Trump against Biden, the revenge

The United States is set to repeat the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump after Tuesday’s primaries confirmed their dominance over their respective parties. Republican voters handed victory after victory to Trump on Super Tuesday, and clearly showed that they are willing to support him despite the fact that he has been charged with 91 federal counts in four criminal cases and in the investigation into the assault on the Capitol in January 2021, an attempt at subverting the constitutional order.

The warnings issued by traditional and moderate Republicanism have been ignored and their last hope, Nikki Haley, quit the campaign yesterday. The enormous resources that Haley has had at her disposal have not been enough to overcome the reality that around half of the Republican Party, especially the low-income and less educated sectors, is completely devoted to Trump, not only as a candidate, but as a mission.

Although after the traumatic all-or-nothing election of four years ago, both parties seemed determined to renew their leadership, both have ended up offering voters the same thing again. Democrats didn’t address Biden’s withdrawal (he’s 81 and presented himself as a transitional leader) in time, and now they can no longer take a chance on someone less well-known than the president. The Republicans, after disowning Trump, have been swept away by their own hypocrisy and fear of their followers. It is therefore expected that the entire party will unite around Trump in the coming months as if nothing had happened, even if he is forced to sit in the dock. At this point, any possibility of other candidates emerging is remote. Voters have been clear, the primaries are over and the presidential rematch begins.

They are both older and more unpopular than last time. It will therefore be a campaign focused not on the virtues but on the defects of the candidates. In this context, the Democrats’ confidence rests on the fact that the coalition of voters who gave the presidency to Biden — from the left of their party to moderate Republicans — is much broader than the one that may be mustered by Trump, a man who provokes a visceral rejection not only among Democrats, but also among a not-insignificant portion of Republicans. That is why every election since 2016 has been favorable to the Democrats.

But 2024 has new elements for which Biden must urgently find an answer. First, doubts about his physical and mental ability to continue in the post. Today’s State of the Union address will be an important test of his perceived weakness. Another challenge for the campaign will be immigration, which has become a major problem among Democrats themselves. Finally, the Gaza war is an emerging conflict that is changing the historical parameters of the relationship between the United States and Israel. The discomfort among part of the Democratic electorate over support for Israel is deep and its leader cannot ignore that crack.

The campaign led by the current tenant of the White House faces the challenge of breaking out of its apparent complacency and overcoming the frustration of a majority of Americans forced to choose between unexciting alternatives. Republicans have decided that this is a new election about Trump and, therefore, about democracy itself.

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