Former US President Donald Trump was defeated in his country’s midterm elections without taking the field. Photo: Ricardo Arduengo/Portal
Since 2020, when he was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden, former US President Donald Trump has tossed himself and bet his chips on a lie to come back strong in 2024.
This lie was based on the narrative that the only reason he was not reelected President was because the elections were stolen. Does it remind you of something?
The strategy was clear: keep the revolt of voters who fell for the talk and vowed to stay mobilized for the next four years. Mathematically, nothing could be more mobilizing than uniting people around a sense of injustice, even if it is anchored on the fragile foundations of delirium.
The effectiveness of this strategy was tested in the midterm elections, when most seats in the US Congress are renewed every two years.
The competition is traditionally a test of strength for the President elected two years previously. And it is almost always unfavorable for the agent acting.
The risk is so great that, depending on the beatings, it can turn him into a “lame duck,” a term used to describe the president heading toward the end of his term with broken strides and power limited by the majority opposition.
Biden isn’t exactly a charismatic leader.
On the other hand.
Throughout his tenure, he showed signs of fatigue and distraction, setting the right conditions for what most analysts called a “red” wave of Republicans that would severely devastate the Democratic support base and also his chances of staying in power in the 2024 presidential election.
But that wave never came.
To the surprise of many, Democrats retained control of the Senate, which is essential for passing important projects from the current president, who has emerged stronger from the election.
But the result says more about the losers than the winners this year.
And this is essential to predicting the survival of those who have adopted the very same pamphlet to survive politically in Brazil.
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Yes, we’re talking about Jair Bolsonaro, who showed in the minutes after the defeat that he will be following in the same footsteps of the Republican idol who left the scene and went into hiding while nurturing the theory that his country’s elections were rigged were. (Remember? Hatred and a sense of injustice unite and mobilize voters etc. etc.).
The Republican candidates who took to the field began campaigning with the denial taint — which was a win for them, not the other way around. That’s because they followed exactly what their master ordered regarding the alleged (and never proven) fraud in the elections.
Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada, where the Republican Party threw four Trump supporters into the Senate, were the states that were able to give the opposition a majority in the Senate.
With the exception of Georgia, where there will be a second round, Republicans lost in the other three locations.
In Nevada, for example, former prosecutor Adam Laxalt was the Republican candidate who spent the campaign repeating the chant about voter fraud. This speech cost him a lot of money.
“Americans knowingly rejected the undemocratic, authoritarian, and perverse direction that Republicans wanted to take the country,” Democratic Chairman Chuck Schumer wrote on Twitter.
Candidates who did not accept Biden’s election in 2020 also fared poorly in elections for secretaries of state, a kind of sheriffs of the next presidential election.
“People are fed up with the chaos. They want stability and normalcy. They prefer someone who’s grown up and making decisions that are fair, transparent and in the interests of all voters in our state,” said Nevada SecretaryElect Cisco Aguilar, who defeated Jim Marchant, the candidate running a list was in charge of rightwing candidates under the America First message.
Marchant was the first to draw the line of rejection.
In Brazil, as is well known, the congressional elections coincide with the presidential election campaign. (That means we don’t have midterm elections).
Despite the defeat of the current President, Bolsonarianism showed strength with the victories of leaders such as Damares Alves (DF), Marcos Pontes (SP), Hamilton Mourão and for the Senate among others.
The question remains whether Bolsonaro, even with a strong base, will be able to stay in the spotlight during the four years he promises to stay away to lead the opposition.
Trump has bet on the strength of election denial to protect his chances of a triumphant return in 2024. The midterm elections have shown that this flame is on the back burner.