Considered a pariah after the assault on the Capitol, Donald Trump managed to make himself essential in his party thanks to the unwavering support of his supporters. Until rising, a third time, in a presidential election.
Donald Trump at the gates of the White House, again. Eight years after creating a surprise by winning the presidential election against Hillary Clinton, the real estate mogul turned political beast could well make his return to power on November 5.
On the eve of the election, the Republican is neck and neck in the polls with his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris. A close race that he is convinced he can win. “Together, we will fight, fight, fight. And we will win, win, win!”, he repeats like a mantra in his meetings, like on Sunday October 27, during a rally giant at Madison Square Garden in New York.
If Donald Trump believes in his lucky star, it's because he's come a long way. Four years ago, almost no one seriously imagined the former president making his return to the forefront. But taking advantage of undeniable popularity among his supporters, the Republican was able to return to the political game, transforming each of the obstacles placed in his path into springboards.
A pariah in the White House
In 2021, Donald Trump leaves the White House with a bang after four years of an eventful mandate. Widely beaten by Joe Biden – he is 7 million votes behind nationally, only a few thousand in certain key states – he refuses to recognize his defeat.
On January 6, 2021, he gave a fiery speech in which he called on his troops to “fight like hell” and “descend on the Capitol.” Moments later, the headquarters of Congress were stormed, in the middle of the certification of the election results.
While Trumpist supporters and small far-right groups ransacked the temple of American democracy, the American president remained silent for two long hours, before finally calling for “calm”.
Tolerated, even encouraged by Donald Trump, this insurrection could have signaled the end of his political career. Abandoned by many Republican leaders, banned from his favorite channel of expression, Twitter, and treated as a pariah by the press, the billionaire will nevertheless very quickly resurface.
Express rehabilitation
“After January 6, the leaders of the Republican Party immediately dissociated themselves from his actions and tried to turn the page on Trump. But when they returned to the constituency, they received torrents of insults. So they are lined up behind him”, deciphers for BFMTV.com Alexis Pichard, associate researcher at the Center for Anglophone Research at Paris Nanterre University.
The rehabilitation of the former president is happening at warp speed. As of January 28, 2021, Kevin McCarthy, leader of the Republican minority in the House, rushes to Mar-a-Lago to discuss the upcoming electoral events with the former president . This same McCarthy, who estimated on January 13 that Trump “beared the responsibility” of the attack on the Capitol.
Indicted in Congress for “incitement to insurrection”, Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate on February 13, 2021, the vast majority of Republican senators having refused to convict their former president.
“The Republicans have all turned around,” summarizes Olivier Richomme, professor of American civilization at Lumière Lyon-2 University. “For fear of Donald Trump or for careerist reasons,” says the researcher, while confessing to having difficulty explaining the party's submission to a single man.
Gradually, Donald Trump is tightening control over his troops. Within the Grand Old Party, dissenting voices are silenced. Having become an opponent of Donald Trump, Republican Liz Cheney is ousted from her position as number 3 in the Republican group in the House. It was the ex-president himself who called for “getting rid” of her in his speech on January 6.
Difficult return to the countryside
Cleared by his camp, Donald Trump returns to the campaign for the mid-term elections of November 2022. The result is contrasting to say the least: if the Republican Party wins control of the House of Representatives, the announced “red wave” will not did not surge. More embarrassing for Donald Trump, the candidates he personally supports are mostly defeated.
Adhering to the thesis of a 2020 election “stolen” by the Democrats, the candidates bribed by the former president “appeared to be too extremist”, explains Alexis Pichard. “It was Trump without Trump. His voters were not moved,” adds Olivier Richomme. Therefore, “doubts about Donald Trump’s ability to win elections appear,” underline the two specialists.
The reverse is also media-related. Accustomed to being in the spotlight, Donald Trump is eclipsed by the big winner of the vote: Ron DeSantis, largely re-elected to his post as governor of Florida. A slayer of “wokism”, less fanciful than Donald Trump, “DeSantis is dubbed by the empire of Rubert Murdoch (media mogul, owner of Fox News and the New York Post, Editor's note) and seen as the one who must replace Donald Trump” , recalls Alexis Pichard.
But the former president does not give up and immediately gets back in the saddle. Barely a week after the midterms, he announces his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
Fanatic base
The year that followed summed up the Trump paradox. In quick succession, the former president is criminally charged in four cases, from hidden payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels to the attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Unheard of in the history of presidents Americans. However, polls show that he is still the Republicans' favorite figure.
“Whatever the circumstances, Donald Trump relies on an incompressible base of loyal supporters with whom he maintains an almost mystical relationship,” describes researcher Alexis Pichard.
