It is generally a healthy habit for the British political mind not to steep itself too heavily in news from the other side of the Atlantic.
The superficial similarities and ease of transmission afforded by a common language otherwise risk one becoming hopelessly America-brained.
(Symptoms include imagining that developments regarding Roe v Wade have any significance for the United Kingdom, the belief that we need or even already have separation of powers in the constitution, and walking towards our famously unarmed constabulary chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!”.)
But there are times when even the most diligent Zero Yankee policy must yield to the moment, alas, and Donald Trump facing 34 criminal charges and the possibility of prison time is such a moment. We can only strive to keep the intellectual equivalence of two metres between us and the material, and hope for the best.
At the very least, first off, the spectacle puts our own affairs into perspective. Much nonsense has been written about the Privileges Committee’s investigation into Boris Johnson, and some of his less sober supporters have alleged that the whole thing is a political stitch-up.
But set against the spectacle stateside, both the scale and the stakes take on a toy-soldiers quality. No criminal wrongdoing, no actual court, no spectre of January 6.
The contrast flatters our institutions, too. One does not need to take seriously Trump’s denunciation of the process to see how various American customs – politically-appointed prosecutors, elected judges, the increasingly imperial role of the Supreme Court and the lawfare engendered by it – makes such allegations more likely and easier to make, if not to substantiate.
(Of course, grossly misjudged interventions such as that of Nancy Pelosi, who apparently said that it was for Trump to “prove his innocence”, don’t help either.)
A useful vision of a possible future, then, for those on this side of the sea who are tempted to play fast and loose with the reputations of our own institutions. Jolyon Maugham’s latest crusade – to make barristers pass political judgement on prospective clients – is a step in a very bad direction; Keir Starmer’s recent appointment of Sue Gray was another.
It is likewise a salutary warning for the Conservatives to take care, during their rather haphazard efforts to address the under-representation of Tory supporters in the realm of public appointments, with the reputations of the institutions in their care. At least those they don’t claim to want to abolish, at any rate.
Once the rot is sufficiently progressed, once a sufficient mass of the population has been alienated – the damage is real whether their grievances are real or not – then bad actors can turn even efforts to hold them to account to their advantage.
Trump is certainly playing the theatre of his prosecution for all it’s worth; his team have reportedly mocked up a mugshot to use for fundraising, since the authorities were so disobliging as not to take an official one. Some US commentators think the whole spectacle will actually help his prospects in the Republican primaries.
Fortunately, there seems little prospect of any politician pulling the same stunt here. The wilder fringes of Scottish separatism are probably the closest British analogue of the MAGA movement, but nobody thinks the arrest yesterday of Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband and for 20 years the Chief Executive of the SNP, is any sort of foundation for a Nationalist renaissance.
Likewise, for all that Johnson played up to the idea that he was being unjustly persecuted during his appearance before the Privileges Committee, there is no sign that the proceedings have sparked any Trumpian backlash that will strengthen his hand within the party; Tory MPs are not looking over their shoulders for the Conservative Democratic Organisation.
May it be ever thus. It is bad enough to be endlessly subjected by the media to America’s dysfunctions and neuroses without replicating them ourselves. Whatever the failings of our political leaders, the past year has shown at least that we can still bring them to account.