Despite Donald Trump's 'bloodbath' rhetoric, he's ahead of Joe Biden in key states – Henry McLeish

The rule of law and the common sense of voters are the last two things that could save the US from Donald Trump and a decaying, toxic democracy

The rule of law, so often abused by Donald Trump, in and out of his presidency, may now be his nemesis. While Joe Biden campaigns in the country, narrowing the polls and massively outspending his opponent, Trump agonises in a cold New York court revealing a tired, haggard, frustrated, increasingly ill-tempered and isolated soul devoid of humanity and oozing revenge and malice.

The stark contrast between a president in action and a candidate in court cannot be overlooked. The first of four criminal trials, spending $55 million of donated money on legal fees in 2023 alone, and dramatic pleadings to the Supreme Court for immunity from prosecution all point to a Trump in trouble.

None of this, of course, guarantees a successful path towards a Biden victory in November, but there is a discernible and growing sense of a shifting mood in the US as the magnitude of the criminal indictments against Trump hits home, and the non-Maga (Make America Great Again) element of the Republican party and independent voters weigh up how much more of this they can put up with.

Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a key state in the US presidential election, last month (Picture: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

But, as a reality check, it is always worth acknowledging that, in the US, layers of crazy politics abound and toxicity, hate, madness and revenge are never far from the headlines. In Tennessee, lawmakers recently passed a Bill to allow teachers to carry concealed handguns in class and on campuses, with training provided, of course! One of Trump’s potential running mates, Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, is grabbing the headlines. She recently revealed in a memoir how she had killed her “untrainable” dog, Cricket, taking her to a gravel pit and shooting her. She also described killing her “nasty and mean” goat.

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Assassinating a rival

As his legal costs mount and campaign funds shrink, Trump has taken to selling God Bless the USA Bibles at $59.99, saying, “all America needs a Bible in their homes and I have many”. Clearly he has not lost his entrepreneurial flair or sense of the absurd.

Speaking at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington at the weekend, Biden, in a mocking response, said: “Trump’s so desperate he started reading those bibles he’s selling... Then he got to the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. That’s when he put it down and said, ‘this book is not for me.’”

But as Trump struggles in court, his pleas for immunity for his actions have plumbed new depths of outrageous narcissism. American historian and author Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letters from an American Substack column, pointed out that Trump’s lawyer had argued it could be an “official act” for which a president should be immune from criminal prosecution, if they decided their rival was a “corrupt person” and ordered the military or “someone to assassinate him”.

Out of court, Trump’s unhinged behaviour continues unabated. His rants – described recently as a “smorgasbord of falsehoods” – are even more rambling, incoherent and barely intelligible. Speaking in Ohio to the US auto industry, Trump claimed that there would be a “bloodbath” if he lost in November.

A moral swamp

His “vermin” speech in New Hampshire last year – aimed at immigrants and his political enemies – was full of racist vitriol. And his hostile language and vile remarks are becoming more frequent and gaining more serious intent. Tom Nichols, a staff writer for the Atlantic Daily, wrote in an article headlined “Don’t let Trump exhaust you”, that the former president’s campaign “is trying to turn the electoral process into a moral swamp”, where “voters are... mired in moral chaos”. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon put it more accurately, saying Trump was trying to “flood the zone with sh**”.

Biden, in recent months, has certainly steadied his campaign and is polling alongside Trump in US-wide political surveys, but of the seven key battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina, the president is ahead in only two of them.

And there is worrying news for Biden on minority group’s voting intentions as recent polls suggest that for Black and Hispanic voters, especially the young, Trump is gaining ground. These potential shifts in allegiances may reflect the war in Gaza, pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, and the growing anger about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s belligerent behaviour. Immigration problems on the southern border and the state of the US economy are also not helping Biden.

Constitution offers little hope

For the Republican party, abortion remains a major problem as Trump equivocates and wobbles on the issue. The recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling that the state must adhere to an 1864 law virtually barring all abortions has once again ignited the debate. White evangelicals also may be rethinking their warm embrace of this immoral opportunist.

Reflecting on the unique political, democratic and legal challenges currently in play in the US, it would seem logical to look to the much-admired and long-established United States Constitution to find solutions to the multiple controversies that have contributed to America’s slide into a decaying and toxic democracy. The founding fathers, however, designated the Constitution as the “higher law of the land” and deliberately made it difficult to change.

Since 1789, 11,848 amendments have been proposed but only 27 have been ratified with the final amendment to the Constitution, proposed in September 1789, only ratified in 1992! Change requires majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives on Capitol Hill and the approval of 38 of the 50 states. In a bitterly divided America, this is the definition of impossible. Written constitutions may not be such a good idea, leaving common sense as the only possible route to sanity in the US.

Henry McLeish, a former First Minister of Scotland, is a visiting professor at the University of South Florida