Defiant: Donald Trump said a "very harsh punishment" was required at the Florida rally
(Picture: AFP/Getty Images)Donald Trump has been out of office for more than a year — but he remains the most powerful Republican in America.
And in Washington, both sides of the political divide are obsessed with the question of whether he will run again. Trump, 75, not exactly the shy and retiring type, shows every sign that he loves being the subject of such intense speculation. At rallies around the country he and his supporters revel in the will-he-won’t-he tease. But the hints are getting less and less subtle.
“With the support of everyone in this room, we will take back the House, we will take back the Senate and we will take back our country, and then most importantly in 2024, we are going to take back our beautiful White House,” he said, in a speech this month to thousands of diehard fans at the American Freedom Tour in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“You had a president that always put America first,” Trump said, adding “I will be back and we will be better and stronger than ever before.”
The possibility of a Trump second bid might sound far-fetched. Any former president returning to the fray would be unusual enough, and many assumed that the ignominy in which his presidency ended — his denial of the results of the election and his supporters ransacking the seat of US democracy in the Capitol Riots — meant Trump was a spent force.
But those who hoped that the 2020 election would mean Trump’s retirement from American public life have been disappointed: the year since he left office has been filled with campaign events in all but name and Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida home and private country club, is a hive of political activity, with Republican politicians making the pilgrimage in search of an endorsement. Meanwhile, Trump is the frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024 (even if that is still some way off).
While contemplating a political comeback, Trump recently launched his own social network, Truth Social. With the platform, Trump and his band of MAGA tech bros are trying to succeed where others have failed and provide a less censorious alternative to Twitter that isn’t dominated by the cranks and oddballs not welcome in the mainstream.
Trump’s involvement has persuaded investors to put billions behind the idea and Truth Social promises to be a “platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.” The challenge, of course, will be to persuade anyone other than pro-Trump conservatives to sign up. A month after a clunky launch, the signs aren’t great for the network, which has so far not become the public square for the American right in the way its founders would have hoped.
Whether or not Truth Social manages to establish a foothold as a viable social network, its launch is an interesting moment in Trump’s singular and unlikely political journey. It was social media that made Trump the politician. His relentless, off-the-cuff and often outrageous missives on Twitter, unmediated by the press, were a crucial part of his early appeal — and a major (and, for reporters, exhausting) feature of his presidency. Ever since he was booted off social media sites after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, he has been a diminished figure. Which is why many see Truth Social’s launch as the latest step towards a second run at the White House in 2024.
“Trump believes, probably rightly, that being able to communicate directly his thoughts via social media and inject them into the conversation was really important and powerful. It helped him set an agenda in real time,” explains Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist.
The big unknown is whether Trump, who will be 78 at the time of the next election, actually wants to run again. “That’s going to be a question of health, question and desire,” says Thompson. “He’ll decide it entirely on his own terms.” And, with his love of the limelight, he’ll be in no rush to make his mind up.
For all that the first year of Trump’s post-presidency has demonstrated the resilience of the Trump brand, there are some signs that his primacy in the Republican party isn’t as unassailable as it once was. Patrick Ruffini, co-founder of the polling company Echelon Insights, says that, “Trump’s hold on the party is still firm, but not quite as firm as it once was. It’s not quite the iron grip that he once had.”
Ruffini and his colleagues have asked Republican voters whether they are primarily loyal to Trump or the Republican Party. Just before the 2020 elections, 59 percent of Republican voters said they were primarily a supporter of Donald Trump, not the party. That figure has dropped to 41 percent. Just over half of those Republican voters say that Trump should remain leader of the party, while 40 percent say it is time for someone else to take the lead.
“He’s now being treated as something between an incumbent president and a candidate in an open field,” says Ruffini, who points out that the lack of a modern precedent for someone trying to pull off a presidential comeback makes it hard to judge the strength of Trump’s position.
“Former presidents typically remain very popular within their party,” says Thompson. “Trump is very popular. His endorsement is widely sought after. And if he runs he’ll be a formidable favourite for nomination.”
A crucial gauge of Trump’s power on the American right will be this year’s midterm elections. All eyes will be on how Trump-endorsed candidates fare in Republican primaries. The early signs certainly suggest that the Trump seal of approval is not the guarantee of victory it once was. In a high-profile Georgia governor race, Trump has been a relentless critic of the Republican incumbent Brian Kemp ever since he refused to indulge the former president’s stolen election fantasies. But the Trump-backed challenger to Kemp, former Senator David Perdue, is a long way behind in the pools and fundraising stakes. Something similar is happening in high-profile primaries across the country.
If the signs of declining political power become clearer, Trump may prefer to leave supporters wondering what could have been than risking defeat either in a Republican primary or to Joe Biden for a second time.
Trump’s hold on the party is still firm, but not quite as firm as it once was
Those who argue that Trump’s star is waning also point out that some of Trump’s most strident Republican critics, like Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney, have raised more money than their primary opponents. They also note the high-profile tussle between Trump and the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Mitch McConnell. The former president takes frequent potshots at the establishment fixture and quintessential Washington insider, but the Republican leader in the Senate has taken it in his stride, and remains popular with his colleagues.
“McConnell is not someone who is easily intimidated. He has incredibly thick skin,” says Antonia Ferrier, a Republican strategist who used to work for the Senator. She warns against looking for a definitive victory or defeat in the battle between Trump and the Republican establishment: “Parties are evolving and changing all the time. They’re not static.”
What Trump does next, though, might not just be a political question. As well as health and family considerations, there are legal cases to consider, too. In New York, a judge ruled that his children Don Jr. and Ivanka must answer questions under oath over “copious evidence of possible financial fraud.”
In Georgia, a grand jury is probing Trump’s attempts to sway the results of the 2020 election and interfere with the counting of the votes. And in Washington, DC, a judge recently refused to dismiss lawsuits that hold Trump legally culpable for the events of January 6, 2021. Not that dark legal clouds have stopped the former president in the past.
For now, the Republican Party, and the country, is stuck in an awkward twilight zone, with Trump neither gone nor unequivocally back. For the former president’s critics, the wait is an uncomfortable one. His fans, meanwhile, delight in the suspense.
