Last week, it was Donald Trump, the first former president convicted on felony charges of falsifying his business records. This week, it is Hunter Biden, the first son of a president to go to trial on felony charges for falsifying his application to possess a gun. Trump was guilty and could be sentenced to jail. Biden is seen as highly likely to be found guilty and headed to jail.
These head-spinning developments invade and assault our screens; our news cycle attention spans cut into fractions of days. The new atrocity is immediately given rough equivalence to the old. Fates are blended. The former president is disgraced – at least in the eyes of the law, if not with his base of supporters. The current president’s fight for re-election is tainted and clouded by his son’s sordid affairs.
Joe Biden and son Hunter (left), who could face up to 17 years in prison.Credit: AP
With Biden’s son on trial, there is less focus on Trump whose fall has not resulted – yet – in Biden’s rise.
Each man is defining, in searing fashion, what happened in that Manhattan courtroom. The day after his conviction, Trump went on a rant. The Trump playbook when under attack never varies: never apologise, recant or retreat. Deny, denounce, discredit, defame. “This is a case where if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. These are bad people. These are, in many cases, I believe, sick people … This is all done by Biden and his people … And this is done by Washington and nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
After the trial, Biden told a fundraiser that Trump, “wants you to believe it all rigged ... It’s reckless and dangerous and downright irresponsible for anyone to say that it’s rigged just because you don’t like the verdict … Nothing could be more dangerous for the county, more dangerous for American democracy.”
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The descent of American politics into this chasm has unsettled many voters. Initial polls showed that 10 per cent of registered Republican voters, and 25 per cent of independent voters, said that Trump’s conviction made them less likely to vote for him in November. Indeed, in Republican presidential primaries this week, about 10 per cent or so of Republican voters in Montana and New Mexico chose not to vote for Trump. Biden needs those voters to stay disaffected. There has been a slight tightening in the polls towards Biden.
But November is a long way off. Trump meanwhile has capitalised immediately on his persecution, raising a record $US53 million ($79 million) for his campaign war chest in the days following the trial.
Trump further buttressed his intent to never become a political prisoner. On Fox News two days after his conviction, Trump claimed – falsely – that he never said, “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. In order to save his neck, Trump believes his own lies. “And I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about it.”