It felt like years back. For more than an hour, Donald Trump monopolized the TV channels to announce his candidacy for the presidency of 2024, repeating the same attacks and the same lies as usual. What give many Republican sympathizers a push of hives. Because after the November 8 midterm poll, where voters rejected several Trumpist candidates deemed too radical, and thus allowed the Democrats to retain the majority in the Senate, the conservative establishment dreams of putting Donald Trump in the closet.
For seven years, the ex-president has de facto led the party with the blessing of the hierarchs, terrified that his fanatical base will ruin their chances of re-election if they attack his idol. After all, almost all the elected members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the second impeachment of Trump lost their seats. But in recent days, several Republicans have again taken the plunge to publicly criticize the billionaire. “Trump cost us the last three elections and I don’t want it to happen again a fourth time,” slammed Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, calling for “a change of strategy”.
“The party must move in another direction,” added Mike Lawler, an elected official from New York. Two big donors, Ken Griffin and Stephen Schwarzman, bosses of investment funds, announced that they would not finance his campaign in 2024. And the conservative media of Rupert Murdoch, which contributed so much to his political rise, are now treating him of “big loser”. the New York Post for example headlined “Florida Guy Made His Announcement”. In the article on his candidacy buried on page 26, the daily makes fun of his age and his cholesterol level. Even more staggering, the Fox News channel interrupted the retransmission of his speech after forty minutes.
“The party is not done with Trump”
Will the anti-Trump movement spread? Not sure. In the past, voices have been raised among Republicans to denounce his support for Vladimir Putin, his catastrophic management of the pandemic, the attack by his supporters on the Capitol, etc. They were quickly snuffed out. Days after the uprising, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxurious Florida residence, in a stunning gesture of submission.
“Even if Trump emerges weakened from midtermshe remains alive and his mark of conservatism too”, estimates John Gizzi, columnist for Newsmax, a conservative site. “The party is not finished with Trump”, adds George Edwards, presidential expert at Texas A&M University. “He has very loyal supporters, experience in political campaigns, knows how to capture attention and has a large war chest that he has not spent.” According to a recent poll, 47% of Republicans would support him if the primaries In short, not so easy to get rid of the ex-president, as sticky as Captain Haddock’s band-aid.
According to the same poll, however, 65% of voters believe that he should not – or probably not – run again. And a growing number of potential rivals, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are positioning themselves for 2024. Republicans therefore find themselves in a dilemma. Should we let go of Donald Trump or continue to swear allegiance to him because he remains popular? So far, despite intense pressure, most elected officials, including his allies, have remained silent and have not traveled to Mar-a-Lago to announce his candidacy.
Within the party, his return to the running created dissension from which he took advantage. Already in 2016, he had won against 17 rivals because the anti-Trump had been unable to coalesce behind a single candidate. One thing is certain, the primaries will be bloody. A boon for Democrats. The idea of a new Trump campaign is like a “horror movie”, acknowledged Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator. But if you want the Republicans defeated in 2024, “his candidacy is probably a good thing.”