The celebrated Donald Trump mugshot is not an isolated instance of the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot.

Just to save the ‘Biden Crime Family’, as some conservative commentators describe them, the Democrats are engaging in a disgraceful campaign that involves them regularly shooting themselves in both feet.

The likely result of something designed to hurt Trump, an image now seared into the nation’s memory, is that not only have they alienated even Democrats. They have also ensured a larger pro-Trump turnout in the general election. Trump looks as a leader should – strong and forthright. This image could be the draft for a sculpture at Mount Rushmore. While I never doubted he would win the nomination, the Democrats have now made his return to the White House even more likely.

There is a danger also that in so openly politicising the criminal justice system, the Democrats have well and truly crossed the line. Once one side does, there is great pressure on the other to follow. We shall see.

That excellent lawyer, Senator Ted Cruz, rightly identifies a pattern in these indictments, one worthy of a banana republic.

Whenever even more evidence is revealed implicating the Bidens in corruption, the Democrat machine unleashes yet another indictment against Trump concocted by some hitherto unknown apparatchik, transparently posing as a prosecutor. That part of the mainstream media who operate as the propaganda arm of the Democratic party – it seems to a foreigner, most of them – then play down or even ignore the mounting evidence against Joe Biden.

A pattern is emerging.

Trump is, according to Vivek Ramaswamy, the ‘best president of the 21st century’.He could have said, with justification, ‘since Ronald Reagan’.

When Ramaswamy announced that if he won, he would pardon Trump and then when no other candidate took up his call he won, in the eyes of many, the Republican debate. He is already beginning to look vice presidential.

While all this was going on, I was interviewing, for ADH TV, the talented US correspondent Adam Creighton. One of the things we discussed was whether a reassessment of the US presidency is justified.

I used to think that, in terms of providing good government, there wasn’t much difference between Washington and Westminster.

But over recent years we have seen too many examples of the weaknesses of the American presidency. Interestingly, one of those weaknesses was discussed by our founders during the drafting of the Australian constitution when we borrowed so much from the Americans. They concentrated on the advantages of collective cabinet government, but in addition, experience suggests two other problems. First, it is next to impossible to remove a president, even one who should obviously go, and second, if he goes voluntarily, the succession is then locked in to the vice president, with a fresh choice made on merit not possible.

Compare that with another empire, the British. A classic example of a good handover was when Churchill replaced Chamberlain. That could not happen in the US. In addition, the executive power is in a collective, the cabinet with two safeguards, the  king and the requirement that the executive retain the confidence of the House of Commons, which, unlike the lower house in Canberra, is not under the dictatorship of the ruling party. The reason is that the British Labour party does not employ that monstrosity, the so-called caucus rule that stops ALP politicians from crossing the floor. On this, compare the situation at Westminster during Question Time, which at Canberra has been reduced to embarrassing fourth-rate theatre. A dramatic example of the way the Commons operates as a real chamber was when Tony Blair depended on Tory votes to retain the confidence of the House over the Iraq war.

Returning to the US president, a crucial question for us, as citizens of what Clinton Fernandes disparages as a ‘sub-imperial power’, as it is for Britons, New Zealanders, Canadians, Israelis, Germans and even the reluctant French, is this: Who is the best American to be the leader of the free world?

To answer this, the commentariat should put out of their minds such irrelevancies as Trump’s hairdo, his texting or locker talk about women, just as they should have disregarded Tony Abbott’s walk, his swimming costume, his monarchism and his Catholicism. To use irrelevancies as a criterion for leadership is always a mistake.

To return to the ‘Mount Rushmore mugshot’, this shows Donald Trump as his supporters think he is, courageous and unafraid.  It is clear that with him, there is a line you do not cross with impunity. The dictators who control what has emerged as the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran-Pyongyang Axis, by their behaviour, obviously thought that. And those in the West who initially feared any imprudence on his part, say with nuclear weapons, should have been pleased with him. He was the only president in recent years who did not start a war.

That was why I suggested to a group of law professors to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. Of course, we hardly expected that his achievements would lead to an actual award. Trump attracts the almost automatic hatred and condescension of the elites.

The idiosyncrasies of the American constitution are not so much the problem in delivering the best choice for America and the world. The problem is whether this election will be, dare I say with impunity, as rigged as the last one was.