A RETURN OF DONALD TRUMP ON THE CARDS?

Saro Thiruppathy reports on how recent US primaries reveal stateside developments and the race to become the 47th President of the United States

It’s been only three years since former US president Donald Trump instigated a riot on 6 January 2021, in an attempt to stop the then vice president Mike Pence from formalising President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

But human memory is fickle, particularly in politics – and much of this drama has disappeared from the memories of Trump’s devoted fans.

So they are rallying around their idol to make sure he sits behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office once more.

BACK TO ‘MAGA’ The 45th President of the United States still wants to ‘Make America Great Again,’ and the past three years have not shaken that conviction; nor has it dimmed his sense of purpose.

The primaries conducted on Super Tuesday (5 March) had 854 Republican Party delegates, and 1,420 Democratic Party representatives in 15 states and one territory, awaiting allocation to whoever would be the two presidential candidates.

And the results from Super Tuesday, and the primaries held earlier, affirm that Trump is likely to secure the Grand Old Party’s (GOP) presidential nomination, having surged past Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.

By 7 March, Trump had accumulated 1,060 delegates out of the 1,215 needed from the Electoral College to win the GOP nomination.

It’s ironic that in spite of the fact none of those who ran against Trump in the primaries are facing 91 criminal charges, four criminal trials, a US$ 450 million civil court judgement (pending) and two impeachments, they couldn’t top the former president’s votes. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that states can’t invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to prevent presidential candidates from being included on ballot papers.

The judges opined that this power resides with Congress and not individual states.

THE MAVERICK Former president Donal Trump is a nonconformist and an entertainer, and he knows how to make lemonade with the lemons that life hurls at him.

He is the first former president to have his mugshot taken after surrendering in the aftermath of his fourth criminal indictment. Trump is also officially known as ‘Inmate No. P01135809.’

But instead of dying of humiliation, ‘The Donald’ transformed his plight into a campaign by claiming political victimisation, alleging that the incumbent administration is trying to prevent him from contesting the 2024 presidential election.

This strategy has had a tremendous impact and his fundraising efforts began yielding truckloads of money. His overzealous fan club – which never left his side – was convinced that the Democrats are trying to crucify Trump because they’re afraid he would win the 4 November election.

And his rivals in the GOP were unceremoniously dumped by the side of the road since they didn’t possess a similar air of martyrdom.

Trump also has the ability to talk to his voters in a language they can understand and to which they relate. In short, he doesn’t talk down to them; he makes them feel they’re on a par with him despite the fact he’s wealthy and moves in a social circle that’s completely outside the orbit of semi-urban and rural voters.

VOTER CONCERNS Even though the US economy has picked up, unemployment is down and inflation lower – and interest rates could fall in the near future – many Americans seem to be weary of the status quo.

Swathes of US citizens, from demographics such as people of colour and young voters, find that wages aren’t in line with the cost of living vis-à-vis food, vehicles, housing, and child and parental care.

Meanwhile, the latest opinion polls reveal that many US citizens feel the Republicans are better custodians of the economy. And there are growing concerns about crime and the rapid flow of migrants entering the US illegally across its southern border.

Even though the Democrats and a few Republicans consider Trump to be unfit for the presidency, it seems that millions of Americans believe he’d been a good leader and is the victim of a political witch-hunt rather than a possible felon (in the near future).

Biden’s interventionist policies in the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, and the disgraceful manner in which US forces were pulled out of Afghanistan, have exacerbated the fissures in American society.

While Trump’s policies of nonintervention seem to be increasingly attractive at home, globalist elites aren’t happy at the thought of a return of ‘POTUS,’ since his isolationist policies don’t correspond to their concept of globalisation.

It’s still early days in terms of the campaigns that Trump and Biden will mount over the next few months.

However, political analysts in the US and across the world have begun to closely watch these two aged men as they vie for that plum post in Washington D.C.