For a large part of his supporters, “Donald Trump is the incarnation of a messianic figure who would deliver America from a pedo-Satanist plot organized by the Democrats,” he continues. A conspiratorial narrative developed by the Qanon movement, and which Donald Trump himself feeds.
Stainless popularity
At the start of 2024, the Republican primaries confirm the unalterable popularity of the former president in his camp. In state after state, it far outdistances its competitors. Without managing to convince beyond Florida, Ron DeSantis threw in the towel on January 21 after arriving thirty points behind Donald Trump in the first state to vote, Iowa. The last credible alternative to Donald Trump, former governor Nikki Haley gave up two months later, leaving the billionaire alone in the race.
“The primary system, where Republican activists mainly vote, favors radicalism,” explains Alexis Pichard. However, the activist base of the Republican Party is largely won over to Donald Trump. According to a poll carried out for CNN this summer, 69% of Republican supporters believe, like him, that the election of Joe Biden is not legitimate.
On May 31, the conviction of Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels affair was a new shock. But the businessman bounces back again. The day after his conviction, he held a shattering press conference in which he denounced a “rigged” trial instigated by Joe Biden and his “gang” of “sick” and “fascist” people.
“His basic principle is the counter-attack. He did everything possible to postpone the trials until after November 5 and for those in which he was convicted, he articulated this story of the martyr to take advantage of it,” deciphers Alexis Pichard. The researcher cites as an example the mugshot (court photo) of Donald Trump. Taken as part of the investigation into electoral pressures in Georgia, the photo immediately became part of candidate Trump's merchandising, appearing on t-shirts and mugs.
“And the more problems he has with the law, the more funds he raises,” adds Olivier Richomme, highlighting an “inversion of norms” unprecedented in American politics.
Despite the conviction, the weeks that followed confirmed the candidate's inexorable dynamic. On CNN, he triumphed over Joe Biden during a highly anticipated televised debate where the Democratic president appeared more weakened than ever, both physically and mentally. Then a few days later, it was the turn of the Supreme Court to give it a boost. By decreeing a “presumption of immunity” for certain presidential acts, it further postpones a possible trial on the assault on the Capitol.
The Republican Party vampired
Donald Trump, untouchable? A new unexpected event will confirm this impression. On July 13, during a meeting in Pennsylvania, a young man attempted to assassinate him. The rifle bullet miraculously grazed the candidate's head and slightly injured his ear. As he is exfiltrated by the Secret Service, his face bloodied, Donald Trump stops for a moment, turns to the crowd, raises his fist and shouts “Fight!, Fight!, Fight!” (“Fight!”).
The scene immediately enters the history books, and the words of the miracle candidate become the rallying cry of his supporters, which they chant at each of his campaign meetings.
In mid-July, the Republican convention formalized the nomination of Donald Trump for the race for the White House. “A tour de force”, points out Olivier Richomme, who recalls “that no candidate has ever been nominated three times in a row by his party”.
The Republican high mass, organized in Milwaukee just two days after the assassination attempt, confirms Donald Trump's iconic status. While spectators wear an ear bandage as a sign of rallying, the billionaire watches the parade of his former rivals. Nikki Haley, RonDeSantis… Everyone comes to sing his praises on stage, no matter how much they were vilified, even insulted, during the primary campaign.
Even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnel, who considered after January 6 that Donald Trump had “incited” his supporters to invade the capitol, resolved to support the former president. A sign of the complete Trumpization of the Republican Party, Lara Trump, Donald's daughter-in-law, is now its vice-president.
Frozen polls
After regaining the trust of his camp, Donald Trump is waiting for only one thing: to take his revenge. Even more than in 2016 and 2020, he is leading an aggressive campaign, between insults and fake news.
From meeting to meeting, he attacks Joe Biden “the crook” then Kamala Harris the “crazy”, calls his opponents “vermin”, calls on the army to fight the “enemies within” and accuses migrants of “poison the blood” of Americans.
“It’s generally the same recipes as in 2016, going ever further into outrage,” summarizes Olivier Richomme. “He is also riding on a feeling of disapproval against the Biden administration, which still has the ball of inflation at its feet,” he specifies.
Early fans, disappointed with the Democratic Party or simple Republican voters: around half of Americans are ready to trust him again. A figure that no event in the campaign has shaken up: neither the entry into the running of Kamala Harris in place of Joe Biden, nor his failed televised debate against the vice-president, nor the countless controversies provoked by him and his supporters.
But if nothing undermines his campaign, nothing propels it either. “Donald Trump has locked his electoral base without seeking to broaden it by addressing the most moderate,” adds United States specialist Alexis Pichard. “This is what has prevented him from winning elections since 2020. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to beat Kamala Harris.”
