Trumps indictment has Dems and Republicans agreeing on one thing

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A CNN poll released Monday found that 60% of Americans approve of the impeachment of former President Donald Trump. And if you dig a little deeper into the results, there’s a fascinating data point about what the public believes drove the accusation.

According to the survey, conducted between March 31 and April 1 immediately after reports emerged that a grand jury had voted to indict Trump, 61% of Democratic-leaning Americans believe politics played a role in the indictment. That number is far lower than the 94% of Republican-leaning respondents who think the same way, but also more unexpected.

Here’s why. Almost all Democratic-leaning Americans surveyed also approve of the verdict, with 93% of them exactly. Taken together, this means a large portion of left-of-center people support the indictment, even if they feel it is driven to some degree by a political agenda.

What is clear is that most Americans across the political spectrum believe that the era of institutional normality is over.

There are several different possible explanations for this, some tied to Trump himself and others to developing countries’ beliefs about the purpose and trustworthiness of American institutions. Some reasons are understandable, but others raise uncomfortable questions about whether we are in danger of entering an irreversible spiral of ends-justify-the-means logic. Either way, what is clear is that most Americans across the political spectrum believe the era of institutional normalcy is over.

CNN survey question, How big a role, if any, do you think politics played in the decision to impeach Trump? is vague enough that it can be interpreted in different ways. But I think it’s fair to assume that the dominant reading of that question is the belief that the charges against Trump were motivated in part by political objections to the former president, especially as he angled for another duty in the White House.

One issue at play is the growing crisis of confidence in America. According to the survey, 76% of Americans believe that politics played a role in the accusation. The popularity ratings fit a broader trend of Americans losing faith in institutions to do their jobs properly. Trust in the criminal justice system, which has been at an all-time low for years, will further weaken in 2022, according to Gallup. Also, trust in the Supreme Court hit a record low last year, according to Gallup. More broadly, Americans have shown a decline in trust in every branch of government in recent years, sometimes as part of a decades-long trend.

But there is the more specific question of why the subset of left-leaning Americans who support the indictment are doing so even if they believe it is partially politically motivated.

One explanation is that cynicism about institutions such as courts and the criminal justice system is so widespread that there is a general expectation that politics play a role in the allegations against most any politician.

But Trump is no ordinary politician; there may be other dynamics at play. Many Americans believe that Trump poses a unique and potentially existential threat to multicultural democracy, and they may believe that a politically motivated criminal charge may be justified on that basis alone. Perhaps some believe that Trump has shown himself to often ignore laws and regulations that would make no sense if his accusations were entirely driven by legal considerations. There is also the possibility that some believe that the indictment is at once legally legitimate and political: that Trump deserves to be indicted, and also that the criminal justice system has elected to forge a new path in treating presidents like normal citizens because Trump is particularly dangerous.

A single poll does not give us definitive information about how Americans think. And until we learn more about what the allegations against Trump are based on, we still don’t know much. But one hopes that any criminal charges against Trump are not signed by a public that has lost interest in whether or not the allegations against him are legitimate.

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