Trump delivered a speech at the America First Agenda convention in Washington.
The former president has his sights set on returning to the White House, but the Justice Department is investigating his role in trying to change the electoral results
The dystopian and apocalyptic world of Donald Trump returns. Like the day he was sworn in, on the very Capitol that in the end his hosts would desecrate, yesterday he landed in Washington for the first time since leaving the White House, with the promise of stopping the “American carnage” that he translates in even more emphatic terms than in 2017: “Our country is going to hell fast,” he warned yesterday.
To win the elections for the second time it is not enough to exploit galloping inflation, the astronomical price of gasoline or the immobility of Congress. In his first public speech in the capital since that January 6 in which he lit the flame of the insurrection, Trump described the cities governed by the Democrats as “war zones” ruled by “drug addicts and vagrants”, with streets “plagued with syringes and soaked with the blood of innocent victims” in which members of “satanic” sects take advantage of children released from prison on bail.
His recipe, the death penalty for drug dealers, Filipino style, more money for the police, harsh jail sentences for undocumented immigrants, expel vagrants to the outskirts of cities and bring back some of the most controversial police tactics, such as stop and frisk without the need to prove any crime.
“And now some will say that’s horrible. No, what’s horrible is what’s happening now,” he told the loyal audience of supporters and former supporters who attended the America First Agenda convention, the think tank that has turned his nationalism into political doctrine.
At that time, the Washington Post newspaper published exclusively that the Department of Justice that is investigating the January 6 insurrection is focusing questions on witnesses who testify before a grand jury in Trump’s attempt to replace the legitimate voters of the states. more critics fresh from the polls by others loyal to their cause, in what would have been a coup. Never in US history has a former president been charged with any crime, but prosecutor Merrick Garland has promised to pursue the crime trail without fear of what is found. “What they want is to prevent me from going back to work for all of you,” Trump replied from the pulpit.
the insurrection
He was surrounded by the same events with which he left. The commission investigating the January 6 insurrection ended the public hearing season on Thursday with the most devastating revelations: it is proven beyond any doubt that for more than three hours Trump did not lift a finger to stop the violence he had in checkmate the Capitol. That day four of his followers died. In the following five officers died from physical or emotional injuries from those events (four committed suicide) and 140 officers were injured. Meanwhile, the commander in chief watched television.
“Donald Trump lacked the courage to act,” President Joe Biden, who rarely talks about his successor, criticized him publicly on Monday. “The brave men in blue across the country should never forget that. You can’t be pro-insurgency and pro-police at the same time,” he stoned in a speech to the Executive Conference of the National Organization of African-American Law Enforcement Agents.
Polls say the explosive public hearings on January 6 have changed few minds – only 7% of Republicans now believe it was more serious than they thought, according to a survey commissioned by USA Today from Suffolk University – but the Friday the newspapers of the Rupert Murdoch group gave the first signs of distancing themselves from the former president. “Trump’s silence is the most incriminating,” the New York Post headlined in its editorial, a favorite of his followers. The newspaper remains unconvinced that Trump incited the violence that occurred that day, but believes that “in recent days” it has become “crystal clear” that “Trump did not lift a finger to stop the violence that followed,” even though he was the only one who could do it. “It was a silent provocation,” he concluded. “His sole focus of his that day was to find any means to prevent the peaceful transition of power, no matter what the damn consequences. There is no other explanation.”
Who expected an apology yesterday from the former president, is that he does not know him. Trump doubled down on his accusations of fraud, because he remains focused on regaining power. According to all the sources in his inner circle, he has already decided to stand for election again in 2024. The only question is when he will announce it. The GOP barons want him to wait until after the mid-term legislative elections, which will be held in November, as tradition dictates, but Trump is burning with the desire to regain the attention of the cameras. The tycoon believes that the sooner he announces it, the greater his advantage will be. And if the courts go after him in the middle of the campaign, he can always claim that it is a “deep state” maneuver to prevent it. So he promises to start “draining the swamp” so that no one gets in his way.
Mike Pence
The party apparatus, however, fears that his return to the scene will change the course of the elections with which they hope to regain control of Congress. The terrain is conducive. With inflation hitting 40-year records, gasoline prices skyrocketing, and President Biden’s popularity among the lowest in history, the last thing they want is to change the focus of the conversation.
For that, “to look forward instead of backwards”, Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Washington yesterday on a very different plane, whom Trump blames for having had to leave power for not having prevented the certification of the electoral results. on January 6, 2021. “Hang Mike Pence!” the mob yelled as they searched for him through the halls of the Capitol. That day the members of his entourage saw death so close that they even said goodbye to their family and friends by radio.
There was almost as much anticipation for what Pence had to say as for what Trump would say, but if the latter continues to cling to the voter fraud theory that cost him the presidency, Pence just wants to return to the White House in full power. Both have crisscrossed the country, from Iowa to Arizona, campaigning unofficially long before announcing their candidacies. Pence evokes true conservatism and calls for the union of the party as a necessary formula to win the elections and takes credit for having appointed the more than 300 federal judges who, together with those of the Supreme Court, have made possible the end of the sentence that protected abortion.
“I don’t think that the president and I disagree on the agenda, only on the focus that we put on it,” he said conciliatory yesterday. “Elections are about the future, I won’t get stuck in the past,” he promised. That is left to Trump and the voters’ choice.