“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And to those who have been offended and betrayed, I say: I am your reward”. In the closing speech of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, Donald Trump relaunched his candidacy for the election in particularly aggressive tones presidency of the United States and shown how much his message continues to resonate in the most conservative base of the republican party. Surrounded by a crowd in raptureswho wore MAGA pins, T-shirts, caps (Make America Great Again) and yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump,” the former president asked for another four years”to finish the interrupted job”. One thing has become very clear. If he were to be indicted, he would not give up the candidacy.
The CPAC’s annual conservative conference has been the preferred stage for Republican politicians and presidential candidates for years. This year’s event – at the National Harbor in Maryland, just outside Washington DC – instead showed the grip that Trump now has over the party and the enthusiasm, the dedication, that the former president continues to arouse in the conservative Republican base. Absent almost all the leaders of the party (with the exception of Nikky Haley e Mike Pompeowho received a lukewarm reception and circumstantial applause), the scene was precisely dominated by Trump, his family members and his closest allies: the congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greenehis former advisor, Steve Bannonthe former candidate for governor of Arizona, Kari Lakeall speakers who in the past have embraced and relaunched the thesis of the elections stolen by the Democrats of Joe Biden.
In his speech, Trump resurrected the accents of his own more aggressive and populist rhetoric, the one that feeds on distrust and resentment towards Washington’s politics and which claims Trump’s role as the voice of the oppressed and excluded. “With you by my side – said the former president – we will demolish the deep state. We’ll kick out i warmongers. We will drive out the globalists, the communists… the political class that hates our country. We will defeat the Democrats. We will destroy the media that spread fake news. We will unmask the Rinos [repubblicani solo di nome]. We will oust Joe Biden from the White House. We will rid America of bad guys and villains once and for all”. After targeting his internal enemies, precisely the Rinos who oppose his return to the White House – “we will never go back to being the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove e Jeb Bush” – Trump addressed the topic of war and “the most difficult era in the history of America”.
Trump tied the decision of Vladimir Putin to invade theUkraine to the disastrous withdrawal of the United States fromAfghanistan in August 2021, what would show all the weakness and military unpreparedness and US diplomat. The result, in her opinion, will be the third World war, unless the candidate of destiny, that is, he returns to the White House to repair the damage done by Joe Biden: “I know what I’m saying: I will end the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine and I will avoid the third world war”, he explained. After touching on the various issues that arouse the enthusiasm of the most conservative base – a wall with Mexico to block the entry of drugs, the return to vote with paper cards to avoid electoral fraud, a crackdown on transgender people’s rights and their surgeries – Trump concluded his speech with an appeal from apocalyptic tones: “This is the final battle. If we don’t fight it, our country will be lost forever.”
Significant in Trump’s speech was the absence of any reference to his most likely rival in the 2024 presidential race: Ron DeSantisthe governor of Florida which has not yet officially announced its candidacy, which however appears to be certain at this point. DeSantis snubbed the CPAC event and preferred to continue his journey to build a support and funding network nationwide. During the same hours that Trump was speaking at CPAC, DeSantis was appearing at fundraising events at Houston e Dallasas well as participating as a guest of honor at the Florida meeting of Club for Growth, an anti-tax organization that has not invited Trump to speak. In the next few hours, DeSantis will also speak to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The Florida governor’s activism shows an important dynamic of this campaign debut. Trump remains the candidate at the moment widely favored (a recent survey Emerson College gives the former president a 30-point lead over DeSantis in Republican voting preferences), but he’s not the only Republican presidential candidate, as he might have hoped.
This, more than the 2020 campaign, when Trump had no rivals, brings us back to a situation similar to that of 2016, when instead the clash between the Republican contenders was particularly heated. Trump will have to fight to raise more campaign funding than his rivals and to win the vote of the voters, then the support of the delegates. In recent weeks, his emissaries have begun to be deployed in the first states where they will vote for them primaries, in order to follow the organization of an impressive electoral machine. In the next few days, Trump will also hold a rally at Davenport, in Iowa, the first state where the vote will take place (in Davenport Ron DeSantis will also stop for another rally). There is news that gives the former president’s team confidence in the possibility of winning the challenge for the candidacy. For example Ike Perlmuttera businessman who has backed both Trump and DeSantis in the past, has hinted that in 2024 he will prefer Trump.
But, despite the enthusiasm of the base and the appeal that the former president maintains among the billionaires close to the party, his ability to dominate republican politics appears less strong than in the past. After his 2021 CPAC speech, just days after the assault on Congress, Trump was able to collect over three million dollars online. In the hours after his 2024 candidacy was announced, the money raised online was 1.6 million. So almost half. Too many Republican elders they prefer to wait before declaring which side they are on. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former Trump White House spokesperson and now governor of Arkansas, received a call from Trump’s men last week, asking her to state her endorsement, his support for the former president The answer was negative, Sanders prefers to wait. The challenge in the GOP will therefore be harsh and, presumably, very long.
Against the backdrop of the candidacy challenge, there are of course the countless judicial cases. Two state investigations are open against Trump – one in New York City, for having overestimated the value of the goods of the Trump Organization, and one in Fulton County, Georgia, per voting interference of 2020 – as well as two federal investigations: one into his role in theassault on Congress of 6 January, the other for having stolen and taken to his residence in Mar-a-Lago top secret document. Before taking the CPAC stage for the speech, Trump was very clear. “I am absolutely not thinking about retiring, in case of indictment”, he told reporters, explaining indeed that the eventual indictment would give more strength to his candidacy.
That Trump plans to use his candidacy for the presidency as an instrument of pressure against judicial investigations was also evident from his speech on the stage of the CPAC. The former president defined “corrupt and politically motivated” i prosecutors which put him under investigation. He said he did not know the word “subpoena”, summons, before entering politics (in reality he was cited hundreds of times before 2016 and the first federal investigation against him dates back to the 1970s) and explicitly linked the his political rise to judicial persecutions of which it would be the object. “Every time my poll numbers shoot up, prosecutors get even crazier,” she explained.
Since his speech at the CPAC, it has become increasingly clear that Trump intends to use the assault on Congress politically. Over the summer, he met Cynthia Hughes, founder of the “Patriot Freedom Project”, a group that provides legal assistance to people who went on trial for the January 6 attack. The former president also appeared in a video in support of the group, to which he donated only $10,000, much less than expected. And a few days ago he lent his voice to another video in which 20 inmatesimprisoned for the violence committed in the assault, sing the “Star-Spangled Banner”, the US anthem. At one point in the video, Trump’s voice rings out, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, the oath of allegiance to the flag of the United States. These are signs that precisely show the intention to make the attack on Congress a qualifying reason for the next electoral campaign. Something that many among the Republicans themselves would have preferred to avoid, and which promises to make the battle for the White House even more heated.