The Donald Trump Show is back: Will turning his indictment into a spectacle help the former US president?

There is more than a tinge of irony in Americans using the term banana republic as the antithesis of their democracy. After all, what gave rise to the idea of a banana republic was none other than the powerful American banana company United Fruit (now known as Chiquita), which once operated as a state within a state in Central American countries like Honduras and Guatemala. The company, said Peter Chapman in his book Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World, was “more powerful than many nation states… a law unto itself and accustomed to regarding the republics as its private fiefdom”. For most of the last century, writes geographer Joseph Nevins, “the proverbial banana republic’s economic capital was Boston”.

The criticism of the indictment by Trump and his supporters, however, has not been limited to such abstractions. Trump has accused “Radical Left Democrats” of a “witch-hunt” and of weaponising the justice system. He has even compared his potential prosecution to an action of the Nazi Germany’s secret police, the Gestapo. Taking full advantage of the fact that he is now officially a candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in the 2024 election, he accused the Democrats of an obsession with trying to “Get Trump” and of now doing “the unthinkable — indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference”. Without any evidence, he has accused the district attorney of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work”.

Even before the indictment was confirmed last Thursday, Trump had been predicting his arrest, or in the words of Bragg’s office, creating “a false expectation that he would be arrested” leading to a circus-like atmosphere in the area around the Manhattan Criminal Court. He has made racially tinged comments against Bragg, Manhattan’s first ever black district attorney. He has warned of “potential death and destruction” if he is indicted, and even posted a picture of himself wielding a baseball bat over an image of Bragg’s head. This post has since been deleted.

On Sunday, Bragg’s predecessor as Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., who began the investigation that has now led to this indictment, has condemned the former president’s attacks on his successor and warned that he could face additional charges because of these attacks, which could “change the jury’s mind about the severity of the case”.

It is unlikely that such warnings would discourage Trump from continuing on this path. While an indictment on the Stormy Daniels case may have been unexpected, it has been clear for a while that Trump faced legal challenges on multiple fronts. It is not unlikely that Trump’s decision to enter the 2024 presidential race and rallying his political base is the sum total of his legal strategy.

It has already yielded political dividends. His rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have all rallied around him. Top rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has called the indictment “un-American”, while former Vice President Mike Pence has called it an outrage. Important Republican leaders such as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, have said that the House “will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account”. Opinion polls conducted since the news of the indictment began circulating show that the indictment has boosted Trump’s poll numbers, placing him well ahead of Governor DeSantis, and other Republican primary challengers. His campaign raised more than $5 million in the 48 hours following the confirmation of the indictment last Thursday — a strong indication that his Make America Great Again base has been energised by the indictment and by Trump’s false argument that it is a case of “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history”.

Opinion polls suggest that while most Americans think the investigations into Trump’s conduct are fair and motivated by law, there is a strong partisan divide on the issue. A majority of Republicans believe that the indictment is politically motivated, that the charges are not serious enough to criminally indict a former president. Many even agree with the characterisation of the indictment as a witch-hunt. Democrats take the opposite view.

It seems that even if the indictment gives Trump an advantage in the Republican primary, it will damage him with the broader electorate, which will ultimately decide who wins the presidency in 2024. These alignments, however, are sure to be temporary. There is little doubt that the indictment has thrown the 2024 presidential race into uncharted territory. It is impossible to predict how things will change in the coming months. If the legal case against Trump advances, repeated mention of the charge of hush money to a porn star is unlikely to help Trump. On the other hand, if the case against Trump falls apart in court, it will help him.

In preparation for Trump’s arraignment, there have been significant security arrangements around Manhattan Criminal Court at 100 Center Street. The only thing that seems certain at this point is that Trump will try his best to turn the first-ever arraignment of a former president into a spectacle.

The writer is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, New York