The American presidential election this year is a fear campaign. In one case, that of Donald Trump, he twists his legal misadventures to draw lessons for his supporters. Among Joe Biden and the Democrats, we draw on the words of the ex-president to warn that no one will be safe from his vengeance.
No wonder that, in poll after poll, Americans repeat their distrust of the other political camp. Rather than following a journey of ideas and social projects, this presidential race is peppered with apocalyptic descriptions of what the victory of the other camp will entail.
Just yesterday morning, Donald Trump twisted the adventures that the American justice system put him through – “my house was ransacked… my mugshot was taken… I was arrested, gagged and dragged before the court… the corrupt Democratic judge in my trial rigged by Biden threatened to throw me in jail…” – to claim that he was absorbing these attacks to prevent attacks on his supporters.
For Democrats, spoiled for choice
The Democrats, for their part, are directly inspired by the Republican candidate’s comments to prove his fanaticism. Whether this is his way of describing his political rivals – “…the communists, the Marxists, the fascists and the thugs of the radical left who live like vermin within the confines of our country and who lie, steal and cheat during elections…” – or his promises to militarize the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, his possible return to the White House should be enough, according to them, to arouse terror in those who have democracy at heart and respect for the law.
This concern also affects the leaders of the major democracies who met Thursday and Friday in Italy at the G7 summit. Two of them – French President Emmanuel Macron and the Canadian Prime Minister – have not forgotten what negotiating with Donald Trump means. Justin Trudeau, moreover, still bears the scars of the Charlevoix summit in 2018, when the Republican president described him as “weak and dishonest”.
With his “America First” and his repeated attacks on NATO, the former president had shattered those decades-old certainties that the United States would be a stabilizing force in transatlantic affairs and would always ensure the security of Europe .
First, defend Ukraine in the long term
Exile from the White House has not softened Donald Trump. Russia, he said, could “do whatever it wants” to NATO members that fail to meet their military spending obligations. And without providing the slightest detail, he claimed to be able to end the war in Ukraine in twenty-four hours.
Perplexed, the G7 leaders instead fell back on a series of new initiatives aimed at shielding Western aid to the Ukrainians from the whims of the former president. At the initiative of Washington, they therefore approved the principle of a loan of fifty billion dollars to Kyiv, guaranteed by the future interest generated by frozen Russian assets, assets estimated at nearly 300 billion dollars.
NATO members also plan to ratify a new plan under which the alliance will take over from the United States in coordinating military aid to Ukraine. That says it all: we are at the point of preparing for the worst by providing ourselves with safeguards in the event that Donald Trump takes back control of the leading economic and military power in the world.
