Entering Mar-a-Lago is a bit disappointing. We see nothing, or very little. Palm trees lined up like toothpicks, empty tennis courts, lots of busy staff. Impossible to deviate from the restricted course for the journalists, who came to attend in large numbers, Tuesday, November 15, at the “big announcement” of Donald Trump: his candidacy for the presidential election of 2024.
Impossible, therefore, to approach the heart of the Florida residence of the former president, where the federal police (FBI) had seized dozens of boxes of classified documents in early August. But the very choice of this decor betrayed a form of seclusion, of classicism which is the very opposite of transgression, the original sap of Trumpism.
It is in the reception room with its incredible gilding and friezes, under the high ceiling illuminated by projectors and crystal chandeliers, that the « roi YOU » – since he dubbed himself that, from the name of his Make America Great Again movement – went on stage, between marble columns. A dozen American flags hung behind his back. Donald Trump has tried to recreate the alchemy of his original rise, that of 2015-2016: a man against the elites, carried by a neglected and despised America.
Of alchemy, there was hardly, in front of a public of the high society, made up and dressed in Sunday, much less intense than that of the meetings. “America’s decline is forced upon us by Biden and the far-left lunatics who are driving our government into a wall”, explained Donald Trump. Without direct reference to his potential rivals within the Republican Party, however, he warned that restoring American greatness could not be entrusted to just anyone. “It is not a task for a conventional politician or candidate, it is a task for a great movement”, he said. Trump and the MAGA people versus the party: can the past be a future? Even Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the new candidate, was not present in the audience.
Narcissistic idealization
An hour long, the usual mix of read text and improvisations already experienced on other platforms, Donald Trump’s speech confirmed the fears of Republican executives. While the ballots for the midterm elections were not all counted nor the new majority in the House of Representatives known, the former president delivered a hasty, sloppy performance, without muscle or energy.
Like a crooner revisiting his old hits for lack of an alternative, Donald Trump followed the exact outline of his speeches during the campaign just ended. We found there the same apocalyptic vision of America under Biden – border ” opened “ with Mexico, economic relegation, crime, etc. –, the same narcissistic idealization of his own presidency, the same anecdotes with Chinese President Xi Jinping or his South American counterparts. The only inflection was the absence of digressions on imaginary electoral fraud, even if Donald Trump once again called for a count on the day of the vote, with paper ballots.
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