Trump trial

THE suspense is almost over for those waiting on the outcome of the Donald Trump “hushmoney” case, which is likely to end later this week with a decision from the jury in New York.

It will be a historic moment, one that will briefly unite a split country as Democrats and Republicans from California to Florida pause to watch, listen or read the news from Manhattan. Guilty or innocent?

Under the old rules of political engagement, a lot more than Trump’s freedom would hang on the answer to that question.

A felony conviction of any kind would have automatically ended a political campaign on the basis that no selfrespecting democracy would have dreamed of putting a criminal in the highest office. Likewise, it’s unimaginable that any candidate would be daft enough to think it might.

Remember Gary Hart? John Edwards? Only political nerds will be able to give you chapter and verse on how personal and legal indiscretions led to the end of their presidential aspirations.

But Trump is a different kind of cat. He hasn’t merely ripped up the rulebook but doused it in petrol, set it on fire, driven over it with a steamroller, and thrown it down a mineshaft.

In the past seven days the former president has chickened out of giving evidence in his own defence in the criminal case against him, despite promising for months that he would. He has posted a video on social media promising a “unified Riech” if elected, and, unbelievably, he has cemented his narrow lead over Joe Biden in the polls.

Any politician would have been exhausted into submission by now but not Trump who, buoyed by the support of a slavish voter base and his own sociopathic ability to compartmentalise chaos, keeps rolling on and on, like The Terminator in a long red tie.