Stuck Watching the Trump Show
19th August 2023
There is one thing about which both Donald Trump and his most vociferous critics are happy: the 2024 election is gearing up to be all about him.
The former president is hamming up his victim status on a score-settling vengeance tour that he hopes will propel him back to the White House. His huge poll lead suggests it is a winning strategy — at least in the Republican primary. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats are vain enough to have persuaded themselves that their legal and electoral crusade against the former president amounts to the most important fight in the history of the Republic.
The team tasked with delivering Joe Biden a second term knows that their best chance of victory relies on demonizing Trump and minimizing the time spent talking about the unpopular and obviously declining octogenarian incumbent. They may believe what they tell the president to say about his predecessor’s threat to American democracy, but they are cynical enough nevertheless to hope that Trump wins his primary. Biden knows that his once and (probably) future opponent is the glue that holds together an otherwise unlikely Democratic coalition; he is banking that tens of millions of voters underwhelmed by a 2020 rematch will once again break his way. As he is fond of saying: “Compare me to the alternative, not the Almighty.” (Be careful what you wish for, Mr. President.)