Indicted Populists Have a History of Staying in Office

Even as more indictments of former President Donald Trump loom, 2024 voters may be leaning his way. Many recent polls have the former president running even with President Joe Biden or taking the lead. Trump’s ability to weather his legal storms have led to comparisons with other politicians who have run for office, often successfully, in the midst of legal troubles. The comparisons matter — but what’s most important for understanding the current moment is the dynamic that links the many examples: us-versus-them.

Let’s start at the top. Many people know the story of Boston Mayor James Curley, so popular among the voters that in the 1940s he ran the city for five months from a federal penitentiary. Trump had barely taken office when the comparisons to Curley began. As the former president’s legal difficulties have mounted, they’ve come creeping back. Small wonder. Curley, an ardent New Dealer, was thoroughly corrupt, but whenever another investigation loomed, he appealed to his supporters’ sense of grievance, insisting that the Republican establishment was only going after him because he gave voice to the city’s despised Irish Catholics.