It is now clear that Trump will get a second term after all. He will be described as number 45 and number 47. The only good thing about this sad fact is that he will not be able to be a candidate in 2028, and somehow America and the rest of the world will have to muddle through the next four years and hope for the best (the sharemarket already dropped like a stone).
Biden should never have sought a second term. Once it became clear that he was not fit for a second term he should have released his delegates at the August convention. The shooting last Saturday means that Harris will not want to hold the poisoned chalice of being the candidate. Nor would Gretchen Whitmer. Nor would Gavin Newsom.
And all this is happening after two extraordinary legal developments: the more recent of the two is the dismissal of the classified documents case in Florida. The other, more enduring one is the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States which grants presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution after leaving office.
For Trump, the ruling brings immediate legal benefits, including further delaying proceedings related to the insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. It also helps explain why the classified documents case was dismissed.
The long-term consequences of the immunity decision are even more alarming. The former president has repeatedly evoked the prospect of prosecuting his political opponents. If Trump returns to the presidency in January, he could now order the Department of Justice to pursue his enemies, free from fear that he will be charged and tried for those actions after leaving office.
Remember Trump's off-camera remark in 2016, "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything — grab 'em by the pussy"? Or when he said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue [in New York] and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." Welcome to America's Brave New World.
The Democratic Party's consolation will be that the second Trump aberration will be just as bad for America and the rest of the world as the first. Therefore, the Republican candidate in 2028 will be rejected just as comprehensively by the voters as Trump was in 2020.
