At an appearance in Arizona, the former American president made it clear who he believed would lead the Republicans to victory in the coming elections: he and his movement.
Donald Trump delivers a speech on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona.
US presidents who have been voted out used to go underground until the grass grew over their electoral defeat. But that was once. Even at his first rally this year on a ranch in Arizona, Donald Trump didn’t want to know anything about a defeat in the 2020 presidential election on Saturday evening: “I love Arizona, we had a huge victory in Arizona, but it was stolen from us,” said the Republican at the beginning of his hour-and-a-half speech. “It was a rigged election.”
It is no coincidence that Trump chose Arizona for his first appearance in this important year with the midterm elections for Congress and many gubernatorial and legislative elections in the states. Arizona was one of the fundamentally conservative states that Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020. Even a recount of the votes carried out by the Republican side could not find any serious irregularities. There were even found 360 more votes for Biden.
Support for loyal election liars
Doug Ducey, Republican Governor of Arizona, accepted Biden’s victory. “I trust our voting system,” he said. Trump has not forgiven him for this to this day. Ducey is a “terrible” representative, he said in his speech on Saturday. Should Ducey run for Senate governor after two terms in office, he would never recommend his candidacy.
Trump used the rally to attack what he saw as “weak Republicans” in his own ranks. At the same time, he put his favorite candidate in the spotlight: Kari Lake, a former host of the conservative television network Fox News. After she had already spoken as the previous speaker, Trump brought her back onto the stage.
Lake promised that as governor she would finish building Trump’s “beautiful wall” on the border with Mexico. In addition, Lake Trumps supports Lie from the stolen election. “The world knows that 2020 was a terrible disaster that gave us the worst president in history.” she tweeted in October.
Trump also praised his candidate for Secretary of State in Arizona, Mark Finchem, on Saturday. Should Finchem prevail, he will in future lead the electoral authority in his member state as “Chief Election Officer”. Finchem was at the demonstration in Washington that led to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2020, with you. On the anniversary of these events he tweetedthat the real uprising against the constitution did not happen on January 6th, but during the rigged election on November 3rd.
As in Arizona, Trump supports candidates loyal to him in many other states in order to strengthen his influence in the Republican Party. Those who receive his blessing benefit not only from the former president’s enduring popularity among the Republican base, but also from his well-stocked campaign coffers and network of donors. According to polls, there is currently hardly a way around Trump: almost 70 percent of Republican voters still believe that Biden’s victory was stolen. Just as many would welcome it if Trump 2024 run again for the presidency would.
Trump fans had already hoped that their idol would announce his candidacy in Arizona. But this did not happen and is not to be expected until after the midterm elections. Trump’s demeanor and energy, however, indicated that little would mean more to him than a rematch against Biden. “We will win back the White House,” he announced.
Internal criticism comes too late
In fact, the opportunity for Republicans to inflict painful defeats on the Democrats in the coming election seems to be good. Biden’s poll numbers are in the doldrums, the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been chaotic, inflation is at seven percent, a forty-year record high, Biden’s promise of a more humane immigration policy has led to a run on the southern border, his social and climate protection programs are stuck in the Senate as well as the electoral reform.
And yet there is also doubts within the Republican partywhether Trump’s exaggerated rhetoric and continued denial of reality about the outcome of the last election could not ultimately be counterproductive. With their radical views, Trump’s candidates could shine in the party’s internal primaries, but then possibly fail to appeal to moderate swing voters.
In his speech on Saturday, Trump gave a foretaste of the soundtrack for the upcoming election campaigns. He accused Biden and the Democrats of destroying the United States and turning it into a “communist country”, “a big Venezuela”. He described his political opponents as “left-wing fascists”. The former president also promoted the conspiracy theory that FBI agents staged the storming of the Capitol on January 6, and called the police officer who shot and killed a protester “a jerk.”
A year ago, Republican critics of Trump’s “big lie” failed to hold the ousted president accountable. Now it is possibly too late to escape its pull. Only a bad result in the midterm elections could bring the “Trump train” to a standstill. However, this is not apparent at the moment.