As unlikely as it seems that Donald Trump could be re-elected, his cult of personality could be enough to stir up votes and place him back in the Oval Office.
George Grundy continues his series on the collapse of American democracy in the lead-up to the 2024 Election. Read the first part here, part two here, part three here, part four here and part five here.
FROM A DISTANCE, it’s tempting to think that Donald Trump, surely, can’t get elected again.
Trump is so toxic personally. He behaves like a pig towards women. He’s an adjudicated rapist. His political movement is wildly racist. He has a decades-long history of racism towards Black people and describes Latino immigrants in ways that echo Hitler. In fact, Trump really doesn’t like anyone who isn’t White, male, rich and Republican, and he only likes members of that group who offer him immediate utility.
Trump should have alienated so many different social groups that there’s barely anyone left, but that’s simply not the case on the ground. The “surely not again” school of thought is belied by a number of factors, not least that November’s election is unlikely to be contested in a conventional manner.
First, consider the slavish state of the Republican Party, which is now under almost the complete control of Donald Trump. Trump recently dismissed loyalist Ronna Romney McDaniel and installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the Party. In a frightening portend of what is to come, Mrs Trump’s first act was to purge 60 party members deemed insufficiently loyal to the former President.
The Republican National Committee (RNC)’s new leadership now plans to roll out a swath of election “integrity” officials and legal challenges, all aimed at suppressing the vote, purging voter rolls and taking other nefarious steps to depress turnout and make voting harder, often aimed at minority communities.
Just one example of how seriously Trump’s team take this issue is the recent appointment of Christina Bobb as RNC counsel for “election integrity”. Bobb was one of the most prominent election deniers in 2020 and a key figure in the “war room” efforts to reverse the election results, centred around Washington’s Willard Hotel.
As such, Bobb is the diametric opposite of her title, someone deeply committed to undermining election integrity and security. Remarkably, Bobb was recently indicted in Arizona for illegal interference in the 2020 Election, yet she remains the Republican Party counsel for election integrity.
Within the Party, the cult of personality grows stronger. Just as in 2016, once-hesitant House Republicans have fallen into line behind Trump. Outgoing minority leader Mitch McConnell, who Trump called a “piece of shit” and racially vilified his wife, nevertheless endorsed Trump after his nomination became a certainty.
McConnell (and the FBI) described the events of 6 January as terrorism and linked the attacks directly to Trump. Now it appears he’s comfortable with that same individual becoming President again.
Nikki Haley, who said that Trump was “totally unhinged” during her doomed run, now says she’ll vote for him. Trump’s former Attorney General, Bill Barr, condemned him as an erratic narcissist, who often suggested executing his rivals and shouldn’t be let anywhere near the Oval Office. Barr has excused Trump’s murderous outbursts with a chuckle, saying he doubted Trump “would have actually carried it out”. Now, Barr says he’ll vote for Trump.
Chief critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are gone. As 2024 progresses and the temperature rises, expect near-total silence from Republicans when it comes to Trump and his outrageous behaviour.
So, although it might seem like Trump should be a diminished presence, given his extensive legal concerns and immense personal baggage, within Republicanism he continues to consolidate his hold on power.
Although some conjecture is required when looking ahead, we know plenty enough about the former President to make some predictions. Trump committed crimes in order to win the election in 2016. He committed crimes (as yet untested in court) to try to retain power in 2020. With his political life and personal freedom on the line, it would be wilful blindness to not suggest that Trump will (again) do just about anything in order to win in 2024 and there are some very powerful allies who will assist.
Some of the world’s most nefarious international actors, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel, have a strong interest in the return of Donald Trump to the presidency. Trump is a chaos agent, weakening America abroad and likely to destroy American democracy at home. Trump is also corrupt, and easily manipulated by the funnelling of money to his businesses.
In 2016, Trump invited, accepted and utilised Russian interference in America’s election in order to win. With his life on the line, can there be any doubt that he would do so again?
Given the almost complete lack of response (from Trump) to Russia’s outrageous interference in 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin will know that meddling this year will be met with no consequences, so long as Trump wins. Russia expends enormous resources meddling in other democratic countries’ elections and trying to destabilise the West, and these efforts are ongoing. America should treat the idea of Russia attempting to influence November’s election as a certainty and take steps to protect its democracy from Putin.
