also that his own government has documented it and has, therefore, built a maritime port to try to get aid to the Palestinians despite Israel’s vicious recalcitrance. The killing of the World Central Kitchen’s aid workers was almost certainly another manifestation of Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war, and a clear message not to interfere with that too brazenly.

The Biden administration is further aware that every time Israel negotiates indirectly with Hamas, the question of humanitarian aid – including food and medicine – is on the table. Indeed, humanitarian supplies to Palestinian civilians are a counterpart to the issue of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, in the negotiations between belligerents. Yet Mr Biden cannot acknowledge this without breaking long-standing American traditions of opposing any ICC charges against allies, taking a huge political risk, and betraying his own sentimental pro-Israel instincts.

It’s much easier just to denounce the whole thing. At the same time, his administration doesn’t seem to have any objection to potential charges against equally manifestly guilty Hamas leaders. That suggests the ICC can reasonably assert jurisdiction over some belligerents but not others.

Worse, the proposed ICC action is based on the fact that all of this has occurred in, or coming out of, “the state of Palestine”, in its capacity as a non-member observer state in the UN General Assembly. Israel, like the US, isn’t a party to the ICC, but the state of Palestine is, and that should certainly give the court jurisdiction over everything that has happened in Gaza and coming out of it.

The greatest complication is that the Biden administration has based its Middle East foreign policy strategy and vision on securing Israeli acquiescence to the right of Palestinians to a state (which Israel has never formally acknowledged), and on Israeli agreement to enter into a process to eventually establish and recognise that state. Insisting that Israelis cannot be held responsible for what they do in the nascent Palestinian state effectively negates the principle of the two-state solution, even if that state now operates mainly as a prototype in multilateral institutions.

Holding Hamas leaders accountable for their brutality is just fine, apparently, but Palestinians must wait until they get their state from Israel before they can be protected from Israeli war crimes in areas that would undoubtedly become a key part of that indispensable and necessary state? That’s the preposterous moral and legal position implicit in the Biden administration’s harsh derision of Mr Khan’s arrest warrant request.

That’s too convoluted, contradictory and contorted a position to hold up in anything but empty campaign rhetoric and as miserable humbug. It won’t do, because it only adds to the humiliation and degradation already inflicted by excessive support for Israel’s intentional yet apparently aimless rampage of vengeance in Gaza upon Washington’s international standing and strategic position globally, and especially in the Middle East.

It’s a moral low point in an already sorry American saga.

Does Trump’s candidacy hinge on the verdict of his hush money trial?

This op-ed was published by The National on May 8, 2024

The Manhattan trial of former president Donald Trump in the hush-money case is probably the most significant political drama currently playing out in the US, with both sides hoping that it will have a significant impact on the November presidential election in their favor.

It’s a high-risk, high-benefit scenario for Democrats and Republicans alike. The outcome of the election isn’t riding on the verdict of the trial, or even its overall impact on the national atmosphere, but, by the time the judgment is rendered, one side or the other is likely to sustain a serious political hit.

Standing trial for alleged criminally unlawful campaign contributions in the form of hush money payments to an adult film star who claims to have had a sexual relationship with him would sink any normal candidate instantly. But Mr. Trump is no normal candidate. Among his adoring base and within the broader Republican Party, in which they have enormous and outsize influence, he is practically beyond criticism.

But not quite. The future of Mr. Trump’s candidacy could well hinge upon the verdict, because a significant percentage of Republicans have reported to pollsters that they would not be prepared to vote for him or any other candidate who has been convicted of a serious felony. Many of these are no doubt among the 20-40 per cent of Republican primary voters who favored former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, even after she formally dropped out of the race.

So, if Mr. Trump is convicted of cooking the books to conceal politically motivated payments to Stormy Daniels, as she is known in the adult film industry, that alone could sink Mr. Trump’s chances. There are fewer Republicans than there are Democrats in the US, although Democrats are inefficiently concentrated in high-population cities and coastal states, whereas Republicans are efficiently spread out across lower-density suburban and rural areas, thereby considerably strengthening the power of their votes in the US federal system.

In the 2016 US election, Mr. Trump was soundly defeated by Hillary Clinton, who had three million more of the popular vote, but he won a clear victory based on the demographic diffusion of his supporters in the electoral college. Mr. Biden scored a relatively narrow victory in the electoral college in 2020, despite a decisive seven-million margin in the popular vote. Nobody believes Mr. Trump has any chance of winning a popular majority in November, but many hope or fear that this quirk of the US system could nonetheless return him to the White House.

But obviously he cannot afford to lose many Republicans by being convicted. And despite his protestations that he’s being persecuted, being on trial for corruption due to an alleged affair, which Mr. Trump still denies but almost everyone else has accepted almost certainly took place, is not a good look among the relatively small group of swing voters – disproportionately women – who could determine the election result.

Worse, the evidence against him presented thus far is far stronger than many anticipated. The prosecution appears to have been able to demonstrate the depth of the plot to interfere with the election by ensuring voters never heard Ms Daniels’ story and to then unlawfully conceal the payment.

Many witnesses have testified that Mr Trump was clearly focused on the election rather than his broader reputation or the feelings of his wife and family. Indeed, several of those who were paid to sign non-disclosure agreements regarding such accusations were released from their obligations a mere two months after the 2016 election was concluded, which is only one of many established facts that seem to demonstrate this was indeed all about deceiving the voters.

But there are several potential silver linings for the former president. All he needs to do is to convince a single juror that the prosecution has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt to achieve a hung jury. If he’s not convicted, even with just one juror being a holdout, Mr. Trump will complain endlessly about a supposedly corrupt prosecution having been exposed as a tissue of lies and so on. Such an outcome could be sufficient vindication to give his candidacy a real boost and call the other, much stronger, cases against him into doubt in the public mind.

Mr. Trump has been enjoying bating Judge Juan Merchan by blatantly and provocatively disregarding a gag order that prevents him from publicly threatening or attacking those involved in the trial, including prosecutors, court staff, jurors and the judge himself – or their relatives. Mr. Trump has persisted in making statements that deliberately taunt the judge to enforce his order.

Judge Merchan has imposed $1,000 fines per violation, now amounting to 10 instances, but observed that “the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent” and that he “will have to consider a jail sanction”. Yet, Mr. Trump might relish a brief stint behind bars, which he would use to reinforce his assumed martyrdom and raise money.

The judge is now trapped between handing Mr Trump such a publicity coup or allowing him to, as the judge phrased it, “interfere with the fair administration of justice” and “attack the rule of law”.

It may be politically irrelevant, but even though Mr Trump stands a good chance of being convicted, since the facts appear to greatly favour the prosecution, at least thus far, and even if he’s convicted, he may never serve a day behind bars for these charges. As a first offender, he would likely get probation unless his provocations are so severe the judge deems it necessary to sentence him to a few months of incarceration.

More importantly, Mr. Trump’s case on appeal may be as strong on the law as it is now weak on the facts. There are numerous grounds for challenging the novel and complex prosecution interpretation of the relevant statutes and serious issues about federal and state jurisdiction. So, the case may well eventually get thrown out on appeal even if Mr. Trump is convicted.

But that would come long after the election. The main questions are whether he gets to play the martyr in his game of chicken with the judge or becomes a convicted felon for the rest of the campaign. If he’s found guilty, Mr. Trump’s quest to regain the presidency may be doomed.

Ibishblog

the blog of Hussein Ibish