Pandora's box of political polarization opened: China Daily editorial

Donald Trump's appearance in a Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday afternoon, in which the former US president pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony charges against him, has once again put the spotlight on the political polarization in the United States, with a debate raging between the Republicans and the Democrats over the legitimacy of the lawsuit.

As the next in-person hearing is scheduled for December, the lawsuit, which is expected to last for a long time, will necessarily exert an influence on the 2024 US presidential election.

Considering Trump's talents for turning adversity into opportunity, and that 63 percent of surveyed US voters think the litigation is out of political purposes, he will undoubtedly seize the chance to turn the case into political capital for his run at the White House. Something he has already begun doing. "The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it," said Trump calling the criminal charges against him "an insult" to the US.

The unusually heavy security measures around the Manhattan court, the big rallies of his staunch supporters outside his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where he flew to immediately after leaving the court, and the close watch both Democrats and Republicans are keeping on the fast-changing situation all speak volumes that no matter whether Trump is found guilty or not, the US society will continue to be torn apart by political polarization stoked by partisan politics. Be they substantiated or not, in their details, the dozens of charges the prosecutors have laid against Trump point to the extent to which money talks in US politics today, manipulating public opinion and bending rules and laws.

As shown by the fact that attention is focused on the political influence of the lawsuit rather than the charges themselves, the trial is being taken as an opportunity to make it more regulated and predictable for money to talk in US politics, so as to lower the collateral damage for both parties in the future should it be exposed by stepping-over-the-line ambition.

That being said, the result of the litigation will be a new compromise between the two parties on the future rules for their struggle as they will both have a direct legal reference — given the scale of the charges against Trump that encompasses almost all fields of the election politics and power exercise — on how far they can go in their tug-of-wars in the future.

With about 91 percent of US congressional elections today being won by the candidates with the most money, it is almost predictable that the governance of the world's most powerful country, as well as its diplomacy, will continue to be the exchange of interests among the rich who are becoming increasingly tacit in colluding with each other in creating divisions at home and beyond and speculating on them.