Israel, that most nefarious of American allies, is now locked in what appears to be a last stand, aimed at permanently removing the Palestinians from Gaza. After decades of falsely claiming to wish for peace or a two-state solution, the curtain has been drawn back and Gaza is being destroyed in what many nations and the UN’s top court says amounts to a genocidal slaughter.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, facing corruption charges, domestic unpopularity and massive demonstrations against his government now openly states that Israel must ‘control from the river to the sea’ (a line often used by those accused of anti-Semitism).
Netanyahu’s alliance with Trump is a tricky balancing act. Trump’s son-in-law is Jewish and his favourite daughter converted to Judaism, yet Trump has also dined with prominent anti-Semites and White nationalists, and called people chanting “Jews will not replace us” very fine people. Anti-semitism in the U.S. has spiked since Israel’s actions in Gaza commenced and Trump has been happy to launch barely concealed anti-Semitic attacks against “liberal Jews” when it suits his purpose.
Battling for his political life, Netanyahu appears to have decided to bring the decades-long simmering antipathy with the Palestinians to a conclusion and, in the face of overwhelming condemnation from nearly all nations of the world, will have his eye on November’s elections in America. Should Trump win, Netanyahu can be assured of unflinching U.S. support no matter how egregiously Israel behaves.
It’s a Faustian bargain, given Trump’s flirtation with anti-Semitic elements within his hard right movement, but there can be no doubt that Netanyahu and his government strongly favour Trump this November. Israel put its thumb on the scale in 2016 and is one of the most prolific nations when it comes to hacking and meddling in foreign elections. There is no reason to doubt that it will attempt to do so again in 2024, given the existential battle now underway in Gaza.
China’s long-held aspirations for ownership of Taiwan would be very much back on the table under a new Trump Administration. Trump holds more antipathy for China than other major powers such as Russia, but he personally took Chinese money during his first term and has recently suggested that America might not come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked. This will not have fallen on deaf ears.
Trump was, by a distance, the most corrupt President in American history. He refused to divest from his family business (as he had promised), relentlessly funnelled tax-payer money into his golf courses and hotels and took millions in illegal foreign payments.
The countries Trump takes most money from are also almost exclusively America’s adversaries. Foreign governments know that money talks when it comes to Donald Trump — they will know that any transgressive involvement in the 2024 U.S. Election will quickly be forgiven if it results in Trump gaining power and that once in power, their own agendas can be pursued if enough money is offered to the new President.
This corruption is very much a present-day issue — Trump continues to take Saudi money by hosting LIV Golf tournaments at his properties. Saudi Arabia is, in fact, uniquely placed to cause mischief, with both the wherewithal and incentive to manipulate America’s economy to benefit Trump.
TheOrganisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already committed to oil production cuts for the remainder of the year, in a barely concealed effort to keep prices high through to the American Election. Gas prices are consistently one of American voters’ highest political priorities and Trump has admitted to previously conspiring with Russia and the Saudis to manipulate oil prices.
Scientists have claimed that 2023 was the hottest year on Earth for 120,000 years. Climate change is both real and accelerating, and the world’s oil producers are aware that at some point soon the need to decarbonise our economies will come into sharp public focus. Trump represents a precious four more years of unrestricted profits for the oil industry. The American oil lobby has already launched an eight-figure media campaign to promote the benefits of fossil fuels and has been explicitly told that a political donation of a billion dollars (to Trump) would be rewarded by the scrapping of President Joe Biden’s climate laws.
Industry executives are reported to be drawing up “ready to sign” executive orders, should Trump take office again. The entire U.S. fossil fuel sector knows that this year’s election is a choice between Vice President Kamala Harris – a Democrat candidate who at least believes in climate change – and a man who will do anything, so long as he gets paid. There can be no doubt whatsoever that big oil will put its financial and political heft firmly behind a second Trump term.
America’s police forces (and the unions that represent them) overwhelmingly support Trump, as does the National Rifle Association (NRA). Evangelical Christians post photos of Trump being embraced by Jesus. These are large, powerful groups who will be all in for Trump this November. Despite her initial momentum, the scale of the challenge faced by Harris should not be underestimated.
American billionaires (and their media voice-pieces) are largely behind Trump, too. One of the most commonplace misconceptions about the political movement ignited by Donald Trump is that his support comes mostly from poor, uneducated White people harbouring a sense of cultural displacement and resentment.
