The Trump indictment, a polarised America

The Manhattan District attorney’s unprecedented action of indicting former United States President Donald Trump through a grand jury, on 34 felony charges relating to falsifying business records with the intention to commit another crime, has set the tenor for the coming campaign cycle which will culminate in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Plethora of cases First, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney/prosecutor Fani Willis is examining the actions of Mr. Trump and his associates in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, particularly their attempts to exert pressure upon state officials to undo Mr. Trump’s loss of the state in the election — including the now-infamous call to Georgia State Secretary Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, during which Mr. Trump demanded that the Secretary “find 11,780 votes”. Third, Attorney General of the of the United States Merrick Garland last year appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to lead multiple probes into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents post the end of his term in office. Mr. Trump’s political rhetoric and executive actions also prioritised institutional disengagement on global treaties — whether in regard to his administration driving the U.S.’s exit from the Paris climate accord and UN Human Rights Council, or its broadside attacks on the World Trade Organization and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Between the surging levels of hatred between social and political groups, and apparent support for Trumpism as a movement, it is likely that even if the cases against Mr. Trump work their way through the courts and lead to convictions, the U.S. is still far from truly reckoning with the promise of its founding fathers to achieve the dream of E pluribus unum, or ‘Out of many, one’.