“This is the beginning of a new era that we have been waiting for for a long time: Trump has finally hit a wall. He is now held responsible for his crimes and he will have to answer them, ”dropped Tuesday, Lisa Estienne, a democratic activist met at the foot of the city court where the ex-president was arrested and accused. officially of document falsification by Manhattan justice.
For several decades, New York has helped to give luster to the TRUMP letters and to the empire of the enfant terrible of Queens, who has become a strong, almost symbolic figure in the real estate development of the metropolis. But since Tuesday, the city, through its judicial district of Manhattan, has above all just brought a first charge against the apparent invincibility of the ex-star of reality TV that show politics has mutated into a leader of a right. radical American with authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies. A change of clothes and trajectory, less entertaining for the majority of New Yorkers, more liberal, more progressive, more democratic, who confirmed a detachment from the character. Detachment that several, on Tuesday, came to celebrate once again.
“The love relationship between Trump and New York is long over,” continues Lisa Estienne, “because we knew before the rest of the country that his lies would eventually catch up with him.”
“In 2016, the divorce was consummated,” adds Bill Gabriel, 62, a construction worker from Long Island who took time off on Tuesday specifically to attend Donald Trump’s appearance in New York criminal court. His image crumbled here on the day of his inauguration [en janvier 2017] when thousands of women took to the streets of the city to denounce the arrival at the White House of this swindler, racist and misogynist. Yes, he still has vocal supporters. But you have to see this indictment as the first in a series that will end up getting the better of him. At least that’s what I hope. »
Political procedures?
In the days leading up to the Populist’s surrender to the 15e floor of Manhattan Criminal Court to comply with his fingerprinting and formal appearance before Judge Juan Merchan, nearly 60% of Americans approved of the indictment of the ex-president, according to a poll conducted by the CNN network. But, in a larger majority (76%), these same Americans also seem convinced that the legal proceedings initiated against the populist are tainted by politics, a little or a lot, more than by a real feeling of justice.
Which is not necessarily good news for his detractors, many in New York, who are waiting to see him fall, believes political scientist Timothy Hagle, joined by The duty at the University of Iowa. “The held legal theories underlying the indictment give the impression that this is a politically motivated move,” he said. And for the time being, it will mostly stoke a sense of rallying around Trump, rather than the other way around.”
In the days after the ex-president was impeached last Thursday, his campaign officials said they had collected no less than $4 million in donations from activists seeking to support their candidate in the face of the news. adversity. Worse, while the Manhattan court issued its arrest order for the populist, a YouGov probe confirmed Donald Trump’s lead over his expected opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 57% of the voting intentions, against 31%, in view of the upcoming Republican primary. This is 10 points more than a month earlier.
Precarious balance
“The appearance of Donald Trump helps him as much as it hurts him, summarizes in an interview Mark Jones, specialist in American politics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Yes, it provides him with another means of mobilizing his base of supporters against what he describes as political persecution”. This is also the message he tried to convey from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening, during the conference he delivered in the wake of his appearance in court in New York. “It reinforces his underlying populist message that he’s fighting for ‘the people’ against ‘the elite,’ and that when justice comes for Trump, it threatens all of his supporters too. “, he adds.
“But this posture also weakens him in the perspective of a general election where Trump then risks losing in a rematch against Joe Biden, undoubtedly by an even greater margin than in 2020, continues Mr. Jones. And it’s helping to undermine the Republican Party’s efforts to retain and strengthen its majority in the House and gain control of the US Senate.”
The equation is bound to be complex for Republicans, now faced with a vehicle that brought them to power in 2016, but whose recent impeachment and grim-looking populist images it produced marks a first. historical.
“Horror Movie Monster”
“Trump could be charged with trying to tamper with the Georgia election results,” Allan Lichtman, a historian of American politics at the American University in Washington, said in an interview. And then it appears Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith has strong evidence against Donald Trump in the unlawful keeping of secret documents at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago and his obstruction of justice. , a case that could affect more its most unconditional supporters”, less inclined then to let themselves be convinced of the insignificance of a case involving national security, adds the academic.
For David Niven, a political scientist specializing in communications at the University of Cincinnati, Donald Trump remains despite everything, in the current storm, with the same status as a “horror movie monster that is not going away anytime soon”, he says. . “When you think he’s dead, he ends up coming back, doing a lot of damage, even if, in the end, he doesn’t win.”
And he is not the only one to lose, adds Mark Jones. “By reinforcing his persecuted image, Donald Trump continues to aggravate political polarization in the United States,” he said. After the charges against him this week, if he were to win the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, it will further harm the American political system and democracy, ”he concludes.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.