In democracies people get the leaders they deserve
Standards in public life have reached rock bottom in the US and UK. A convicted felon is poised to win the US presidency, and in UK Labour leaders increased taxes by £40 billion in breach of their election promise not to increase taxes.
Last May Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records – he made false returns that hush money paid to a porn star were for legal services. He is also facing charges for fraudulently plotting to prevent the transfer of power after he lost the presidential election in November 2020; and for unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents after he left office.
Assuming Trump wins the presidential election against Kamala Harris next Tuesday, the American constitution gives him the power to grant pardons for criminal offences, but it is not clear if he would be able to pardon himself as this would constitute the ultimate conflict of interest. There is no constitutional guidance whether Trump could face prosecution and sentence as president. If he wins he will probably lean on the Department of Justice not to pursue the outstanding prosecutions against him.
But the question now is not about how Trump manages to negotiate being president as a convicted felon with a number of serious prosecutions pending, but the fact that a significant segment of the American electorate is prepared to vote to the office of US president a man like Trump.
Trump claims that all the prosecutions against him are politically motivated, which is not inconceivable as he had reason to be a touch paranoid about the US deep state that never accepted his election in 2016 as legitimate. The problem for him is that each case against him proceeded after a Grand Jury decided he had a case to answer. Moreover, in the hush money case he was convicted by a New York jury after a two-week trial in which he did not give evidence in his own defence – a cardinal mistake for a former president.
In the case of plotting to prevent the transfer of power, the evidence against Trump is compelling. It is from Vice President (VP) Mike Pence who was also his running mate, which does not sit well with his claim that the charges are politically motivated.
It is well known that not every criminal offence has to be prosecuted and the US Department of Justice could have overlooked Trump’s behaviour and given him the benefit of the doubt that he genuinely believed the 2020 election was stolen.Â
However, it was impossible for the Department of Justice to overlook Trump’s repeated attempts to pressure Pence corruptly to refuse to certify the results of the swing states as president of the senate that he knew the VP had no power to refuse. His constitutional duty was limited to adding up the presidential election results from each state and declaring the result.  Â
What is amazing about the Trump candidacy is that it is the standards of his supporters known as MAGA Republicans – from the slogan make America great again – that have sunk so low. They must know Trump is unsuitable to be president of the US – all they have to do is read what Mike Pence says about his wayward behaviour around January 6, 2021. And yet Trump’s popularity is enhanced by his waywardness.
Trump does not hide the kind of man he is and his propensity to play fast and loose with the law. With him what you see is what you get. MAGA Republicans love him precisely because he sails close to the wind, is unserious, and a bit racist, and a bit misogynist, and a selfish egomaniac who flaunts his narcissism before their adoring eyes.
The position is the reverse in UK where the people expect their political leaders to be upstanding decent men and women.Unfortunately, in the general electionlast July they elected power-hungry Labour politicians who lied about their intention to increase taxes
Last Wednesday the UK minister of finance, Rachel Reeves, stood up in parliament and delivered a budget that increased taxes by £40 billion despite repeatedly telling the British public during the election campaign last June that this would not happen.
It is expected of the party representing the interests of working people and the less fortunate to do a Robin Hood on the rich to reverse the private wealth and public squalor inflicted on the British people by the Conservative Party the last 14 years.
But the Labour Party was not honest with the British public in their manifesto and in their public pronouncements because taxation was seen as a vote loser. Both Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted time and again they would fund their programme by growing the economy, not by increasing taxes.
It was all a big lie. The Labour Party deliberately suppressed its intention to increase taxes during the election campaign and deliberately created the myth of the £22 billion black hole in the previous government’s expenditure plans to justify increasing taxes. By the way, it is still not clear why the tax increase was £40 billion if the black hole was £22 billion.
The paradox of the British and the American elections of 2024 is that whereas the British election was on American Independence Day on July 4, the American presidential election will be on Guy Fawkes bonfire night on November 5.
The first celebrates the overthrow of the English king for a constitutional republic in America; the second celebrates the survival of the king in parliament for a constitutional monarchy. Both are democracies and in democracies people get the leaders they deserve. The British people ended up with Starmer and Reeves, but who do the Americans deserve, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?
Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a former part time judge
