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Three years to the day after former US president Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump and his campaign are engaged in an attempt to paint Joe Biden as the true menace to US democracy.
Over the weekend both men fired their first salvoes in what promises to be one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns on record, both making democracy’s survival their central themes. While the economy, abortion rights and the ages of the candidates are all expected to be campaign issues, both argue that what really matters is the election and the system it underpins, Trump, all the while, falsely disputes the results of the 2020 race. At campaign rallies he has referred to January 6th as “a beautiful day” and said the roughly 1,240 people arrested in connection with the riot were “hostages”. There seems little prospect he will be willing to legitimise the current race – unless he is set to win it.
The polls suggest that is a real prospect. Trump holds a big lead in the Republican primaries, while of the three national polls published since January 1st, two show Biden narrowly trailing. Moderate independents, however, who may distrust Biden on the economy, by significant majorities see the charges against Trump as justified.
“We must be clear,” Biden told the rally in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where George Washington had famously spoken, “democracy is on the ballot.” His remarks carried echoes of the 2020 campaign, when he presented himself as the caretaker of “the soul of America”.
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Trump has insisted he has a job to finish, part of that clearly revenge . In the run-up to Christmas, he pledged that he would “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He also said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”. With his allies reportedly making plans to purge disloyal bureaucrats, and he himself talking openly about using the Justice Department to pursue his enemies, Trump’s authoritarian tendencies couldn’t be clearer. There is much at stake.