Like the vast majority of reasonable people around the world I was horrified at the recent events in Washington, even though, hand on heart, I predicted, some 15 months ago, that something like this would happen in the dying days of a Trump presidency.
In an article posted in October 2019 and titled Is Trump too dangerous to defeat? I asked: “What if he did lose?
“This would leave him still in the White House with full presidential powers for more than two months between Election Day and the inauguration of his successor, the so-called lame duck period.
“Might he decide to sign off with a dramatic gesture? Cataclysmic revenge on some of the enemies, or countries that have dared to defy him over the previous four years?
“If so, who would stop him? The US Constitution, designed in a slow-moving, pre-technological age when it was assumed that those in leadership positions were always going to be reasonable men who played by the rules, is silent on the subject.
“Asking these questions would have been unthinkable three years ago, but that was another time; a different world.”
Perhaps if more people had asked those questions as the election neared and polls showed that Trump could indeed lose, we might have avoided the trashing of the Capitol building and the deaths of five people.
We are indeed living in a different world, and seeing I got this more or less right I will make a another prediction: Trump, or Trumpism, will not be going away.
While the man himself is discredited and may well not have the stomach or the energy to try again for the presidency in four years, there are many who see the path he trod as one that could lead them straight to the White House.
Trump-style populism, minus the erratic performance of the man himself, may be the way to harness the 70 million votes the president gained in November, plus more from those who embrace the conservative side of politics, but could not bring themselves to vote this time.
The past four years have shown that the white working class is fertile and potentially decisive ground electorally. Decades ago we laughed at the bigotry of Archie Bunker and Alf Garnett, lampooned in their respective television series. We shouldn’t be laughing now.
Who might take on the mantle of Trump in 2024? There are any number: Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas appear to be the front-runners; don’t discount former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, although it’s going to be just that more difficult for a woman in far right Republican territory.
Normally vice presidents have a good chance of stepping up to challenge for the top job, but Mike Pence’s inevitable part in Trump’s final defeat will probably rule him out in places like rural Oklahoma or Texas.
Someone out of left field? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who in the weeks after the election was in Israel, burnishing his already bright credentials as a supporter of the Jewish State.
He visited the Golan Heights to denounce those in the “salons of Europe and the elite institutions of America who want Israel to give up the territory to Bashar al-Assad’s Syria”. Music to the ears of the populist base back home.
As journalist and author Zev Chafets summed up in his article covering the trip: “Right now [Pompeo] looks like the leading suitor for [Israeli’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s] help in restoring a Trumpian Middle Eastern policy, minus the drama, to the White House.”
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