The drama involving former US President Donald Trump now playing out in a New York City courtroom is more than just a criminal trial.
It is a battle between competing conceptions of power: a liberal-democratic legal system versus an illiberal conception that locates the source of authority outside the current legal system.
According to the conventional wisdom, aside from the fact that for the first time in American history the suspect is a former president (and current presidential candidate), this is just another criminal case. Prosecutors are trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump intentionally and unlawfully falsified company records to mask payment for adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ silence about her alleged sexual encounter with him.
