Donald Trump is back in reckoning
A fresh indictment is only likely to boost Trump. Biden’s team believes his candidacy is good news, but other Democrats aren’t as sure
After the midterms in November 2022, when Americans elected all members to the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, the older Republican establishment and Democratic pundits wrote Donald Trump’s political obituary.
His favoured candidates had lost. Voters had explicitly rejected those who had supported Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” and his audacious attempt to stay on in power after losing to Joe Biden. The Supreme Court verdict on abortion, a result of Trump’s success in filling the court with nominees during his term, had sparked a backlash among women. His most likely challenger for the Republican nomination for the presidency, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, had just swept the state, winning a second term in office. And both Republican donors, as well as its influential media champions, moved away from Trump. What a difference a few months can make in politics, for Donald Trump is back.
As Republican candidates head to their first primary debate next week in Iowa, Trump is so comfortably placed in the race that he may not even turn up for the debate. On August 14, Fivethirtyeight.com’s average of recent polls of the Republican primary race had 52.7% voters back Trump as opposed to 14% backing DeSantis, a staggering 38 percentage point lead. All the others who will appear in next week’s debate — most prominently, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Tim Scott — poll less than 10%, in most cases below five per cent, though Ramaswamy’s rise and visibility in recent weeks have been quite remarkable for a first-time candidate with no political background.
What’s behind the surge?
For one, each indictment against Trump has helped consolidate his base and rile Republicans against the Biden administration. Just a cursory glance at each of his alleged crimes as described in the indictments reveals how dangerous and reckless Trump truly is. He knew that paying an adult film actress required falsifying his business records and violating campaign finance laws. But he went ahead anyway. He knew that stealing national security secrets from the White House and refusing to return them, even lying about not having those documents while telling his personal aide to hide them, was illegal. But he did it anyway. Enough credible and loyal people in his own office and campaign warned him against trying to overturn the electoral results of 2020. But he still created a fraudulent list of electors from seven states, pressured state officials who didn’t abide by his diktats to do so, asked the department of justice and then his vice president to use this fraudulent list to call into question the legitimacy of the results, and then instigated a mob to go and attack the Capitol to block the certification of results. This is a man unrestrained by the Constitution, the legal architecture, institutional norms, party ideology, political rules, personal networks and any sense of right or wrong.
Yet Trump succeeded in converting the three indictments (and may well do the same with the fourth one he encountered this week) into mega spectacles, alternating between the hero fighting against the American deep State and the victim who liberals had conspired against. His media presence shot up. Republicans leaders began rallying around him once again. He began to raise more money (though most of the money is now going into paying his legal bills). And the base consolidated behind him. According to a recent CBS News poll, 86% Republican voters believe that investigations against Trump are meant to block him from contesting. No other figure illustrates the breakdown in America’s political order and the resilience of Trump’s support than the following: 92% Democrats believe that Biden was legitimately elected; 68% Republicans believe he wasn’t, effectively buying Trump’s lie.
But Trump’s surge is also to do with what Niraj Antani, an Ohio state legislator and a Trump supporter, told this writer. “This is Trump’s party. The former president defines it.” For many of DeSantis’s supporters, his appeal lay in the fact that he was Trumpist, without being Trump. But Republican voters in general don’t distinguish between Trump and Trumpism.
And finally, Trump’s surge has to do with the wreck that has been DeSantis’s campaign. The governor defined his politics based on cultural Right-wing extremism by attacking the pedagogy around racism, slavery, and sexuality to win over social conservatives. This hasn’t helped him broaden his support. Those who have served with DeSantis in his former avatar in the US Congress say that he lacks charisma and a natural political connect. He has managed his campaign poorly, reflected in frequent changes in personnel. And as a recent New York Times piece pointed out, DeSantis has struggled with how to counter Trump even as Trump relentlessly mocks the governor.
While there is time — the Republicans will only decide their candidate next July and Trump’s legal battles may well drain him — the battle in 2024 in America is increasingly looking like a rematch between Biden and Trump.
Biden’s team believes that this is the best case scenario for the incumbent, for Trump’s mere presence on the ballot will alienate independents, moderate Republicans, and suburban women. It will also help unify the Democratic base, including the young who may not be enthused about a second term for Biden because their mistrust and dislike for Trump is so deep. But even within the Democrats, there is a second view which argues that it’s a mistake to underestimate Trump whose hold over his base remains so formidable. The presidential election, this school argues, will boil down to a few thousand votes in half a dozen swing states once again. Trump is perfectly capable of running a campaign that exploits Biden’s gaffes, a sombre economic mood, a general sense of American decline or even a mass desire for political entertainment. Irrespective of what happens next November, what’s clear is that the Trump phenomena is alive and continues to shape American politics.
The views expressed are personal
