![]() He knows the power of that word ‘protest’. He abandoned all pretence of moderation and reverted to the old demagoguery. Daniels has said she received money in exchange for keeping silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, when he was married to Melania Trump.Īs witnesses testified to a grand jury and the walls closed in, Trump used the threat to raise money and rally supporters as he seeks his party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden next year. In a surprise move, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, revived what had seemed be a cold case, an investigation into an alleged $130,000 payment to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. The trigger came two days after he became the first contender to hit the 2024 election campaign trail, delivering unremarkable speeches in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina. Photograph: Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Imagesīut just as hopes that Trump would grow into the presidency were constantly dashed, so this newly orthodox candidate was never going to last. Supporters of former president Donald Trump protest near his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. The Hill website observed: “Former President Trump is doing something shocking – he’s running a campaign that is starting to look quite conventional.” Unlike his ramshackle 2016 effort, his campaign team appeared disciplined. He then went unusually quiet before embarking on small-scale campaign events, issuing policy proposals and hiring staff in early voting states. Trump launched his 2024 election campaign last November at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida with an uncharacteristic low energy, steering clear of his stolen election lies and insisting: “We’re going to keep it very elegant.” I’m afraid that we’re lighting a match and we’re going to see on Tuesday what happens.”įor a moment, it had seemed that this time might be different. “This is like lighting a match in the middle of a bonfire that’s been doused with gasoline. ![]() “There’s nothing traditional about Donald Trump and there never has been, but we’ve never been in this situation before and what’s different now is how polarised we are,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster who has worked on numerous Republican election campaigns. ![]() Trump’s language on the campaign trail and social media, haranguing his enemies, is laced with race-baiting and antisemitic conspiratorial tropes. Daniels canceled a Friday television interview out of “security concerns”. Barricades have gone up around the courthouse in New York. His 2024 campaign for the White House is embracing a violent rhetoric that could inflame tensions and put America on a path to conflagration. Trump has never been a conventional politician, but his divisive brand of populist-nationalism is growing ever more intense and extreme. There are signs that the legal perils now engulfing Trump are pushing him to new extremes. The impact of that is already being felt. ![]()
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