Polarisation is the reason why politicians are not harmed by accusations and convictions against them in court
The arguments made in the article below about political polarisation hold for Malta. In this article, the Daily Telegraph analyses why Trump’s conviction will not harm his political career. In the United States, polarisation is so strong that Trump will not be touched.
With its behaviour following the publication of Gabriella Vella’s inquiry, the PN succeeded in polarising the local situation. The PN believes that they need a national crisis to get elected. They sought to create it by pushing prosecution against Muscat. However, they did not realise that when the Labourites feel threatened by the PN, they tend to re-unite. Then, if the Labourites think that in this attack against them, the PN has the support of the Church (as indeed it has), they re-unite even more. Many Labourites, who were saying that they were not going to vote, now state that they will be voting because of what had been done to Joseph Muscat.
The losers in all this are the judiciary and the local Catholic Church. Archbishop Scicluna is manipulated by the Repubblichini, who operates through his curia. Scicluna thinks he has the necessary political zeal to lead his flock and rely exclusively on the advice and counsel of the Repubblichini and their friends. However, the Christian flock is not led by party politics but by pastoral care. Scicluna is making a big mistake dragging the Church into politics. He rekindled in many Labourities, who had lived through the sixties, the wounds suffered back then which have never been healed.
The Labourites who went to give support to Joseph Muscat last Tuesday were either children or young adults in the sixties. Many witnessed and experienced priests and friars slamming the door of the confessional boxes in their faces because their parents read Dom Mintoff’s newspaper or attend his meetings.
Today, they are in their late sixties and seventies. They are grandparents or great-grandparents. Now, they are transmitting these shameful narratives to their children and grand children. Scicluna’s behaviour is giving the nieces and nephews of these Labourities the necessary alibi that what their parents or grandparents are telling them about the shameful behaviour of the Church is entirely correct.
In this whole debacle, it is the Church that is destined to be the loser. As this article in the Telegraph proves, Muscat will not be affected like Trump by these court proceedings. What is being said for Trump holds for Muscat. Like Trump, Muscat is seen today as a successful person who defeated the PN. He appears to be a successful man in the eyes of the younger generation. The older generation sees him as a saviour who has saved them from twenty years of PN rule. Muscat holds the same aura in the minds of the younger generation as successful divas and leading personalities. They are the role models of today’s youths. The fact that he is accused of becoming a millionaire out of corruption will even increase his aura and image of a successful person among the young and not-so-young generation. This is why court proceedings today will not harm his political persona; as one literary figure said many decades ago, “il-lira tmexxi bollox” or money talks.
Today, in Malta, we follow the United States model in the way we do politics. The prosecution of Muscat has only reignited the polarisation among the Maltese electorate on both sides of the political spectrum and brought sympathy towards him from disgruntled Labourites.
The Labourities in Malta are reacting in the same way as Trump supporters. In Trump’s case, they are saying that because of these proceedings, they will vote with more conviction for him. Even more revealing in this survey carried out in the USA is that those saying they will vote an independent candidate are in solidarity with Trump.
Within this scenario, it is useless for the Church to rely on tradition, as Scicluna does, thinking that Tridentine rites can rekindle the faithful towards his Church. In the sixties, the Church used to take religious statues out in procession to tease the labourites. These religious paraphernalia can only satisfy a sense of nostalgia among those who lived in those times on the side of the Church but are meaningless activities for the modern generation. The contemporary generation is looking for a new spirituality, which cannot be forthcoming from bishops who are more politicians than spiritual leaders. Spirituality can only come from individuals who convincingly live the words in the bible.
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Donald Trump proclaimed in early 2016, mere months before entering The White House for the first time.
Falsifying business records, for which the now former president was convicted on Thursday, may be minor in comparison, but his polling instincts are yet to be proven inaccurate.
According to an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist Poll released in the hours before the verdict was announced, two-thirds of US registered voters (67 per cent) said Mr Trump being found guilty would have no impact on their vote.
Just 17 per cent would withdraw their support.
In a testament to just how polarised the country is, the first YouGov snap poll after the result was announced found just half of Americans agreed with the Manhattan jury’s unanimous conclusion.
Nationally, the polls remain nail-bitingly close. In a normal election, a criminal conviction could help break this stalemate, particularly in the closest of swing states. But this is no normal
Will Trump now lose the support of his base?
A quarter of self-professed Trump supporters (24 per cent) claimed a guilty verdict in the hush money trial would make them more likely to vote for him in November, according to the Marist poll. Only 7 per cent said the opposite.
