Citizen Donald Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday remains mired in controversy but it does have one undeniably robust message for the world about American justice and democracy, regardless of what happens next.
It says that no one in the US, even a combative ex-president with a large diehard following, enjoys impunity because of power and wealth. Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s doggedness will help to stiffen the backs of others fighting impunity for powerful politicians in less democratic countries around the world.
His example to uphold rule of law and impose accountability will endure even if his charges against Trump come to the naught. Many people outside the US may see it as a courtroom defeat that can happen to any prosecutor.
But many others may wrongly see it as a flaw in the legal system that allowed partisan politics to burrow into American justice so deeply as to rationalize a potentially flimsy case and legal theory.
A perception derogatory for democracy could take hold outside America that a district prosecutor tried to stymie a 2024 presidential candidate before he could become a menace for Joe Biden’s candidature.
Currently, people in most countries would prefer to not to see Trump at the helm again in Washington but how he is defeated at the polls or how he is kept out of elections still matters.
Many may applaud Trump’s comeuppance at Bragg’s hands or other hands like Fani Willis in Georgia or federal special counsel Jack Smith. But Bragg arrived first and is likely to mark global public opinion more vividly.
Voters decide elections in primaries and at the polls, not prosecutors and judges. Many voters may lean away from Trump without giving him presumption of innocence simply because he was branded as a potential criminal in Manhattan on Tuesday. In any case, final outcomes may be many months and probably years in the making.
But there is a wider world out there, where any US president needs allies and friends who trust that the apolitical law and order that Washington hammers upon leaders of other countries works with fairness inside America.
Numerous people around the world detest Trump as a font of discord and chaos but they are also sensitive to his grievances about a justice system bent on persecuting him to prevent his candidature. Many find this to be credible because it is often the norm in their own countries.
They looked up to America for better legal processes. They are now faced with a first time in US history legal event that looks politicized from the start but will influence the highest elections in the land.
Such a perception would be inconsequential were it not for the challenges posed by China’s Xi Jinping to Biden’s flag waving about US democracy. Biden has turned American foreign policy into a contest between Western liberal democracy and autocracy.
But he is not winning points despite his two conferences of world democracies. Data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project suggests that the world has only 32 liberal democracies compared with 30 closed autocracies. Fifty-eight are electoral democracies and another 58 are electoral autocracies.
Biden is on thin ice because most countries lean towards autocracy. He needs many of them to be America’s foreign policy friends or at least not be obstructive or hostile, as he grapples with an all-but-in-name alliance between Russia and China. In this contest, he needs to win over third countries or at least dissuade them from leaning towards China’s model of governance and development.
To his credit, his boldness in Ukraine is proving to all doubters that America has the will, quality of intelligence, weapons and allies to keep a military power like Russia and potentially China at bay. He has also shown that autocratic strongmen (like Vladimir Putin) are not better at governance or strategy than the elected leader of a democracy, even when darkened by anarchic demagogues.
The message about America’s deep material and democratic resources is not lost on global fence sitters evading a moral view about Ukraine. It may persuade many to jump to Biden’s side as the anti-chaos choice.
Just as Bragg’s steadfastness may persuade many fence-sitting voters to step away from Trump in November next year even if he wins the Republican primaries.