Donald Trump’s eclipse is farther than imagined – David A. Graham

As president he had reiterated it several times as he finished his mandate: “We are not going anywhere”. His had been a rather turbulent conclusion to the presidency – impeachment, questionable pardons, and a long dispute over the outcome of the elections – but he knew he could count on devoted followers. And he had every intention of retaining his political strength. The reasoning wasn’t just for him. His family was also eager to take advantage of his electoral success. A former president usually keeps a low profile for some time after the term ends. He wouldn’t have done it. He would continue to dominate his party and represent a political power.

In the end, however, the plan didn’t go as planned. The former president stayed in his new home (after leaving the state he had lived in for a long time) sipping Diet Coke and calling his friends to complain about the unfair treatment he said he was being treated, as well as the fanatical prosecutors who they had targeted him. “Listening to him was exhausting,” admitted a friend of his.

The year was 2001, and the former president was Bill Clinton. “When a president ends his term he is expected to disappear for a while, giving the stage to the newcomer and giving us time to forget the reasons why we weren’t too sorry to see him leave the scene,” Time wrote.

Arguments in common
Donald Trump is unlikely to call Clinton to complain, not least because Clinton would never accept the call. But if for some reason an understanding arises between the two, they may discover that they have different topics of discussion. Talking about Trump’s relative irrelevance might seem like an act of defiance of fate, but it’s undeniable that the former president has remained quite on the sidelines after leaving the White House. It is not just a feeling. Recently Philip Bump of the Washington Post revealed that Google searches and cable TV images of Trump have returned to pre-nomination levels. Only the citations in the cable TV news remain numerous, but even those are declining.

An outburst in April – in front of an audience of Republican officials and financiers Trump called the country’s most powerful Republican politician “a stupid son of a bitch” – highlighted the former president’s popularity crisis. The speech attracted some attention, but nothing out of the ordinary. The era in which “covfefe” could exhaust the country for days has fortunately ended.

A widespread theory regarding Trump’s demise is that being banned from Twitter and other social networks neutralized his ability to reach a large audience. Thanks to his Twitter profile, in fact, Trump could convey any thought or controversy that crossed his mind to millions of followers. At that point, the media were on his latest shot and the debate he had sparked. Proof of the validity of this thesis is the fact that Trump’s eclipse seems to have begun around January 8, when Twitter announced that it had banned it.

It is clear that Trump lacks the ability to tweet and receive immediate feedback. After the suspension, he began emailing his statements to reporters (often more than one a day), presumably in the hope that they would spread them on Twitter. But that’s not the same thing.

Weaknesses
First of all, free from the 280 character limitation, Trump tends to manifest the inconsistency so evident in his speeches. Secondly, the feelings that appear semi-understandable in the chaos of social networks become meaningless and empty once they land in the inbox (why on earth Trump sends out statements to praise Stephen Miller? Did I miss something? Or is he missing something? ? Both of them?).

The Twitter theory also has its weaknesses. At the time of the ban, Trump’s tweets were still shaking government officials, but they had begun to lose strength as early as 2019. Responses to tweets were dwindling, and Trump’s attempts to balance that decline by multiplying interventions diluted the result. The country seemed to have developed a certain indifference to the former president’s shots.

Also, consider the fact that part of Trump’s fame doesn’t need a Twitter profile. As a defiant presidential candidate, Trump discovered in 2015 that Twitter was a useful tool for influencing the debate, even though few journalists and politicians initially took his candidacy seriously. But once he entered the White House, Trump had many other tools to attract media attention: press conferences, formal interviews, statements in the Oval Office.

Although he often ignored these methods during his tenure – in the first two years he gave no speeches in the Oval Office – today he is using what is left of him. For a time after the January 6 assault on Congress, Trump remained eerily silent, apparently on the advice of his aides who had urged him to step aside as the Senate considered his impeachment.

Once the threat was gone, Trump made his voice heard again. He continued to make public statements (including on the occasion of the Republican National Committee in mid-July) and gave interviews to dozens of “friendly” broadcasters. In addition, he has given at least a dozen interviews for the writing of books on his presidency. Trump could gain more exposure if he agreed to speak to a less enslaved interviewer – those with Jake Tapper or Mary Louise Kelly, or a second act with Chris Wallace or Lesley Stahl would certainly be more explosive dialogue – but the fact remains that until recently. makes a phone call from him during the broadcast Fox & Friends it was enough to make the news.

Another hero
Trump could fall victim to his own success in monopolizing the news cycle. First of all, it is likely that the media have finally begun to learn the lesson by avoiding emphasizing his most aggressive and futile provocations. Then it must be borne in mind that his ability to control the news depended on launching increasingly colossal provocations. Once you have tried to overturn a presidential election there is not much room left to raise the stakes (let’s hit iron, because if anyone can find this space it is surely Trump).

Trump has succeeded in becoming the megaphone of his base’s claims, but his attacks on the election – even as he tried to frame them as a crusade against fraud against the American people – are fundamentally a rebellion against what he sees as an affront. personal, not indicative of a larger cause. Polls indicate that many Republicans are convinced that the 2020 elections have been manipulated, and the long-term damage done to faith in democracy is extremely dangerous.

However, for the foreseeable future, no one will maintain Trump’s level of anger over the vote. Some followers who saw him as the man who would challenge the establishment will take his defeat as proof that politics is doomed, and will slip into apathy and disengagement. For others, defeat automatically makes him a loser, and this is especially damaging considering how much Trump hates losers. These people will be looking for another hero.

But even as he is losing control of the media, Trump retains that of the Republican Party. A sizeable minority of the population continues to support him. The former president tops the polls among Republican voters ahead of the 2024 elections. Prominent Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise make pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago to strengthen their position. The Republican Election Campaign Committee for the Senate concocted an award only to award it to Trump. Even figures like Mitch McConnell and Nikki Haley, who have harshly criticized Trump about the assault on Capitol Hill, have childishly stated that they would support him if he is chosen as a candidate in 2024.

What Trump certainly retains is his negative power, which is the ability to torpedo a Republican who does not submit to his will (at least in theory, because this power has never been tested). But at the same time it has lost much of its positive power, which is the ability to accomplish something, to distribute appointments and grant graces, to plead causes. The underlying problem for Trump is that despite his best efforts, he is no longer the president of the United States. This means that it is inevitably less influential than before.

This loss of value affects every president after his term ends, even those who like Clinton remain relatively popular (Trump never was). Throughout his political career Trump has behaved as if he is immune not only to the legal consequences of his actions, but also to all conventional rules of politics, and he has managed to convince many pundits that he really is. So far he has dodged the pitfalls of the law, but the rules of politics have already caught up with him.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)