For the first time in American history, a former U.S. president has been convicted of a felony. This, we’re told, is a historic development. Trump tried to thwart not just the law, but the rule of law, and twelve jurors reaffirmed that nobody transcends its authority.
The ruling dovetails perfectly with Biden’s campaign message about “democracy” being on the ballot, almost as if it were stage-managed for that purpose. On the New York Times’ podcast The Daily, court reporter Jonah Bromwich wondered, “What will people choose — the law or Donald Trump? That’s what this election is going to be about.” So I guess that’s what the New York Times is going with.
But the ruling only confirms the Democrats’ message if you already subscribe to it. If you’re more sympathetic to Donald Trump’s view of events — that this was a nakedly partisan abuse of the criminal justice system for the purpose of destroying a rival candidate — then the outcome only turns your cynicism into outrage, which is why the Republicans are running on it. In terms of how this impacts the election, the question, as always, is how did those who aren’t yet sold on either side’s preordained narrative view the news. And that’s an important question for the national horse race, but the fact that it’s this question we’re asking only shows how entirely devoid of substance the election we’re living through is.
Prior presidential elections, even at their dumbest, were usually about something. The 2020 election was about a promised return to normalcy from the chaos of the Trump years. Four years before, it was a referendum on the corruption of the trans-partisan Washington establishment. Obama’s first campaign was about unifying the nation and transcending the divisions of the Bush years, and his re-election was a test of his failure to deliver on those soaring promises.
This election is about nothing. It’s a movie without a plot. The conventional wisdom is that an election with an incumbent in it is a referendum on that incumbent’s performance. But this is basically an election between two incumbents, so the referendum is on both of them, which means the election is about itself. The most important question to determine whether you prefer Biden or Trump is whether you prefer Biden or Trump. Biden’s best pitch for himself is that he’s not Trump. Trump’s best pitch is that he is.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Social Studies to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.