Only 10 per cent of Republican voters as a whole told the Marist Poll a conviction would make them abandon him this cycle, compared to the 25 per cent who said it would make them even more likely to vote for him. Such is the way of intensely-polarised politics.
Evidently, the loyalty of Trump’s base is unlikely to waiver as a result of the 34 guilty counts. What the judge decides during sentencing on July 11th, however, could have a more substantial effect.
Last month, an ABC News/Ipsos poll found 65 per cent of voters who sided with the Republican in 2020 would stick by him in 2024 in the event of a conviction. This fell to 53 per cent if he were serving a prison sentence on election day.
Most experts agree, however, that he will not see the inside of a prison cell – despite Mr Trump’s conduct during the trial itself not playing in his favour.
Will this change the minds of independents?
For independents, apathy is the prevailing mood: just under three-quarters (74 per cent) reported the outcome would make no difference to their vote. But interestingly, a larger share of unaligned voters said a guilty verdict would make them more likely to back Trump than less likely, by 15 to 11 per cent.
YouGov found less than half of independents agreed Mr Trump was guilty (48 per cent), while just 42 per cent claimed they thought the trial was fair.
Part of this might be explained by Trump’s status as a celebrity, rather than only being a politician. Just last week, columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson argued in The New York Times that Trump “retains the sort of shield that only celebrity can provide” whilst comparing his stature with that of talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
“The allure of success is powerful”, she wrote. “In our own lives, success can take many forms – financial gain, professional accolades, a happy family. But for many, especially younger Americans today, fame and influence are aspirations or indicators of success. There’s a reason brands seek out celebrity spokespeople to endorse products; we perhaps unconsciously assume that because someone is famous, the person must be worth listening to.”
Will this cause swing states to side with Biden?
Ultimately though, national views have less relevance when, come election day, Donald Trump only needs to convince the eight swing states to vote for him.
As things stand, 4 months before the US voting public casts their ballots, Mr Trump is ahead in all swing states – the places that could land either way in November: Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia.
In Wisconsin and Michigan, less than 2 percentage points split the candidates, according to poll agglomerator FiveThirtyEight.
Given the winner-takes-all fashion in which most states send electoral college votes back to Washington, even a slight drop in support post-verdict here could make all the difference. Wisconsin and Michigan have 10 and 15 electoral college votes respectively, and both were won by the Democrat last time around.
In the other six, Mr Trump has more leeway, and is ahead by an average of 6.2 points. Yet the Republican won only one 2 of them in 2020, North Carolina and Florida. Polled ahead of Super Tuesday back in March – when Nikki Haley was still in the fight for the GOP nomination – 32 per cent of Republicans said he would not be fit to serve again if convicted.
Do Americans care enough about the conviction for it to make a difference?
A presidential race depends on character and likeability, which a criminal conviction is sure to influence. While Mr Biden’s ratings have declined since 2020, Mr Trump’s have proven more resilient.
Nonetheless, the incumbent still ranks higher than Trump when it comes to being an “honest and trustworthy” person. Mr Trump’s ratings in that regard dropped from 40 per cent in 2020 to 35 per cent in 2024.
Despite the wall-to-wall news coverage of Mr Trump’s legal affairs, polling suggests the concerns that will be weighing on the minds of most Americans in the ballot box lie elsewhere.
The latest from Ipsos indicates nearly 9-in-10 (88 per cent) think the economy is one of the defining issues of the election, followed by inflation as a close second on 85 per cent.
In this regard, the Republican has a clear edge. According to a Gallup poll from April, Americans’ trust and confidence in Mr Biden to do the right thing for the economy is at historically low levels. Mr Trump’s overall confidence ratings never dipped below 40 per cent during his presidency, while Biden’s had done so halfway through his term.
So could this seal the deal for Joe Biden?
The short answer is, of course, that it is too soon to say for sure. Anything could happen with 4 months to go.
A better indication will follow sentencing on July 11th, when the once most powerful man in the world is either put behind bars, or merely forced to continue running for office as a convicted felon.
With a guilty charge to his name alone, most polling suggests the race will still go down to the wire: the majority of his MAGA base and Republican voters more broadly remain by his side, while most independents consider it a sideshow from the main issues.
Mr Trump’s team is sure to appeal the verdict, he himself pronouncing the case “long from over” in the entrance to the courthouse. “The real verdict is going to be 5th November, by the people.”