The counteroffensive has already begun. The accusations against donald trumpwho is being prosecuted for having interfered in the transfer of command in 2020 after losing the elections with Joe Biden, they fell like artillery. Now, behind these political explosions, huge armies of lawyers have left the trenches and are advancing towards the rival front. And as happened with the old sclerotic generals who presided over the carnage of the First World War, this declared war between the former president and the current one could end in disaster, with a crisis of legitimacy and governability that puts American democracy in check.
Soak
Once again, Trump’s alleged crimes appear to be comparable to those of his rivals, such as the crimes charged against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Did Trump conspire to cover up the fact that he withheld documents? Maybe. But there are also suspicions that Biden had similar conversations to clear his responsibility for the documents he took to his house.
The strategy of the Republicans and lawyers who respond to the magnate is clear: to level accusations. Taking the opponent into the mud has served him well before. And despite everything stated against Trump, Biden barely beats him in the polls looking ahead to next year’s presidential elections (there are studies like that of RealClearPolitics that, on the contrary, show Trump winning by 1.8 points). Both have abysmally low approval ratings. But Trump is nearly 40 points ahead of every other Republican and he is almost certain to win the nomination among Republicans.
There are plenty of reasons for Democrats to be worried. Biden has meanwhile created his own problems by trying to avoid a primary campaign: he wants to go for re-election without contesting the internal one. To do this, he postponed the Democratic elections in South Carolina until February 3, 2024: James Clyburn and the Democratic Party machinery in that state saved him in 2020.
And Biden has already given signs that he will not give rise to internal debates that question his administration, although Robert F. Kennedy (son of “Bobby” Kennedy and nephew of the assassinated president) continues to gain momentum and appears as a consolidated challenger: a CNN poll gave him 20 percent support among Democrats.
Stained
At first glance, trying to avoid the Democratic Party primaries may seem clever by avoiding burnout in the face of real conflict. But even Biden supporters point out that the president’s evasion strategy It’s risky. Some leaders in the space have recently lamented the president’s lack of vision and have urged him to lean to the left in the renewal of the party.
But by so aggressively avoiding a primary fight, Biden misses the opportunity to make his case: demonstrate that he is not senile and explain the case for the mismanagement of his son Hunter when he was Barack Obama’s vice president. He avoids possible humiliation, but loses the opportunity to turn the page, and continues to bleed out in the face of the attack of Trumpism, which found there an Achilles heel of the president.
Of course the underlying problem is the policies. Biden’s progressive privatization of Medicare and vaccine strategies have been questioned. But the most serious thing is how badly he handled the war in Ukraine, an international arena in which the president theoretically had talent. And the war ate up environmental policy, education policy, medical care and a part of economic policy in budget terms. The costs are enormous, especially if you evaluate what the United States could have done with the $113 billion that was allocated to Ukraine in military spending.
The positive for Biden is that Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna have supported the wardespite the damage it causes to the causes they supposedly hold dear, and that makes them as dirty as it does the president.
Hunter
But the conflict with Ukraine is also related to the question of Hunter Biden, the president’s son who earned $83,000 a month as a member of the board of directors of Burisma, a shady Ukrainian energy company for which he acted as a lobbyist in 2015 when his father was the Obama administration’s point man and liaison to Ukraine. He FBI is working right now on a document that is rumored to directly involves President Biden. And there is enough information on the son’s kidnapped computer for this to be a scandal that will cost him his re-election.
In counterpart, Trump has arguments There are enough here to make his story credible: the accusations against him serve to exclude news that could harm Biden’s re-election. The president will surely seek to talk in the coming months about his parliamentary agenda, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and his efforts to cancel student debt, but the heart of the campaign will undoubtedly be the legal war against Trump.
A certain type of Republican and independent voters will be enraged by the double standard of justice that dances to the rhythm of the power in power and there Trump will fish for votes, the only man who served four years as president without appearing to age a day, and who is in control of his electorate, constantly raising counterarguments, between the figure of the martyr and that of the executive who solves problems in a snap, promising to end the war “in 24 hours.” Trump’s rhetoric that pushes Democrats off their axis traditional and can overthrow them at the polls in 2024.
Image gallery
