Yossi Mekelberg In recent years, the world has faced many events to which the adjective “unprecedented” has been frequently and correctly attached: from a global pandemic to a member of the UN Security Council illegally invading a neighbor and global warming reaching a new height. However, in the next few months, much of our attention will turn to the US presidential election — and there too the unprecedented nature of events rules supreme. For the first time, both candidates are looking to be elected for a second term; their combined age is the highest of any previous pair of candidates; and, in addition, criminal trials are dominating much of the political debate, despite the enormous challenges confronting the country domestically and internationally.
And if Donald Trump wins, he will become the first American president to be a convict. For now, he holds the unenviable record of being the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes and he might even have to run the country from behind bars. As far as the two court cases are concerned, there is a marked difference between them.
In the case of President Joe Biden, he has not been suspected, let alone charged with any offence, but his son Hunter was convicted last week in a federal court on three felony counts relating to buying a handgun while being a crack cocaine user and lying about that. The president’s support of his son, especially considering the tragic history of their family, is an understandable.