What Trump indictment means for America?

Kathmandu: Donald trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, becoming the first former US president to face criminal charges.

The grand jury has indicted Trump for multiple charges after the probe into hush money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. To indict former president on criminal charges is itself an unprecedented scenario in American politics and it has taken many at home and abroad by surprise.

It is too early to say how indictment will impact Trump’s political future. Nor it is so easy to predict how it will affect the whole spectrum of American society. And it is  early to guess how America as a beacon of democracy projects itself around the globe amid geopolitical challenges posed by China and Russia.

However, America is already a divided nation on racial, political and ideological lines; and the latest event will certainly add fuel to the fire. Trump’s statement after the decision to indict him also gives a clear hint at where US politics is heading in the time to come.

Trump has angrily reacted to the news of his indictment. He has categorically pointed the finger at his political opponents the Democrats and Radical Left, calling them ‘thugs and monsters’. ‘These Thugs and the Radical Left Monsters have just indicted (indicated) the 45^th President of the United States of America,’ he wrote on his social media platform.

Trump views- the Republican frontrunner to be nominated for 2024 presidential candidate-the indictment as an attack on America, free and fair election as well as ‘political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history’. For him, America is now a ‘nation with serious decline’.

‘The democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to get Trump but now they’ve done the unthinkable- indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant election interference,’ his statement read.

Trump has also warned Joe Biden in particular and Democrats in general, saying ‘I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire on Joe Biden. The American people realized exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here… and we are going to throw every last one of these crooked Democrats out of office.’

In recent times, America has seen a rise of populist nationalistic sentiment on the Right and socialist sentiment on the Left. The unprecedented indictment will further polarize the American voters on this ideological line. And for some, it is a tragedy for American society.

‘I think it’s a great American tragedy,’ said Boston University Presidential Historian Tom Whalen, ‘we have a former president, former leader of the free world indicted for a crime.’

‘He’s going to be approaching the court like Joan of Arc approaching the stake to be burned. He is a drama queen shall we say, and it’s all directed at the Republican base,’ Whalen added.

WBZ political analyst Jon Keller also voiced the same concern. ‘It’s actually a sad moment in the life of our country,” said Keller, ‘The divided reaction to it anger and rallying around Trump on the right, anger, and a feeling of, ‘yes, no one is above the law’ on the left, you get yet another grim view of the deep chasm that separates America.

Likewise, some may call it a blow to American belief and question its political institutions. Or, other may feel pride in saying the supremacy of rule of law prevails. But one thing is clear: The indictment will plunge America into a more chaotic and fractious future.