Will Trump Run Again in 2024
Trump Soft-Launches His 2024 Entrada
The one-time president's message at his Arizona rally was as clear every bit it was dishonest: He didn't lose to Joe Biden in 2020, and he'll spend the side by side year working to elect Republicans who concord.
FLORENCE, Ariz.—Tonight, deep in the Arizona desert, thousands of people chanted for Donald Trump. They had braved the wind for hours—some waited the unabridged twenty-four hour period—merely to get a glimpse of the defeated erstwhile president. And when he finally appeared on stage, as Lee Greenwood played from the loudspeakers, the oversupply roared as though Trump were yet the commander in master. To many of them, he is.
"I ran twice and we won twice," Trump told his fans. "This oversupply is a massive symbol of what took identify, because people are hungry for the truth. They want their country back."
This evening's rally was Trump'southward first public event since July. On paper, the gathering was meant as his response to the anniversary of January half-dozen, likewise as an unofficial kickoff for his efforts to support Republicans in the midterm elections. Just the event also served every bit the soft launch of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Although he didn't say the words, the former president seems poised to run in two years—"Make America nifty again again … again," he joked to the crowd—and this evening, his message was equally clear as information technology was dishonest: He didn't lose to Joe Biden in 2020, and he'll spend the next year working to elect Republicans who agree.
Trump chose Arizona for this moment for a reason. In this state, the Large Prevarication thrives. Trump lost Arizona past but 10,000 votes in 2020, giving him and his supporters the space, apparently, to criminate that the close upshot was the upshot of left-wing chicanery, the consequence of election stuffing and interference by Venezuelans, among other fake claims. Country lawmakers who spent the past year reviewing the ballots ultimately found zero evidence of mischief. Simply that didn't matter to Trump's supporters. GOP politicians across Arizona adopted Trump'southward lies anyway. Many of them were guests of honor tonight.
The pre-Trump headliner was Kari Lake, the onetime Telly-news reporter running to supervene upon Governor Doug Ducey; she alleges, falsely, that "pocketbook loads of ballots" were dumped in Arizona terminal year. ("Kari Lake, she'southward been with us from the beginning on the election fraud," Trump gushed when he brought her dorsum on stage for a cameo during his speech.) Other speakers included secretarial assistant-of-state candidate Marker Finchem, who was at the Capitol concluding January 6 and who often wears a cowboy lid and bolo necktie despite being from Michigan; Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Debbie Lesko, three Trump-loving members of Congress who voted confronting certifying Biden's win in 2020; and Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward, who has embraced numerous conspiracy theories and recently received a cease-and-desist find from Dominion Voting Systems later on accusing the company of changing 6,000 Trump votes to Biden votes. Each of these Republicans has repeatedly echoed Trump'south faux allegations of election mischief. Of course they have. This is the former president'south new litmus exam: You endorse the lie; he endorses you.
Nearly everyone I interviewed at the rally vowed to follow Trump'south lead and support only GOP candidates who endorse the imitation thought that he won the election. "I watched all those Republican candidates in Arizona right at present covering it up," Julie Stohldrier, who drove in with her sister, Amy, told me. "They're all talk and no action." Lake is promising action, and then the sisters admire her. The pair would love for Trump to run once more in 2024, but they don't call up he will, and they're not sure he'll need to: They're confident that he'll be reinstated as president sometime soon, after Arizona and other states vote to decertify the election. "I want Trump back now," Amy told me. "I can't do another three years of this."
The Stohldriers' predictions might seem assuming, merely the sisters were simply echoing what they'd been hearing from prominent Republicans at the rally. Earlier that afternoon, Ward, the state party chair, had warmed up the crowd by promising that the 2020 election results would before long be overturned. By the latter one-half of the night, Lake was calling for the arrests of anyone involved in the "shady, shoddy election of 2020."
Everything we know about fundamentals of midterm elections suggests that Republicans will accept an excellent 2022. If Lake and the other Large Lie proponents at this evening'due south rally tin win their chief races, they've got a skilful shot at becoming the Grand Canyon Land'south next generation of political leaders. Even with power, though, they'll notwithstanding owe Trump a debt of loyalty—ane that he'll expect to exist repaid. "Kari will be incredible for ballot integrity," Trump said of Lake, just after vowing to turn on her if she didn't do "a great task." Election integrity, he added, might be Lake's "No. 1 result."
An hour or so into his speech, Trump turned his attention to January 6, calling the storming of the Capitol an excuse for Democrats to arrest people and abuse them in jail. He mocked the constabulary officer who shot Ashli Babbitt, and the oversupply cheered. He suggested that the FBI planted people in the crowd exterior the Capitol to incite the riot. "The real coup took place on Election Twenty-four hours, November 3," he added.
Trump has been dissemination these messages for more than a year at present. The difference is, what he says hasn't quite permeated the public consciousness the aforementioned manner information technology once did. Trump is no longer the president, and he's been permanently banned from Twitter, which means that his accusations of fraud and tirades against insufficiently loyal Republicans have had to exist expressed via emailed press releases. In this fashion, the former president has been off the grid.
Trump has still been speaking directly to his most dutiful supporters through far-right media outlets, though. ("He'south tan, fit, has lost some weight since he left part," Newsmax's anchors, speculating eagerly about a 2024 proclamation, trilled as Trump took the stage here. "People forget that The Amateur was the No. 1 bear witness on NBC.") Now that the midterm flavour is fully under way, Trump will be out and about more than often, hosting rallies and stumping for any Republicans desperate plenty to lie near the ballot in exchange for his support. He will in some ways be reintroducing himself to the state: Here I am, America, dorsum afterward a stolen election, ready to win by any means possible.
I asked a grouping of older attendees if they were excited to see Trump run again in 2024. They all were. Two of them argued about whether he could accept office before 2025. "It'southward not possible," a retiree named Michael, who declined to requite his terminal name, said. "I think it is!" a retiree named Susan Higgins said. "The military has to come in and take [Biden] away."
Past the finish of the evening, Trump was having trouble pretending that he wasn't actively running for president. He previewed his lines of attack on Biden over Afghanistan, immigration, and inflation; recited a litany of policy changes that a Republican-controlled Congress would be able to make; and promised that "in 2024, nosotros are going to take dorsum the White Firm." Sam and Dave's "Agree on I'grand Coming" played as he exited, and the song sounded like a promise.
Trump has had a remarkable 14 months. Most losing presidential candidates are forced into tranquillity retirement by their parties. Trump has bucked the trend, simply tightening his grip on the GOP in the wake of his defeat. He has convinced Republican candidates all over the country—including those on stage this night—to repeat his election lies, and convinced his rank-and-file supporters to care for those falsehoods as holy writ. By this point, those lies have been circulating for what feels like forever. Merely at tonight'south rally, as Trump'due south fans chosen for the arrests of poll workers and the reinstatement of the rightful president, I got the sense that this might be just the beginning.
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/trump-arizona-rally-2024-election/621244/
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