As Donald Trump, the first president ever indicted, faces justice in a Manhattan courtroom, he is channelling his inner Aaron Burr, the first vice president to be indicted and brought to trial. Burr was not charged with murdering the revered Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New Jersey, but several years later, in 1807, for conspiracy to commit treason. Although disgraced, Burr was acquitted.

Trump yearns for the same judicial fate. Trump faces 91 felony counts in four separate trials. No other political figure has ever matched Trump’s nerve and moxie to turn what would be, for anyone else, a political death sentence into a sword to cut down his enemies.

Republican voters overwhelmingly believe Trump is being persecuted by President Joe Biden – that he has weaponised the full power of his government to rig the election by indicting Trump in multiple jurisdictions, rendering him a criminal candidate in the November election.

“Every time they indict me,” Trump tells his rallies, “I consider it a great badge of honour. I’m being indicted for you, and never forget, our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom … In the end, they are not after me. They’re coming after you and I just happen to be standing in the way.”

Trump as martyr likens his lived experience to Mandela and Jesus Christ.

He has had tactical success with endless legal challenges to the charges. The classified documents case – did Trump break the law and compromise national security by taking hundreds of classified materials with him when he left the White House in 2021? – is mired in procedural arguments before a friendly judge in Florida. No trial date has been set.

The case in Georgia alleging that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 presidential vote in that state – “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state,” he told Georgia’s secretary of state – is barely advancing. There is every likelihood a trial will not get under way before the end of the year.

In Washington DC, Trump has been charged with criminally attempting to overturn the 2020 election in conjunction with the January 6 insurrection against the Capitol. Trump is asserting to the Supreme Court that he is absolutely immune from prosecution for all official acts he took as president. The justices may not rule on the immunity issue – which all of the lower court judges have ruled is preposterous – until late June or early July. There may not be time before the election to hold this trial, which goes to the heart of the threat Trump poses to America’s democracy.