. If the initial reactions to Trump's announcement are anything to go by, there is little confidence among Democrats that he can be stopped, short of putting him in jail, and that seems a shade too Central American for me. How's this as an alternative strategy to bursting into tears: organise. Imagine a world in which the Democrats were teaming with talented, charismatic individuals, expe){kind=link}
His opponents should take a different approach this time. First understand why people still support him, then make the alternative case
It says a great deal about those Americans who hate and fear Donald Trump that their initial reaction to the news that he’s running for president again was to demand his incarceration. “Merrick Garland [the US Attorney General] has failed the American people by not indicting Trump for his role in the conspiracy to overthrow our government,” tweeted one excitable supporter of Joe Biden.
Others followed suit, insisting that the forces of law and order indict the former president on something – anything – and to do it quickly, before we get to election day in 2024.
Scrolling through the invective it was difficult to identify any sign of an electoral, rather than a legal, strategy to prevent the 45th president becoming the 47th. This is odd, given that Trump has never actually managed to win the popular vote. Why do Democrats approach him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck, rather than as a confident party that has won more votes than the GOP in every presidential election bar one since 1992?
I was not alone in waking up the day after election day in 2016 and feeling a deep sense of depression at the result. The next four years were as distressing as they were entertaining, as Trump demonstrated to the world what happens when a person entirely unsuited for elected office becomes the most powerful man in the world. It was exhausting.