The former American president will appeal a decision that declared him ineligible to run in the Colorado primaries his plan has a good chance of success in a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives. Covid19 cases are rising, Taylor Swift released the bestselling album of the year and the dispute between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is heating up. And no, we're not talking about 2020, but today.
Donald Trump is considered the favorite to win the Republican Party primaries
Photo: DW / Deutsche Welle
Although Republicans have not yet officially decided who their party's candidate will be in the 2024 US presidential election, former President Trump's name seems increasingly likely after all, the law that only allows two terms for each president does not provide for whether these should be consecutive.
Trump's campaign suffered a setback on December 19 when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that he could not run for president of the state due to his involvement in the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The court's decision was based on Article 14 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the return to federal office of anyone who swore to protect the U.S. Constitution and then rebelled against the state.
However, the article is from the Civil War era and does not specifically refer to presidents. The Trump campaign has already said it will appeal the decision and take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservative justices three of them appointed by Trump hold a sixtothree majority.
Unless the case is resolved quickly and the Supreme Court upholds Colorado's decision by early January, Trump's name will continue to appear on the state's Republican primary ballot. And if he is supported by the majority of his party, he will run for the White House again against the Democrats.
In national polls, Trump has emerged as the party's favorite often by wide margins over other Republican names such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Impeachment is not a bar to running for president
Trump is the only US president to have been impeached twice. The House of Representatives first accused him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in 2019; after inciting an insurrection in 2021. Both times the Senate acquitted him.
The impeachment of a president occurs only when the Senate, the upper house of Congress, convicts a president a step that implies “disqualification from holding and holding any position of honor, trust, or profit in the United States,” as stated in is called the constitution.
The double impeachment trial in the House of Representatives is therefore no obstacle to Trump's intentions. But what about his other problems with the justice system?
From sexual assault to trying to overturn the 2020 election
Trump's trials, scheduled to begin in 2024, include alleged fraud cases related to the way Trump and his children ran the family business, as well as a sexual assault and defamation case. In the most recent case, a jury had already found Trump responsible for defaming a former columnist who had accused him of rape. The next trial is expected to decide how much Trump must pay the writer for her defamation.
There are also several cases against the former president related to his behavior after the 2020 election defeat.
A federal criminal trial in Miami involves charges involving confidential government documents that Trump kept at his MaraLago residence when he was no longer president. There is also a conspiracy trial in the state of Georgia against Trump and 18 other defendants accused of interfering in the 2020 election results, as well as a US Department of Justice case accusing Trump of crimes related to his attempt to remain in power thereafter will lose the 2020 election.
Regardless of the outcome of these proceedings, Trump would not lose his eligibility to run for president. The U.S. Constitution does not provide a system for disqualifying candidates based on criminal convictions.
“There are several disagreements about whether a presidential candidate who has been indicted or is involved in an ongoing lawsuit should continue to run for office,” Laura Merrifield Wilson, an associate professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis, told DW. “But this is based on moral concepts, personal judgment and preferences, not on specific laws or procedural barriers.”
If convicted of a felony in the MaraLago case, Trump would be ineligible to vote (in Florida, convicted felons lose that right), but could still run for the highest office in the land. Even if he were sent to prison, it would not stand in the way of his candidacy.
“We are very far removed from anything that has ever happened,” Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, told The New York Times.
Trump was “empowered” by litigation.
Legally speaking, the trials do not harm Trump's presidential ambitions. But what about its appeal to voters?
Independent voters may feel “disheartened,” Christopher Federico, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, told DW. But “I don’t think it will hurt his true base within the Republican Party.”
Federico's colleague and political scientist Howard Lavine also estimated that the criminal allegations had not damaged Trump's image among his supporters on the contrary.
“Each allegation seems to increase Trump's electoral potential,” Lavine told DW. “He framed it [para seus eleitores] like 'you're trying to get revenge on me instead of getting revenge on you'.”
Harnessing fear in a polarized American society
Both Federico and Lavine suggest that Trump has intuitively done a good job of connecting with his electorate noncollegeeducated whites and conservative black and Latino men. Trump makes them feel like an “outsider” like them and therefore understands their anger and fear of being left behind by the elites in Washington, experts emphasize.
Social reforms on gender issues and increasing efforts toward greater equality and inclusion have heightened this fear, Lavine said.
“Being heterosexual is no better than not being heterosexual, being male no longer gives you the status it once did, the percentage of white people in the American population is decreasing, and we will soon be a country where Christians are the minority will be,” Lavine said. “This threatens the status of the majority white Christian men. Many people feel that their social standing is being diminished. And it seems that Trump is succeeding in exploiting these fears.”
His core base of supporters want to feel represented and seen, experts say, and believe Trump can return them to their former glory to “make America great again.” Possible criminal convictions do not matter to these voters.
“I don’t think Trump supporters would turn their backs on him, period,” Wilson said. “They remain steadfast and loyal, if not to the man, then to what he represents.”
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