Opinion | Trump’s indictment: the real takeaway is the US is as polarised as ever

Like an old Russian joke, the protesters didn’t show up to protest the arrest that didn’t happen. One wonders if Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared a laugh last week when they met in Moscow. Donald Trump, their former nemesis, facing arrest by a local prosecutor – isn’t democracy great, Mr General Secretary!

Trump’s appeal to supporters to protest against his imminent arrest by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last month was largely ignored. Who can blame them? The last time he asked them to protest in his support in January 2021, hundreds ended up in US prisons. That he told them he would join them at the Capitol, then failed to show up, could not have inspired much confidence in those he was pleading with to put themselves in harm’s way again for him.

Add this to the mostly poor showing of his hand-picked congressional and gubernatorial candidates in the recent elections and plain old Trump weariness, and it seems a good bet – polls notwithstanding – that he will not be the Republican presidential candidate next year.

The bad news, if you like the guy’s policies, is that it’s hard not to see him running as an independent, which will almost surely return a Democrat to the White House. And now he has been indicted – for paying hush money to a porn star – he is less likely to do anything other than press forward in his attempt to regain power.