United States Elects a Convicted Felon for Their President

By Kaniehtonkie.

United States – American citizens elected a convicted felon as their president. Trump was convicted in New York this spring on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush-money payment made to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election. Presidential pardoning power only applies to federal offences, not to crimes violating state law.

There is nothing under federal law or in the U.S. Constitution that prevents a felon from leading the nation. To become president, candidates need only be at least 35 years old, a natural-born citizen and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. The law is harder on voters than presidential candidates: in some states, felons cannot vote for the leader of their country.

In 2023, Donald J. Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll.

Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan clarified later that the jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

Donald J. Trump won in what is considered a “historic landslide”, with predominately older white women, black men and Latinos choosing Trump over Kamala Harris.

Given Trump’s rhetoric – it’s difficult to understand how he won them over with Trump consistently saying he will leave it up to the states to decide on a woman’s bodily autonomy. Seventy-five percent of U.S. senators are predominantly older white men in political power. Trump promises to deport illegal immigrants, Latino immigrants are identified as his main target. According to U.S. News the former president had a strong showing among women 45 years and older, according to preliminary polling from AP VoteCast.

Trump promised to make policing much more aggressive and indiscriminate. According to Statista, ‘Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 956 civilians having been shot, 207 of whom were Black, as of October 22, 2024. In 2023, there were 1,164 fatal police shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 6.2 fatal shootings per million of the population per year between 2015 and October 2024.’ And yet, Trump received a considerable number of votes from young Black men. In particular, Trump performed better among Black men, where he received 24% support versus 9% of the vote among Black women, according to AP VoteCast.

The 2024 presidential election was Trump's third run for the presidency. This year's victory was the first time he won the popular vote. On Wednesday Trump led with 72,784,116 votes (51.0%) to Harris' 68,132,958 votes (47.5%) with votes being tallied in some states. 

For Trump’s 34 felony counts of falsifying business records – his sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 26 in a New York courtroom even as the presidential transition will be underway. 

Trump will be sworn in on January 20, 2025.