What if America votes a ‘felon’ Donald Trump in 2024 United States presidential election

Typical of the political class caught in the act across the world, America’s very own Donald Trump has equated himself with the nation, and said that the criminal charges against him are an ‘insult to our country’. Having said that, the question arises, what if the very same American people who had chosen Trump as their President in 2016, vote him again in 2024? American analysts who have written about a felon contesting the presidency around this time in the previous century, have underlined the point, Trump too can do it that way. Yet, none of those analysts have looked at the possibility of his being voted the power, pending those court cases. They haven’t asked the question if an accused in a criminal trial, or appeal, can be sworn in president, if the American people vote him to power. Possibly, those analysts cannot, in the heart of their hearts, stomach such a possibility. Yet, according to American legal experts, Trump can contest the presidential poll. Needless to say, he can run for the Republican primaries when it opens. Unlike elsewhere in the democratic world and more like in India, the Republican party in the US has rallied around. It may soon put paid to the party’s presidential aspirants. That includes two Indian-origin hopefuls in Nikey Halley and Vivek Ramaswamy. According to the US Constitution, there is nothing that can stop Trump, even if convicted, from contesting the presidency. At least on two past occasions, felony convicts had contested the elections from prison but lost. Of them, trade union leader Eugene V Debs even obtained a million votes in 1920 but lost all the same. Likewise, Lyndon LaRouche did so more recently, in 1992, both ran from prison, the latter for fraud. LaRouche was a permanent fixer in presidential polls from 1976 to 2004, dying in 2019, aged 96 years. That way, Trump, if convicted and still decides to run for the presidency, he would only be the third felon to do so after Debts and LaRouche. But the question is if his party would hand over the nomination on a platter, as it seems now after the arraignment in a Manhattan court? It is one thing for him to lose the primaries by popular vote? It is another thing for the party bosses to take the high moral ground and say so in so many words, hurting Trump’s ego and chances in the primaries. Unpredictable as he has always been even in the best of circumstances, he may decide to run as an Independent. After all, way back in 1992, Ross Perot, a less controversial billionaire, contested as an Independent, and polled close to 20 per cent of the popular vote, or a fifth of all votes, in the presidential polls. Democrat Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican George HW Bush (Sr) to become the nation’s 52nd President. But the counting-day refrain of both parties and also the so-called neutral political and electoral commentators was this. Referring to Perot’s performance, they all declared in one voice: “We will not allow this to happen again”. Rather, they were admitting that the nation was not prepared for a non-conformist for President. Clinton won a second term in 1996, but Perot’s vote share has gone down to 8.4 per cent. Given the high cost of campaigning in the US, another person in Perot’s place would not have even imagined a second run. The trial against Trump in the Manhattan court is scheduled to commence only in January next year, when the nation would have warmed up to the primaries of both major political parties. It is too early to predict if Trump’s defence would seek an indefinite adjournment until after the elections are over. There may be some substance in their otherwise unsustainable plea that the jury may be influenced by what they read and hear outside the court, from Trump’s rivals in the primaries and also from the opposition Democratic Party.  Of course, it depends on the trial judge, but the prosecutors can be expected to contest such claims as stoutly as they can. If, despite all these, Trump loses the primaries or the presidential polls, as the case may be, that is one thing. But what if he wins the presidency, despite, whether or not the trial goes on, and the political campaign influences the voters favourably towards Trump, whatever way it could influence the jury? There is a small gap between election in November 2024 and 20 January 2025, when alone the new President in sworn in. Can a president-elect be a felon, or can a pending trial be reopened at this stage/ What if by a quirk of fate, the president-elect is declared a criminal offender and is send to prison? After all, the constitutional immunity from court cases available to all Heads of Government and is available to the US President, too, won’t be available to the President-elect. The question is what if pending the trial or even otherwise, as an accused in a criminal case, Trump is elected and is also sworn in President on the appointed day? Naturally, he will be entitled to constitutional protection from criminal prosecution, et al. Yet, the morality of the American system would be questioned, more outside the country than inside, where the voters had anyway given a criminal / accused the nation’s presidency, which by far is the most powerful elected office in the world. The US Constitution is silent on this crucial aspect, so to say. But the issue is being debated on the social media. According to some, “The President-elect can only be blocked from taking office (as of 11/9/2020) by refusing to take office, being found unfit (revealed to be treasonous or something similar), or by the ‘Electors’ in the ‘Electoral College’ (formed after the popular vote and based on popular victories in individual States) not voting for him (‘faithless electors).” Already, the American Constitution, for all that it is praised for, is has one too many loopholes, for the comfort of any democracy in the 21st century. To begin with, there is no national-level Election Commission mandated by the Constitution and/or the Congress, since. It has thrown up vagaries from time to time, where State Governors, who are acknowledged party men, have sat in judgment over poll-related controversies. Thus, if courts declare Trump a ‘felon’ and punish him accordingly, there is nothing that can stop him from contesting elections and America from voting him president. The debatable question for America then would be the form of Inauguration that a felon is entitled to as President-elect. Needless to say from the minute he is named a candidate, and even more so after his election, if it came to that, the US Secret Service, in charge of presidential security would take over. The State would thus be giving the highest security cover available to a president-elect anywhere in the world – and this one, to a felon. The debate will then move on to the possibility of impeaching the president, where numbers alone matter – numbers in the House of Representative and the Senate. If Trump is going to be elected President under the set of circumstances under consideration, the American voters would not have problem electing more members from his Republican Party to the two Houses of Congress. The rest, as they say, would become history. The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.