White, poor and evangelical supporters do, to be sure, make up a strong portion of Trump’s supporters. But what’s missed in these assumptions is how popular Trump is with the rich, with the corporate world and with powerful elites who often shun publicity. It’s worth remembering that a number of the 6 January rioters stayed at five-star hotels, or took private planes to Washington in order to attend the rally.
Trump has a chance in 2024 because it’s the elites who benefitted the most from his first term in office through his tax cuts (which added around $7 trillion to the nation’s debt) and it’s the rich who form the (often hidden) backbone of his supporter base. JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon recently voiced cautious support for a Trump second term and reports from Davos 2024 saw corporate America unconcerned about the future of the nation’s democracy, so long as their taxes were cut once again.
These ultra-rich Trump backers should be careful what they wish for. High-profile individuals can quickly find themselves in the crosshairs of autocratic leaders and dictators often exercise their power to crush businesses that are deemed insufficiently loyal.
Trump has openly wished for the American economy to crash, simply to benefit him politically. He has claimed fraud in every election he has contested and often primes his followers for such (alleged) malpractice well in advance of the actual vote. In 2020, Trump called for his supporters to “monitor” polling places for voter fraud and in several instances, masked and heavily armed men arrived and sat menacingly nearby.
Lara Trump has recently said that Trump supporters need to “strike” at polling places. Because of this, there is the very real possibility of civil unrest before, during and immediately after the 2024 Election, caused by a candidate who has already said that this year’s election will be rigged, often says that the only way he can lose is if the other side cheats and has stated that if he doesn’t win, America will “cease to exist”.
What Trump’s supporters are actually protesting need not make sense. In the days after the 2020 Election, Trump had one set of supporters chanting “stop the count” whilst another group shouted “count the votes” at a different location. If Trump can cause the Election to be held in such a febrile moment that there is widespread civil unrest or do any other thing that causes the results not to be clear, he may be able to appeal the result all the way to a Supreme Court that is now very clearly under his control.
Trump regularly pitches the Election as an existential battle for America. He recently said, “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think our country is going to survive”. He has been brazen in his calls for violence and an end to democracy — Trump recently refused to sign a traditional ballot pledge (in Illinois) not to ‘advocate the overthrow of the Government’, and has once again refused to commit to accepting the election results if he loses.
So we know this for sure: whatever happens, there is no chance of Trump accepting defeat. No matter the margin, if Kamala Harris wins this November, Trump will say that he has been cheated. It would be entirely contrary to character for him to do anything else and given that the Election is, in Trump’s mind a battle for his survival, there are few reasons to think that he will hold back from the most incendiary rhetoric imaginable. Nor that a percentage of his followers will believe him and act.
Because of Donald Trump’s hold on political power and his profoundly dangerous psychosis, the 2024 U.S. Election is unlikely to be conducted or decided in a way that avoids civil unrest or even chaos. Trump won’t accept the result if he loses and his party and a decent section of his supporters will follow along and cry foul. The idea that Trump might call on his supporters not to be violent is so anathema to everything we know of the man that the press doesn’t even present it as an option.
Only a sweeping, overwhelming Harris victory can avoid this, which seems very unlikely. Even that might not be enough.
From a distance, it might be easy to assume that Trump’s legal difficulties and extraordinary toxicity leave him little chance of winning, especially when Americans finally turn their attention to political affairs after the summer. Much can happen between now and November. This time four years ago, a virus from Wuhan was quickly changing the world. Without COVID, Trump probably would have won in 2020. Two weeks ago, an assassin’s bullet almost changed history. This is the most unpredictable race in modern times.
The 2016 Trump campaign, for all its demagoguery, was at least a political movement of sorts. Trump proposed policies and ideas, but when you listen to Trump rally speeches today it’s clear just how different things are. Trump focuses nearly all his time on personal grievances, how he will exact revenge on his perceived enemies, how unfair life has been to him and how he will pardon or promote those who committed crimes on his behalf.
This culture of self-pity is shared by many of his followers and the ultimate form of victimhood would, from their perspective, be having another election stolen from them. It’s very easy to imagine Trump supporters reaching for their guns, in the belief that they are, in fact, saving America.
This article will be continued next Friday, 9 August.
Read part one of ‘America’s gathering storm’ here, part two here, part three here, part four here and part five here.
George Grundy is an English-Australian author, media professional and businessman. You can follow him on Twitter @georgewgrundy.
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