Anyone who has seen Hamilton the musical, playing now at Brisbane’s Lyric Theatre, would know that hush money is not a new thing in American politics.
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton, then at the height of his powers as US Treasury Secretary, began a fateful affair with Maria Reynolds.
Later her husband demanded and received blackmail payments from Hamilton to keep the affair secret.
The resulting scandal probably cost Hamilton higher office.
What is new to American politics is the indictment of a former US President based on allegations of such payments.
Claims that Donald Trump paid off a former porn star were first revealed before the 2016 election.
Such political scandals have been around since Julius Caeser was dubbed the Queen of Nicomedes.
What America has so far avoided adopting from Roman times is the weaponisation of the court system to pursue political opponents.
Julius Caesar marched on Rome, and eventually installed himself dictator, because his political foes were threatening to prosecute him for alleged crimes.
America has now crossed that Rubicon. In the case of Donald Trump, the person prosecuting him, Alvin Bragg, was elected on the promise that he was the best candidate to prosecute Trump.
Now Bragg has delivered on that promise by charging Trump with the misdemeanour that Trump failed to disclose hush money payments in his business records. As the respected lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, has pointed out, this position is absurd. How could any nondisclosure agreements be made if their nature had to be disclosed in publicly available records!
And, it is not just the Democrats pursuing these tactics. Republicans in Tennessee expelled three elected representatives for leading unruly protests in recent weeks.
These American developments should concern us for two reasons.
First, Australia follows so many US trends and there are already signs of the creeping politicisation of court, or court-like, processes in Australia.
The Abbott Government hauled former Labor Ministers in front of a Royal Commission on the pink batts scheme.
Labor has now done the same to Liberal Ministers on the robodebt scandal. And, at the State level, independent commissions against corruption have been used to pursue political targets, not genuine corruption issues.
There needs to be wider condemnation of these quasi-judicial political tactics that have been abused by both sides of politics.
These isolated examples have not materially weakened our democracy, but they could easily lead to the kind of tit-for-tat escalation that would pose a greater threat.
Second, our national defence is tied to access to American technology and so any decline in the strength of US democracy could weaken us.
The US has a history of descending into seemingly fatal divisions, and then emerging from the conflict, a stronger and better nation.
I remain an optimist about America’s future but as good friends with them we should point out where we think they are going wrong.
The only time you should avoid passing on criticism to a friend is in their eulogy, and America is not quiet dead yet.
There is an historical oversight in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of Alexander Hamilton’s life.
The musical’s plot suggests, that Hamilton’s hush money scandal ended his public life, yet he was later appointed as head of the US Army during the Quasi-War with France.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s indictment will end his public career.
At this juncture, however, it only seems to have strengthened his political chances.
As Trump pointed out to Tucker Carlson this week, he has probably been the most investigated politician in a generation, and this is the best they have to charge him with!
Trump’s return would be a defeat to those Bragg types who have sought to defeat their opponents in the courts rather than at the ballot box. However, it would raise the prospect of a Republican response.
We must fight for an end to the escalating, politico-judicial, tit-for-tat. Politics has always been a brutal game but a healthy democracy needs a clear separation between politics and the courts.
