The United States has fallen into an election year. Eight days before the first stage of the Republican primaries in Iowa, it is difficult to feel the slightest popular excitement, as the main players are so familiar: President Joe Biden on the Democratic side, and his predecessor, Donald Trump, the big favorite for the Republican nomination. Everyone seems to be skipping steps and anticipating a new duel. Each despises the other and does not have harsh enough words towards them, as the last few days have illustrated. Each also needs the other, a disastrous tango between an early octogenarian and an advanced septuagenarian whose movements a majority of Americans hardly aspire to observe.
Donald Trump electrifies the airwaves. Every day has its excesses, its taunts about the physique of a public figure, its profane rewriting of history, like this remark on the fact that the civil war could have been avoided by being “negotiated”.
The ex-president was in Iowa on Saturday, where his main Republican rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, are holding more public meetings, without managing to close the gap in the polls. Speaking in Newton, Donald Trump confirmed his incendiary strategy. On the third anniversary of the assault by his supporters on the Capitol, he called for the release of “hostages” of January 6, 2021. He repeated this word several times, relayed by several relatives on the air.
The overthrow is complete. After denying any insurrection, paying tribute to the supposedly legitimate anger of MAGA (“Make America great again”) activists and trivializing their actions, Donald Trump now presents them as victims of state persecution.
A fallacious presentation that he also intends to apply to himself, whether during the upcoming trials on January 6, 2021 – in Georgia and at the federal level – or before the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter notably agreed to rule on the exclusion of Donald Trump from the primaries in Colorado, decided by the Supreme Court of this state. The highest American judicial body should thus arbitrate the multiplication of appeals in dozens of states to prevent a new candidacy by the former president. The nine magistrates will hear the arguments of both parties on February 8. They will also have to decide the key question of possible presidential immunity against prosecution, which Donald Trump is claiming.
Biden: Trump, an existential threat to democracy
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