Trump indictment - what does this mean for the US?

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Agreed, but there could easily be changes in who is more motivated to go out and vote. If the right wingers keep getting more and more fanatical, while most other people just feel more and more overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, then Trump will win.

This is one of the reasons why Republicans like to make it harder for people to vote.

On Thursday evening, Donald Trump officially began walking one of the most perilous tightropes in American political history.

After he broke the widely expected news of his federal indictment, Trump once again, and predictably, began railing against the Justice Department. He is now facing his most serious legal threat and clearly views this antagonistic posture as essential to his reelection effort, which, if successful, could effectively moot whatever happens in this prosecution come January 2025, including a conviction. This same posture, however, threatens to make both his legal situation and reelection prospects worse.

Already, Trump and some Republicans have sought to portray the indictment as part of a Democratic plot to “weaponize” the government against him, but the reality is that neither Joe Biden nor Attorney General Merrick Garland, who would have signed off on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s decision to bring charges, wanted to be in this position. On the campaign trial and following his election, Biden repeatedly indicated that he did not want to see his administration prosecute Trump. By all outward appearances, Garland was of the same disposition. As I reported a profile of the attorney general earlier this year, that came through even more clearly: Garland came into office hoping to avoid a direct confrontation with Trump and a historically unprecedented prosecution that could sharply divide an already fractured country.

Things clearly did not work out that way, and though there is much to learn about how we got to this point, the blame for this ought to be laid first and foremost at the feet of Trump. Whatever the merits of the prosecution — which will no doubt be intensely debated as we learn more — he brought it upon himself. He and his lawyers had multiple opportunities to resolve this mess and return the documents without prosecution, and they seemed to delight in blowing right past them at every opportunity. As a legal matter (at least with the benefit of hindsight), their handling of the situation was incredibly stupid.

In an ideal world, GOP primary voters would see right past all of this and nominate someone else as their standard-bearer for the 2024 election. That would at least eliminate the prospect of Trump coming back to power, which, first, would lead to him certainly either stopping the prosecution or even pardoning himself after a conviction. Second, it could yield an aggressive campaign of prosecutorial retribution from his Justice Department that would target officials at the DOJ and the FBI who have been involved in investigating and now prosecuting him.

A loss for Trump in the primary would not entirely forestall some of these consequences: If Biden ultimately loses to another Republican, that person may very well pardon Trump anyway.

Trump is walking a tightrope now, but so too is Biden, in his own way.

This prosecution, however, almost certainly will not be over by the time of the general election next fall. In ordinary circumstances, you would expect a complex, high-profile prosecution to take — from start to finish, including appeals — two to three years. Even if a trial manages to take place next year and Trump is convicted, there will undoubtedly be appeals, and Trump would likely be allowed to remain free while that process unfolds, perhaps even actively campaigning on how he should be reelected so that he can pardon himself and prosecute Biden for some reason or another.

As a practical matter, that means that the result of the presidential election will also control whether this prosecution reaches an orderly resolution. After the Manhattan charges were filed, Biden stayed far away from commenting on Trump’s case and he’s likely to do so in the near term over this indictment. But this will not be tenable so long as Trump is a candidate. As a result, the Biden campaign will have to defend this project and the underlying principles that they reflect, whether they like it or not, which will put them in the strange — and yes, again, unprecedented — position of having to support the prosecution of the sitting president’s most significant political rival, the very thing that Biden hoped to avoid upon entering office.

How significant this will all prove to be during campaign season is, of course, an open question. But for now, we are witnessing one of the most complex and consequential legal and political battles of our lifetimes — one with a shockingly wide spectrum of possibilities for how it all shakes out.

Apparently that district in Florida is known for speedy trials.. a "rocket docket," district. Maybe he'll be tried, convicted, sentenced to death, taken 'round back to a firing squad and that's the end of it.

As for Biden's re-election campaign, at least he can run as an Actual "Law & Order," president by having a DOJ that enforces American laws - even on wealthy caucasian ex-presidents.

Yes, the appointment of that judge does scream the fix is in.

Well I suppose the one unknown is a public backlash, e.g. I could see widespread strikes happening in reaction to Trump's re-election, especially as he is likely to lose the popular vote in a landslide.

And Canada would start construction on a Southern border wall and America would pay for it! (Not enough Alaskans to worry about up North.)

Start building that wall ASAP. Is not the national meltdown right now enough reason?

Sort of an obvious topic, I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned it in PP&R.

Let's accept the premise this could mean that Trump would actually be in Federal Prison 17 months from now when the next General Election takes place. Everything I see on the Web seems to point to Trump as the strong favorite for winning that election (although I think he could lose the popular vote quite badly, but what does that matter anyway?).

So he becomes President and pardons himself, walks out of prison basking in the adulation of his supporters, and then? What sort of country will the US be going forward?

Whatever you may think of Trump's policies, the fact is that the US has always prided itself on being the sort of place where that sort of thing doesn't happen. I mean people being put in prison then rehabilitated and going on to head the government. Admittedly Nelson Mandela spent many years in prison, but the government that put him there was internationally condemned for practicing the exact opposite of democracy or at best being a gross violator of human rights. Whereas the US has always advertised itself as a "beacon of democracy" and apparently a lot of people outside the US buy into this, at least from what I've been told by some immigrants.

To put it bluntly, will the US soon be seen as a "banana republic" by most of the world? And how will this impact American influence? Will Russia, China, or India for that matter, care what side of any given international conflict the US takes?

Hard to see many people who voted for Biden in 2020 turning around and saying “yeah actually having thought about it I now support Trump, that insurrection and endangering national security really endeared me to him”.

Always a chance of course but I think predictions of Trump being “heavily favoured” are well off-base.

Yes, the appointment of that judge does scream the fix is in.

I do find it interesting that very little of the US-Canada border has any sort of physical barrier protecting it. Although it's never been legal to just walk across it, pre-911 there were situations in which populations on either side lived adjacent to each other, and within those communities people did casually go back and forth and this was tolerated so long as those people were known (caveat I don't have specific evidence to present but that's my impression).

Whereas, wall or no wall, every cm of the US-Mexico border has always had at least a fence delimiting it, AFAIK, so then we must ask ourselves, why the difference?

There is a town on the Canadian-US border, Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont, in which the border runs through the town. The town library has a line through it for the border with a video camera on the line. I've heard of people visiting the library so that they can jump back and forth across the border in front of the camera.

There are a couple of other rather interesting places in or on the border.

One is the Northwest Angle in Minnesota. Unless the Lake of the Woods is frozen over thick enough to drive across, the only way to drive there from the rest of the Lower 48 is to enter Canada and then reenter at the Northwest Angle. The border crossing itself is unmanned. When driving through, either direction, you stop at a shack beside the road and go in to go through Customers. Depending on the direction of travel, you contact US or Canadian customs on a video link.

The other is Point Roberts in the state of Washington. Point Roberts isn't very large. To drive from Point Roberts to anywhere else in Washington, you have to go through the border at Point Roberts and again at, I think, Blaine, Washington or to a further crossing. They don't have enough of a school for all the kids in Point Roberts so for certain grades, the school buses cross the border twice in the morning and twice in the evening. After 9/11, security got tightened up so high that it was reportedly taking the school bus two or three hours to enter the US on each end. Also, I think that for many things like doctor's visits, dentist visits, and prescription drugs, you have to go through customs twice each way.