A few days before the Iowa caucus election, Trump will make two court appearances this week, Tuesday in Washington and Thursday in New York. He didn't have to be physically present, but his advisers said he thought those court appearances could quickly become the central theme of his campaign: Mr. Biden, who was portraying him as a danger to the country, was the real threat to American democracy.
Trump's claims are a lifelong ploy in business and politics, but this outrageous and unfounded level has reached a new high. Whenever he is blamed, no matter what it is, he responds by accusing his opponent of being the same, or even more so, than himself. The purpose is not even to prove their innocence, but to imply that everyone is dirty.
It's not so much a strategy as an impulse. But in Trump's campaign, that impulse sometimes coincides with his political interests. According to this way of thinking, the more dissatisfied the voter is with reality, the more likely he is to raise his hands and proclaim"They're all the same"and compare the two candidates in Trump's favor, such as economic and immigration issues.
Trump's moral relativism underpins his view of almost every aspect of American public life, including democracy.
In 2017, when Fox News host Bill O'Reilly described Putin as:"Killers", Trump responded,"There are a lot of killers", and added"Well, do you think our country is so innocent? "
On the 2016 campaign, Trump applied each other's approaches to various issues that worked against him. When described as racist by voters in the polls (the most extreme example is his description of undocumented immigrants from Mexico as"Criminal"Trump claims that his rival, Hillary Clinton, is the real one"Paranoia"。
When Hillary Clinton suggested that he was not temperamentally fit to be in charge of the country's nuclear code, Trump declared that she was impulsive and"Very unstable"。
In a ** debate, Hillary Clinton called Trampon Putin's"Puppets", Trump interrupted her:"There are no puppets. You're the puppet"。
For years, Trump has championed the previously marginal Obama-born conspiracy theory — falsely claiming that Obama was born in Kenya and is therefore illegitimate — and has taken the conspiracy to new heights when he finally abandoned it out of political expediency shortly before Election Day 2016, falsely claiming that it was Hillary Clinton who used it to hit the first black man.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas fell victim to Trump's trick in the 2016 Republican primary, when Trump was being blamed for his almost constant false rhetoric. Cruz had indignantly summed up Trump's shamelessness. He said:"He lies, he lies almost every word, he lies almost every word. I think his reaction pattern comes directly from psychology textbooks, which is to accuse other people of lying"。
Now, of course, Cruz, like many other Republican lawmakers, has reversed himself as a strong supporter of Trump.
Now, Trump is reusing his favorite tool to defuse what many consider his worst transgression in public life and the biggest political weakness of the 2024 campaign: his efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after his defeat in 2020 and his continued hold of the office.
His campaign machine was then set in motion, with baseless claims that Biden was rigging investigations and legal actions against him. Trump's advisers came up with a slogan"Biden Against Democracy", abbreviated as: bad.
Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, said he thinks his former client knows what to do.
While Trump is now arguing with Biden over the issue, many Republican advisers and elected ** are hoping that Trump will dodge the issue. They have good reason to do so, as promoting election denial and conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol cost Republicans a chance to win in the 2022 midterm elections.
Bannon disagrees.
Bannon said in an interview"If you can get almost a tie with Biden on this issue, and I think you can do it, that's the end of it. "
He was referring to issues that endanger American democracy"He had nothing else to call to. That's his main thing. "
Bannon also said:"If Biden wants to fight there over democracy and all this short-lived stuff, Trump will follow right away. "
After a recording of Trump bragging to TV host Billie Bsh about catching a woman's *** leaked, it was Bannon who pushed Trump"Offense"。At a press conference held shortly before the Trump-Hillary debate, Bannon helped arrange for three women who had accused former Clinton of sexual harassment or sexual harassment to be with Trump.
This succeeded in releasing a kind of smoke that was as dirty as everyone else at a moment of extreme vulnerability.
Bannon was talking about the Trump campaign"Biden opposes democracy"Gambling said:"There are a few things you have to keep in mind. That's the whole logic of his candidacy, he believes that the 2020 ** was stolen and the January 6 election was a trap set by the FBI"。
It's unclear whether Trump really believes that Jan. 6 was made"Deep (note, a conspiracy theory that some people are manipulating the United States behind the scenes)."Curated. His interpretation of the events of the day has been changing, mainly depending on the occasion, and it is very late for him to come up with the baseless far-right conspiracy theory that the Capitol riot was the work of the FBI insider.
Trump has also tried to gain traction with his allies by attacking Biden's son, Hunter, claiming that Hunter amassed wealth abroad during his father's tenure as deputy to address his own corruption problem.
But some of Trump's advisers believe that with"Biden opposes democracy"The subject of the subject is less beneficial from Hunt's point of view. They recognize that Hunter is not, and if there is no evidence sufficient to convince Senate Republicans (that Biden is involved in corruption), and Republicans remain skeptical about whether there is a basis for this, then they doubt that the issue can greatly impress voters.
According to an insider, Trump also privately expressed concern that overplaying the personal attack on his son would backfire and make Biden look like a decent father.
Trump made such a mistake during the 2020 debate, mocking Hunter's past drug use, eliciting Biden's humane response:"My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people you know at home, has a drug problem. He's quit. He has corrected it. He's been working on it. I'm so proud of him"。
Trump and his advisers want to do more than cover up the responsibility that comes with his election lies and the violent attack on the Capitol, which Democrats believe still deeply trouble most voters.
What they're trying to do is, hopefully, convince voters that Biden is actually the problem.
As Trump tried to suggest that Biden was a threat to democracy, voters' attitudes did shift.
In an October 2022 poll by the New York Times Siena Institute, 45% of voters who believe democracy is threatened, compared with 38% who say the same for Biden. Among independent voters, the gap is even greater, with Trump being 14 percentage points more likely to be the threat.
But an August 2023 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that in another recent survey, 57 percent of Americans believe Trump's re-election will pose a threat to democracy, and 53 percent say the same for Biden. Among independent voters, almost the same percentage of independent voters believe that any candidate is a threat to democracy.
Trump's consistent use of repetition in public speeches is at the heart of his work.
Bannon said of Trump's portrayal of Biden as a real threat to democracy"If one thinks that he is often inconsistent in his information, then he is not inconsistent in this information. It's very powerful to go back and see what he said, repeat it over and over again. "
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama, said that polls show that Trump"At this point, progress has been made against his base of voters"。But he said it was much harder to convince people that Trump's lie about Jan. 6, 2021, was true.
Aksselrod said of the federal indictment accusing Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States"This is one of the reasons why he is so desperate to push the January 6 trial to after **. A barrage of witnesses, including his own top aides, White House lawyers and advisers, combined with a guilty verdict, would damage his base. "