Trump-linked court rulings reveal systemic rot, partisan fealty, erosion of institutional safeguards

The immunity from criminal prosecution granted to former US president Donald Trump by the US Supreme Court recently, plus his pending sentencing after being found guilty on 34 felony counts by a New York court, hold immense historical significance.

Both cases further lower the ethical standards for political competition in the United States, cast doubt upon the ideological divide of US justices, and raise concerns for Democrats about the fate they might face if Trump were to be elected.

In a polarized political landscape, the verdict against a controversial figure ahead of an election was bound to fuel political suspicions, regardless of the actual motivations behind the judicial process.

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The trial of Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the November presidential election, took place in Democrat stronghold of New York City, where the 12 randomly selected jurors were seen as more likely to be Democratic Party supporters. This raised doubts about the fairness of the proceedings among Republicans.

The current state of US politics is all about political decay, as has been described by US political scientist Francis Fukuyama. The seeds of this decay were sown in the early 21st century, with the country’s “rewarding the best and punishing the worst” mechanism eroding.

The 2000 US presidential election — highly disputed due to the extremely close vote count and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court in favor of Republican George W Bush — held three key implications for the country’s political developments that collectively point to a breakdown in US democracy.

First, it marked the first electoral deadlock since the full implementation of the “one person, one vote” principle enshrined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the first instance where the popular vote winner did not win the presidency.

Second, the Supreme Court’s intervention in the Florida recount process raised serious questions about the independence of the judiciary. The Republican-nominated justices sided with Bush, while the Democratic nominees supported his rival Al Gore, exposing the political biases that can influence judicial decision-making.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the federal right to abortion, with the Republican-nominated justices unanimously siding against it, exemplifies how judicial interpretations can be shaped by partisan allegiances. This reflects the profound political divides currently permeating US institutions.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on July 1 dramatically expands the power of the presidency and further protects Trump from criminal prosecution. While three of the six conservative justices were nominated and appointed by Trump himself, the three liberal justices tell the truth while arguing the majority gave Trump “all the immunity he asked for and more”.

Third, the 2000 election marked the disappearance of the foundational US principle of “rewarding the best and punishing the worst”, where political figures and parties with superior performance would be re-elected but the underperforming ones would be voted out.

Despite the economic prosperity and fiscal surplus under the Bill Clinton administration, the Democratic Party candidate in 2000 Gore did not benefit from the party’s successful track record.

Conversely, back in the 1980s, Republican successor George HW Bush capitalized on the Reagan-era performance, even as the merits of the candidates themselves seemed to play a diminished role in the outcome.

The eight years of the George W Bush presidency marked a critical period of US decline in the post-Cold War era. Two wars and a financial crisis severely depleted US soft and hard power.

In 2001, the US Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, paving the way for the Afghanistan War. George W Bush was considered one of the worst presidents in history but still managed to secure re-election.

In 2008, the country made history by electing Barack Obama, its first African-American president. From a historical perspective, such unprecedented political events can stem from two possibilities: systemic disorder or reform.

Obama’s election belonged to the former category, as a series of negative “firsts” followed, such as the election of the political outsider and populist Donald Trump in 2016, who like George W Bush won the presidency despite losing the popular vote.

The system created by the “Founding Fathers” of the US was designed to prevent figures like Trump from attaining power, yet this safeguard had clearly collapsed.

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Trump’s defeat in 2020 sparked nationwide protests, the first time since universal suffrage that Americans refused to accept an electoral outcome. Trump and numerous congressional allies continue to reject the results. The storming of the US Capitol in Washington on Jan 6, 2021, was another unprecedented event in US history.

Surveys indicate that over 60 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.

As early as 2014, scholars such as Fukuyama warned of the US political decay, a prediction that has only been borne out. To echo the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the inevitable descent of democracy into tyranny appears to be unfolding before our eyes.

The author is a political scientist based in France and a research fellow at the China Research Institute of Fudan University. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.