HASfter his victory in the primaries in New Hampshire, Donald Trump is almost certain to be the Republican candidate for president of the United States, and polls place him neck and neck with Joe Biden. Would his return to the White House sound the death knell for American democracy? In power between 2017 and 2021, Mr. Trump will certainly have tested its limits. First a symptom of the crisis hitting our society, it has become a driving force. It has deepened existing divisions among Americans, accelerating the country’s dangerous polarization; he lowered the level of public debate with his lies and insults; he based himself on the fundamental rules of democracy, starting with respect for counter-powers. And above all, after losing the last presidential election, he tried by all means to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, until the insurrection of his supporters at the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.
If our democracy nevertheless resisted Mr. Trump’s first term, it is in part because he arrived at the White House unprepared, surprised – like the rest of us – by his own election. He entrusted key positions to men and women from the conservative establishment, who served as guardrails, succeeding for years in tempering his most radical instincts. It was only at the very end of his mandate, after his electoral defeat, that he surrounded himself with bootlickers ready to destroy everything to keep him in power. And if we escaped this latest assault, it is thanks to robust institutions, but above all to Republican leaders who proved strong enough to resist it, like the elected officials who did not want to resist it. “find 12,000 votes” in Georgia, or his until then faithful vice-president Mike Pence, who refused to invalidate the results.
This time, if Mr. Trump is elected, things will be very different. He spent three years ruminating on his grudge and preparing for his “revenge”. Within a network of well-funded groups, such as the powerful Heritage Foundation, his supporters have honed their agenda and drawn up lists of thousands of potential recruits to replace as many career civil servants: Mr. Trump can begin to implement, from day one, an extremist policy and an all-out offensive against the democratic institutions that had hampered his power.
“I am your revenge”
Mr. Trump does not hide his intention to wield the power of the state against his “enemies”as he claimed before the Conservative Political Action Conference: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your vengeance. » This will begin by bringing the Department of Justice, which heads the 93 United States prosecutors, into line, thereby overturning an ethical standard established in 1974 in the wake of Watergate.
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