Former President Donald Trump has been indicted... again. One feels like it's "Groundhog Day," and Ned Ryerson will pop out from behind us and tell us to watch that first step.
Unless something significant happens, however, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, and we'll have an accused felon running against the incumbent president whose election Trump tried to overturn. If things move along at the speed any of the prosecutors and voters seem to want, we may have a convicted felon running for president of the United States. Potentially from a Georgia prison.
If you can't believe you just read that, you know precisely why the 2024 election will be about Trump's trials and very little else.
Count me among those who wish it was different. There is no shortage of issues that I want to hear the candidates debate. From the economy to strengthening social programs, from defending democracy at home to protecting freedom abroad, we're facing a critical moment. The country deserves a "normal" presidential election where candidates speak to their concerns.
But that won't happen if one of the nominees has a prison cell with his name on it, with a conviction that could drop at any moment. All we can do is accept that reality.
All things flow from the system of government and the Constitution we have. Remember, this system was devised by the Founders, who had lived under a monarch as second-class citizens with no self-determination. In the Declaration of Independence, they declared governments should be created by the people, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
In Trump and the crimes he is accused of, we have a presidential candidate who sought to rob the people of their consent through their vote. We have a candidate who tried to create powers he didn't have and was never given by refusing to return classified documents. We have a candidate who violated his oath to protect the Constitution, derived from the people, in the ultimate slap against our Founders and the system they created and under which we live.
If that candidate is elected to office, all the aforementioned policy issues above go out the window. The election of Trump fundamentally changes the Republic and the separation of powers. Electing Trump would mean the people of the country have turned away from checks and balances and free and fair elections and given their stamp of approval to move towards autocratic rule. In essence, they will forfeit the "consent of the governed."
All voters must know those stakes and precisely what Trump is accused of. They must see and hear from witnesses in the Georgia trial and receive daily reports from the federal trials. For better or worse, what Trump is accused of, and what he'd continue to do if elected again, supersedes any individual policy issue or issue area.
A frequent Republican retort to the indictments of Donald Trump is that these are issues that voters should adjudicate with their vote. If that's true, then the investigations by Congress' January 6th Committee, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and District Attorney Fani Willis are that much more important. Their findings are crucial in allowing voters to have the information they need to decide. Similarly, trials with all witnesses under oath will give voters testimony with added weight—both in favor of and against Trump.
Does this whole atmosphere of a Republican nominee on trial for multiple felonies and criminal conspiracies benefit President Biden? Well, duh.
But, shouldn't standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law benefit one candidate over the other? All the Republican Party needs to do to have an election without a trial or debate about democracy versus autocracy is nominate any one of the other candidates who seem to have basic respect for the Republic.
If they do not, then they are choosing the terms of the debate, and those terms are not focused on kitchen table issues. They're choosing to make this campaign about Trump's criminal trials.
They're the ones robbing Americans of a debate focused on the issues. Not Joe Biden. Not Jack Smith. Not Fani Willis. Not Alvin Bragg.
And we're the ones forced to accept it.
Eric Schmeltzer is a Los Angeles-based political consultant who served as press secretary to Rep. Jerry Nadler and former-Gov. Howard Dean.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
