A Taste of Trump 2.0

SWEEPING CONCLUSIONS must not be drawn from the behaviour of a small sample of a large base. But we live in interesting times, in a very Chinese sense. As far as the world’s still most powerful democ­racy is concerned, it’s experiencing something unprecedent­ed—and not the political precedent (or likelihood) of a former president reclaiming office after a four-year working holiday because Grover Cleveland already did that in 1892. What’s unprecedented is the turn American politics has taken where it doesn’t matter that the former president, who took a first and unambiguous step towards his party’s nomination with a landslide on January 15, has 91 charges of felony in four criminal cases against him and, technically, could still land in prison.

The only takeaway from the Republican caucuses in Iowa that matters is the big one: Donald Trump’s core is locked and it’s likely to be a magnet hereafter. Unlike other defeated presidents/candidates past, he didn’t fade away. That’s unprec­edented for a US general election. Unlike other presidents/ candidates past, Trump’s legal jeopardy means zilch to his base, which is actually a movement. For, MAGA is a movement and, eight years since 2016, having won and lost and stirred up more storms than federal agencies could handle, that movement has passed its test of survival. All of this was known, of course, and Iowa was one of the most predictable results ever. And yet, Trump and MAGA needed to prove it: Iowa is the evidence for all to see.

Thus, it’s not courting forecaster’s disaster to picture a second Trump presidency. For one, President Joe Biden is almost certain to get the Democratic nomination, making 2024 a repeat of 2020, unless some­thing untoward happens. Second, a Biden-Trump re-run, as of now, is safely predicted to be a very, very close contest. So, if it’s a 50-50 chance of Trump winning the presidency on November 5 (or whenever, if there’s also a repeat of the 2020 delay), it’s not really a waste of time to speculate, within reason, what Trump 2.0 could look like. As it happens, from Europe to Asia, Africa to South America, they are already doing just that.

Most Republicans who voted for Trump in Iowa believe he had won the 2020 election and this proportion is much big­ger, almost total, among his core voters. Even without his legal troubles, it’s plain to see that Trump’s base, and those returning to the fold after having flirted with alternatives, not only exhibits blind faith but also a hatred for the institutions of state, especially federal ones. The refrain: he delivers. This might fly in the face of Trump’s big failures: losing the presidency; losing the House and the Senate on his watch; the missing red wave in the 2022 midterms. But given that the Republican Party has been replaced by a personality cult—albeit even core Trump supporters often claim they don’t like his character—none of that matters.

Where Trump had actually done well at home was the economy—before Covid sank it and his chances of re-elec­tion. Somewhat similarly, economic recovery had been fairly strong under Biden but now seems to have run out of steam at the start of another election year. Economy and immigra­tion—the porous border has become a major electoral issue in states like New Mexico and Arizona as evidenced by the Hispanic population leaving Democrats in large numbers be­cause the cross-border influx of illegals ends up jeopardising their jobs and security—are the twin engines of the Trump momentum likely to build up post-Iowa.

That Trump’s foreign policy was a relative success was grudgingly admitted even by his detractors. In 2024, his foreign policy vision hinges on isolationism. It’s not just Europe that’s worried. A world from which America has withdrawn won’t be one a rising power like India, desirous of playing a more leading role while pushing the envelope on national interest, would find comforting. Not if China perceived an open season

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It’s the other area where Trump had evidently done well that might become the biggest cause for concern with Trump 2.0. That Trump’s for­eign policy was a relative success was grudgingly admitted even by his de­tractors. In 2024, his vision of foreign policy hinges on one word: isolation­ism. Trump has pledged that if he became president, he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. The only way he could come anywhere close to keeping that promise would be by cutting off aid to Kyiv and ending the war on Russia’s terms, perhaps with a significant loss of Ukrainian terri­tory. That makes not only European states bordering Russia worried but could push a country like Japan to go nuclear if Tokyo felt it couldn’t rely on the American security umbrella anymore. More worryingly, and not just for Europe, if Trump were to deliver on his long-held but never fulfilled promise of reduc­ing US contributions to NATO or even taking the US out of the bloc, it would formally end America’s leading role as much of the world’s net security provider, especially when it came to authoritarian revanchist states like China and Russia. In Mos­cow and St Petersburg, they are rooting for Trump again, with the Putin-controlled media and troll factory even chastising the self-defeating attempts to ban Trump from the ballot in several states. This time, China, too, could be thinking that a Trump presidency would mean a smoother annexation of Taiwan, even on the thin chance of America looking the other way.

It’s not just Europe that’s worried. A world from which America has withdrawn will not be one that a rising power like India, desirous of playing a more leading role while pushing the envelope on its national interest, would find comforting or easy to operate in. Not when chief antagonist China perceived an open season.

Trump has been spelling out his vision in bits and pieces on the campaign trail. His campaign has authored Agenda47 (he will be the 47th president if he wins) and unlike 2016, the Trump circus is no longer an amateur one when the 45th presi­dent didn’t have the professional personnel and intellectual re­sources to even begin running the administration. The Trump camp has reportedly learnt from its mistakes eight years ago and through his presidency. In interviews given by his close aides, they emphasise how well prepared they are this time round. At home, Trump has promised everything from flying cars to lawless “freedom cities”. But strictly in terms of the real and not fantastic, his focus will be energy and import tariffs. So, while he makes the Republicans the party of tariffs—another instance of how complete his takeover of the GOP is—he will also increase energy supplies to reduce consumer costs.

And it can’t end till he has left his mark on the culture wars. Trump has hitherto held an ambivalent position on the abortion ban, leaning on the liberal side to the extent that he had lashed out at Florida Governor and Republican rival Ron DeSantis over the latter’s six-week abortion ban. That was one reason anti-abortion rights conservatives and activ­ists preferred DeSantis even in Iowa, although the transfer of the Evangelical vote overwhelmingly to Trump, finally, shows that the religious constituency has made its peace with him. On top of that, when Trump says he would need school teachers to embrace and impart “patriotic values”, it’s after the heart of an America beyond the red states.

Nikki Haley may do better in New Hampshire next given the state’s more liberal voters and DeSantis may have chosen to run for president in the wrong year (GOP stalwarts opine he would have had a clearer field in 2028 with an open presidency). But having won Iowa by an unprecedented margin of 30 per cent (Trump’s 51 to DeSantis’ 21 and Haley’s 19), it’s difficult to see the Trump momentum flagging. If Democrats remain bitterly divided over or indifferent to Biden, Trump 2.0 will be a more or­derly and all-encompassing disruption for the US and the world.

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Sudeep Paul

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