Ricardo Pascoe
Several Mexican analysts warn the same: “my recommendation to the Democrats in the United States is that they do not pursue Trump judicially because it will strengthen him. Remember Fox’s mistake with AMLO: he grew from his dismissal as head of the Mexico City Government”. And AMLO, in an act of remembrance, strengthened the thesis: “They are chasing Trump so that he does not appear on the ballot. We have already lived that movie”.
Newspaper reports and analysis portals talk about how the Republicans, even their internal opponents, have mobilized in support of Trump. The most radicalized supporters are saying things like “this isn’t over until blood runs in the streets of the country.” There are open calls for “civil war” and that citizens will have to arm themselves to defend the country from migrants and socialists.
More moderate Republicans criticize the “judicial persecution” of Trump but disapprove of the calls for violence. And they know that the strength of the Republican social base in support of Trump has become extremely radicalized, and they fear his rhetoric and willingness to take direct action. The willingness to an “assault on New York”, similar to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is swarming in the Republican social environment. Logically, the polarization promoted by Trump drastically increases his chances of being the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States.
This parallelism, say Mexican analysts, contributes to Trump being elected President of the United States again, mounted on the strategy of polarization, just as AMLO did in Mexico. The methods of populists are always the same, regardless of whether one claims to be on the left or the other on the right. They define their “objects of hate” (neoliberals, foreigners, Jews, Muslims, etc.) and polarize without restraint. What they share is the goal of clinging to power.
But that is as far as the parallels between Trump and AMLO go. The big difference between their cases is that Trump has already been President and was defeated in his reelection attempt. AMLO is a president without the option of reelection, having been defeated in the mid-term elections of 2021. It was not known how he would govern, and the management of government has severely worn both of them down. Trump’s attrition led him to be defeated by Biden.
On the other hand, the strategy of the Democrats, and Biden, may be that they want a radicalized, fanatical, and previously defeated Trump as a former Republican candidate. Democrats may conclude that it is better to confront once and for all the owner of the Republican extremist social base to foster a large alternative social bloc of Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans opposed to their country falling, again, into the hands of “the crazies.”
Indeed, polls indicate that Biden, not exactly a character that incites great enthusiasm, has a better chance of defeating Trump than other Republican candidates. Democrats may be developing the strategy of making Trump a felon not to get him off the ballot, as AMLO claims, but to make his candidacy even more repellent to independent voters and moderate Republicans.
That fact would allow Democrats to create a narrative of defending democracy and free speech against Trumpian radicalism. This narrative could make it easier for them to create a broad front to regain the House of Representatives and consolidate their strength in the Senate.
It is a risky bet for the Democrats, no doubt. But it may be the necessary action to defeat, once and for all, populism in their country. And once populism is defeated in the United States, it will lose its strength in the rest of the Americas. Once populism is dead, that rage is over.
[email protected]
@rpascoep
Further Reading: