Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Maybe, just maybe, Judge Juan Merchan saved American democracy last week.
On Friday, the New York state judge delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing on his felony conviction for falsifying business records to hide his hush-money scheme to buy the silence of a former porn star in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump was trying to cover up his affair with Stormy Daniels just after his campaign had nearly been derailed by the October release of an “Access Hollywood” videotape in which he talked openly about how he harassed and molested women. Figuring his campaign might not survive a second sex scandal, Trump was willing to break the law to keep the adulterous incident secret.
Now, Trump won’t be sentenced in the case until after the November election.
Many political pundits and analysts called Merchan’s decision a victory for Trump, validating Trump’s campaign to sidetrack and delay his four criminal cases before the election.
Initially, I agreed with that assessment. But then I started to think about the dangers of allowing a demagogue to portray himself as a victim.
Of course, Trump has long cast himself as a persecuted victim: a victim of the Justice Department, Congress, the media, or whoever else has most recently sought to hold him accountable for his many lies, impeachable actions, and criminality. It is the cynical playbook that he has used over and over again to whip up his followers and get them to believe his insane conspiracy theories. He doesn’t care that his rhetoric incited an effort to overturn the government during the January 6 insurrection, or that violent white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys follow his lead, or that his dark conspiracy theories led to an attack on an FBI office. Research has found that more than a quarter of Republicans now believe that political violence is acceptable.
But a criminal sentencing in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign would have helped Trump sell his fake victimhood to a wider audience, beyond his MAGA minions.
A criminal sentencing in the closing weeks of the campaign would have helped Trump sell his fake victimhood to a wider audience.
Without the sentencing — and with his other three criminal cases in limbo — Trump can still claim he is persecuted, as he did during this week’s presidential debate, but it will be less effective.
History shows there is a risk in holding would-be dictators accountable for their actions at crucial political moments. The best-known case happened exactly one century ago.
Adolf Hitler’s 1924 trial for treason provides an important lesson for how to deal with Trump.
Hitler was a fringe political figure in Germany before his trial began in February 1924. The trial came just months after Hitler led an insurrection that became known to history as the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed effort by Hitler and the new Nazi Party to take over the provincial government of Bavaria as a precursor to staging a coup in Berlin to take over all of Germany. Hitler was trying to follow the model set by Benito Mussolini, another fascist who had gained power in Italy after his 1922 March on Rome.
Hitler’s putsch began on November 8, 1923, when he and his fellow Nazis stormed a political meeting at a beer hall in Munich where Bavaria’s state commissioner was speaking. Hitler fired a pistol and announced that “the national revolution has begun,” while other Nazis surrounded the hall and blocked its main entrance with a machine gun.
But Hitler’s coup attempt quickly began to collapse. When about 2,000 Nazis tried to march into central Munich the next morning, they were met by police and a firefight broke out, leaving 15 Nazis, four police officers, and one bystander dead.
Hitler and many of his lieutenants were soon arrested and charged with high treason. At first, Hitler was despondent; he thought his life was over. But by the time his trial began, he was primed to turn the courtroom into a platform from which he could spout his lies and propaganda.
Hitler had the benefit of going on trial at a fraught political moment. Post-war Germany was suffering an economic meltdown, while many Germans were casting about for people to blame for the nation’s defeat in World War I and were resentful of the onerous terms imposed on Germany by the victorious allies in the Treaty of Versailles. A large percentage of Germans came to believe that Germany had not really lost the war on the battlefield. Instead, they were convinced by the “stab in the back” conspiracy theory: that the German army hadn’t been defeated, and instead the nation’s political will had simply collapsed in the closing weeks of the war. For that, they blamed Jews and Socialists and other groups that they claimed had forced the surrender and the abdication of the Kaiser.
Hitler took advantage of this chaotic political climate during his trial. Sympathetic judges allowed him to engage in demagogic speech, enabling him to portray himself as a martyr who was trying to save Germany from the evil forces behind Germany’s postwar Weimar Republic.
Hitler did not attempt to fight the treason charges but instead claimed to be a German patriot determined to remove the real criminals in the government. He referred to the Weimar government as the “traitors of 1918,” blaming them for Germany’s defeat.
Prior to the conclusion of the trial, Hitler delivered a powerful speech in the courtroom that deeply resonated with his staunch right-wing supporters. “You may declare us guilty a thousand times, but the Goddess overseeing the Eternal Court of History will tear apart the charges of the Public Prosecutor and the verdict of this court with a smile,” he proclaimed. “For she will acquit us.”
Hitler received an incredibly lenient sentence; he was released after serving only nine months. During his time in prison, he dictated “Mein Kampf” to fellow Nazi prisoners.
The failed putsch and his theatrical trial propelled Hitler to political stardom in Germany, allowing him and his followers to argue that he was a target of a corrupt legal system.
To be certain, the comparisons between Hitler and Trump are not exact. It took Hitler nearly a decade after his trial to seize power, whereas Trump’s sentencing would have occurred just weeks before the presidential election. Furthermore, the economic and political landscapes in the United States today differ significantly from those in Germany in the 1920s.
Nevertheless, Hitler and Trump both employed a similar strategy of portraying themselves as victims and using demagoguery. Both experienced a surge in political support by claiming persecution and martyrdom. Trump’s tactics – depicting himself as a patriot fighting against dark forces within the government and other elite institutions – mirror Hitler’s playbook.
Although it is disheartening that Trump has not faced consequences for his numerous transgressions, it may be beneficial for the country that he will not be able to present himself as a persecuted victim in the lead-up to the election. Trump in handcuffs could potentially bolster his political standing.
