No credible opposition to Trump

The prospect that Donald Trump could be the Republican Party’s candidate for U.S. president for the third time became disturbingly real on Monday at the first meeting of the party’s rank-and-file. At the Iowa caucuses, held in the midst of a cold and snowy storm, 51% supported the real estate magnate to take on President Joe Biden at the November elections. Trump had a 30-point lead over the second-placed candidate and more votes than all his rivals combined. No less than half of Iowa’s Republican delegates think that an extreme and uncouth man — who has demonstrated an obvious contempt for the democratic system to the point of being accused of encouraging a coup, and who, at 77 years of age, exhibits an unabashed lack of personal and political decorum — best represents the country they want.

Iowa is a small state (three million inhabitants), rural and white, with a style of conservatism dominated by the evangelical right, so it cannot be taken as an indicator of the preferences of American voters today. Except for sitting presidents, the winner of the Iowa caucuses has not won the Republican nomination for 20 years. The state has just 40 delegates of the more than 2,400 who will vote for the presidential candidate at the Republican convention in Milwaukee in August. But, as a first test, a good performance in Iowa allows Trump to present himself to the rest of the country as a credible candidate. And right now there is no credible alternative to Trump.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley received 21% and 19% of the vote, respectively. Before Super Tuesday on March 5 — when the majority of delegates are awarded — they will have three more opportunities to demonstrate their pull with different voter profiles, as the race goes to New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

But only the consolidation of a single candidacy against Trump can threaten the former president’s lead. The lesson of 2016, when the division of a stunned party handed Trump the nomination, should be bitter enough to prompt a response. Fanciful prophecies and triumphalist stories will not do. It is a moment for reflection and urgency. Trump is a danger to democracy, even more so today, since his only motivation is revenge and evading the justice system, as four pending criminal cases could land him in jail. Neither DeSantis nor Haley are moderates, quite the contrary, but they do not pose the same anti-establishment threat to the United States or the West that Trump does.

The half of the Republican Party that does not want Trump must get past the discouraging polls and unite around an alternative. Trump obtained three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016. His electoral power has always been very fragile. Most moderate voters reject him, which led to three tough electoral defeats for the Republicans, in 2018, 2020 and 2022. As a result, American conservatism has seen its political influence in Washington reduced to the whims of a group of hotheads, who make it impossible to form a successful opposition to Biden. No satisfaction can be gained from witnessing the North American right implode before Trump for the third time, because whether he wins or loses, he is dragging the world’s first democracy into the abyss. There are opportunities to stop it, but the point of no return is in a matter of weeks.

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