How an indictment helps Donald Trump build his brand

Donald Trump has been a political alchemist with few equals, spinning the dross of lewd conduct, questionable tax returns and a thousand other scandals into an ever greater hold on the public’s attention and, with it, votes.

On Monday, Mr. Trump landed in New York, preparing to appear for his arrest on Tuesday, a process that will likely include being fingerprinted and, perhaps, submitting to a mugshot photograph.

It will be a moment without parallel in the history of the United States, the charging of a former president after a grand jury voted for his indictment last week in a case that turns on the alleged disguising of hush payments to Stormy Daniels, an actor in pornographic films.

But if there is a mugshot, some expect Mr. Trump to turn it into a T-shirt.

“This is perfect for him,” said Kenneth Cosgrove, a scholar of political branding at Suffolk University in Boston.

“This now turns him into, ‘I fought the law – and I won.’ ”

Mr. Trump has, in the past three U.S. election cycles, failed to win back the presidency or propel the Republican Party to expected midterm gains. Over the past few months, his campaign to win back the Republican presidential nomination had stumbled. The affections of some of his most powerful allies in Congress and in the media had dimmed.

The indictment has given Mr. Trump a burst of new energy. Global supporters have sent him well-wishes, strongman Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban among them. His opponents have spoken in his defence, including many of his competitors in the Republican primary. Fox News has brought him back into the centre of attention, carrying live footage of the Trump jet touching down at LaGuardia Airport Monday. And voters have expressed new affection, with at least two polls showing a lift in support for Mr. Trump.

David Shribman: Trump’s expected arraignment is a stress test for U.S. politics

But those surveys also showed that roughly half of Americans see the case against Mr. Trump as serious, an indication that he is entering uncharted and, perhaps, perilous territory for his political career.

Mr. Trump “likes situations where he can control every element,” said Alison Hearn, a University of Western Ontario scholar who has studied reality television and Mr. Trump. In court, “there’s lot that he can’t control. He can’t control what the judge will do. He can’t control how the case will go.”

And in being arrested, “there’s a kind of tarnish that will rub off on him in a way that I don’t think he can predict.”

Mr. Trump, who came to national prominence on reality television, has already sought to influence how he might be perceived. He will not wear handcuffs, one of his lawyers has said. His lawyers have also sought to keep news cameras out of court, citing security concerns (other trials have been delayed at the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday to make way for the former president).

“He may be in legal jeopardy in the courts, but I do not think that he is in jeopardy of losing support in the court of public opinion – at least not with his supporters,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communications scholar and author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump’s reputation for ducking accountability is not entirely earned, she noted. He was impeached, twice. He paid US$25-million to settle lawsuits against Trump University, which students accused of false advertising.

Yet he has more often proven adept at turning misfortune to his own gain.

“They only attack me because I fight for you,” he said in a video he posted to social media Sunday in which he appealed for financial donations.

David Moscrop: Donald Trump’s indictment is a triumph for the rule of law – and U.S. democracy

Whatever charges are filed against Mr. Trump will likely “be spun to his advantage with his supporters who want to believe that he’s their hero and he’s fighting for them against a corrupt elite,” Prof. Mercieca said.

Peter Eisner, the co-author of High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump, likens Mr. Trump to Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, a populist billionaire whose 2013 conviction for tax fraud has done little to diminish his powerful hold on the country’s politics.

Yet for all of Mr. Trump’s public bravado, the uncertainty of the outcome in the case against him – and the prospect of other indictments emerging from separate investigations – are likely to be unsettling, Mr. Eisner said. That may motivate Mr. Trump to pursue another of the hallmarks in his political persona, an impulse to demolish those he sees as his enemies.

“Imagine the king, as he sees himself to be, going to jail. I’m sure that he’s frightened of it,” Mr. Eisner said. “And everything that I’ve seen shows that he will lash out to the degree which he’s frightened, and try to delegitimize everything around him” – first the country’s electoral systems following his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden and, now, the courts.

The arrest of Mr. Trump, Mr. Eisner added, comes during a time of political upheaval in which the former president has risen to prominence amid a broader fracturing of public faith in its civic institutions.

“Justice has to be served, and without that we’re in tremendous trouble,” he said.

“With or without Trump, U.S. democracy is on the line here.”