TRUMPED
America should count itself lucky that Donald Trump tried so hard to overturn the election of 2020. That is the biggest obstacle—though not an insurmountable one—standing between him and a return to power. Democratic leaders have long been saying that Mr Trump and his cult-like following threaten the republic, and they’re right. They have not acted accordingly. Through a mix of internal conflicts and mismanagement, the Democrats have failed to deal with two of the most burning problem areas—crime and illegal immigration—giving Trump a potent argument against them. Sheer bad luck might help excuse their failure to tackle the third issue—poor economic performance. Additionally, they threw in an amateurish execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In a CNN poll 80% of Americans surveyed said things were going badly for the US; more than two-thirds felt President Biden had neglected the country’s most serious ills.
Even memories of how Mr Trump whipped up the attack on the Capitol might have faded, or been challenged and revised, were it not for the excellent work of the January 6th committee investigating the insurrection. The committee’s members have not only kept the political class, and much of the rest of the nation, from looking away from that day. They have rejected claims that the mob acted spontaneously, and that Mr Trump had no idea it would use violence to stop the certification of Mr Biden’s victory.
Consider a world without the committee: revisionists would be far freer to minimise Mr Trump’s role in rousing the mob and to idealize or invent memories of his accomplishments. Instead, the panel has been reminding the party’s leaders, operatives, donors and even some of the rank and file just how debilitating Mr Trump’s leadership was. True zealots still delight in rallying to Mr Trump, but Republican congressmen who were merely bullied are rediscovering how tiresome it is to defend him.
Other potential Republican candidates sense an opening. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, has declined to say he will not run for president if Mr Trump does; he has been courting the Fox News audience and recently invited Republican governors and donors to a conference in Fort Lauderdale. Mike Pence, the former vice-president who stood up to Mr Trump and certified the electoral vote, has refused to regret that choice; he is endorsing competitors to Mr Trump’s own election-denialist candidates in some races. Mike Pompeo, Mr Trump’s secretary of state, has shed more than 40kg and has said that if he decides to run, he will do so “wholly independent” of anyone else’s choice.
But do not imagine that Mr Trump is fading away. “Half of Republican voters ready to leave Trump behind, poll finds”, read a recent headline in The New York Times about a survey it conducted. It is wiser to emphasise the darker view, that the glass remains half empty. The blind loyalty to Mr Trump of half the Republican base means that, the more Republican candidates choose to run, splitting his opposition, the better it will be for him. Betting markets are placing a higher probability on Mr Trump’s being the next Republican presidential nominee than on Mr Biden’s being the next Democratic one.
There are also alarming signs that the committee’s work is not reaching many Americans. Anyone who doubts the loyalty that millions of Americans feel for Mr Trump should attend one of his rallies. They are a chilling picture of how Trump would govern—“rule” would be a better word—if he regained the White House. At a recent event in Las Vegas he said he regretted allowing Democratic mayors to retain control of their cities. “I wouldn’t do that a second time,” he said. A day later in Anchorage, he left no doubt as to who the enemy was: “Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat remains the evil people from within our country. We will fight for America like never before,” he said. “The tyrants we are fighting do not stand a chance.”
It’s like sitting in gridlocked summer traffic as a New York cab driver leans on his horn; you feel helpless, bludgeoned, you just want it to stop. But Mr Trump’s hostile rhetoric matters. His talk is dangerous regardless of what he does—dangerous if he does not run; more dangerous if he runs and loses again; most dangerous if he runs and wins. Had Mr Trump conceded defeat, however ungraciously, his path back to the White House would be wide open. His own broken psyche, and the work of the January 6th committee, have given his opponents in both parties a chance to stop him, and there is no more urgent political project.