In olden days there was a divine right of king that trumped the law of the land, or so monarchs asserted. Now Trump asserts a higher law, the presidential election as a higher law than the state court. He tells the American electorate that their vote in December will determine his innocence or guilt on the 34 counts he has just been found guilty on.
Most people would regard one criminal conviction of the kind Trump now has, as sufficient to bar him from high office and that what happened in a New York courthouse yesterday, should be 34 times as strong a reason for him not to be considered for election.
But many people I know, both in the US and in Europe and the UK think that the higher law is the will of the people and if the American people can stomach a 54 times convicted felon as its leader, that is their business. I agree it is not directly our business, but nor is the behavior of Putin.
There comes a time when moral relativism has to stop and the key test in this country will be the reactions of the party leaders to Trump’s ongoing candidature. He is a man who each of the party leaders would have to shake the hand of, if they and Trump get the top job.
Here are those initial reactions
If an Exxon or a Shell is about to take a strategic decision that could raise the temperature of the planet and lead to misery in faraway countries, we consider that we should call out that decision, vote against it and condemn it by withdrawing capital, if management will not listen. Pension schemes have some leverage because they own the shares.
If a company chooses as its CEO , a person with a string of 34 recent convictions for racketeering and fraud, pension schemes would rightly regard this as a red line crossed and withdraw capital by selling down shares and calling in loans.
We would not consider lending or investing in Trump companies for fear of the censure of the members for whom the proper investment of money matters. Yet we will hear this morning, exoneration of Trump by party leaders , because they do not have the courage of their convictions.
My hope is that there will be political leaders in this country who, when called upon to state their position on Donald Trump as a future president of the United States , say that they find this unacceptable and that they will not exonerate the man , just because the US electorate have done.
But that would require an act of courage that I do not expect. If it doesn’t happen, we will be voting for a Prime Minister who considers Donald Trump duly elected this winter even though he be elected as a 34 times convicted criminal. And in doing that, we will become complicit in the breakdown in governance that we feel, deep inside, is happening in the United States.
There came a time in Britain, where we said “enough is enough” and we executed our king. I am not advocating such violence today, but I wonder that in America, Trump is attempting to resurrect a higher law than the American legal system, and I don’t see any reason why we should recognise it.
How about sentencing Trump to wear an ankle bracelet – which shocks him visibly every time he utters a falsehood??
It seems that MPs who promoted Brexit still regard themselves as worthy of being reelected even that orifice that would have made Ian Paisley sound like a priest is still enriching himself by promoting division in society and the media still fall for the blatant exploitation of the ignorant.
Where are the statesmen?
https://ig.ft.com/uk-general-election/2024/projection/?constituency=E14001172