Donald Trump on a roll as polls take him to new heights of brashness before mid-terms
ANALYSIS: With a final push for America’s mid-term elections ahead, Donald Trump has been propelled by some of his strongest personal polling to perform at new levels of brashness.
World
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IN the dying days of the 2016 election campaign, presidential hopeful Donald Trump followed his strategists’ advice, dialling down the personal attacks on his enemies and reigning in his bombastic language, in a co-ordinated effort to draw more traditional Republican supporters.
The reality TV showman reportedly handed control of his Twitter account to aides and expanded the range of aspiring vice-president Mike Pence’s last minute campaigning. In his first muted response to the release just days before the election of an FBI report into his opponent’s emails — a body blow which Hillary Clinton would largely blame for her loss — Mr Trump appeared to act, to the surprise of many commentators, almost presidential.
“I’m on message,” Mr Trump told The New York Times beside a buffet in Florida.
“I’m not playing around. In fact, I’m a little nervous standing here talking to you even for just a minute.”
Fast-forward two years to this week’s midterm elections, the halfway point of Mr Trump’s first presidential term, and the strategy appears wildly different. With dozens of campaign-style rallies behind him and a final push through some of America’s reddest states ahead of next Tuesday, the US President has been propelled by some of his strongest personal polling to perform at new levels of brashness.
TRUMP ON WARPATH
Accused by critics of fuelling recent violence with his divisive language and throwing “red meat” to his base with a “race baiting”, “scare campaign” about the threat posed by a migrant caravan headed towards America’s southern border, Mr Trump remains unapologetic.
Because while there are a record number of positions up for voting next week — including the entire House of Representatives, several key governor races that will potentially impact the 2020 election and 35 Senate seats — Mr Trump has elected to make the midterms all about him and his base.
“I’m not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket. Because this is also a referendum about me,” Mr Trump said in Mississippi in October.
“I want you to vote. Pretend I’m on the ballot.”
While there has been talk for months of a “blue wave” of protest votes against Republicans, Mr Trump insisted last week: “It’s going to be a close race”.
What’s at stake in the midterms is not just Mr Trump’s legislative agenda but also his future. Democrats have repeatedly called for impeachment and even a challenge to Mr Trump’s fitness for office through invoking the 25th amendment. Winning control of Congress improves their chances of making some of these liberal dreams come true.
“If the Democrats win the House on November 6th, I think the question of impeachment is certainly going to be discussed,” said Dr Meena Bose, Executive Dean of Public Policy and Public Service Programs at Hofstra University.
“The 25th Amendment is a slightly different issue because you need a majority of the President’s cabinet and two-thirds of both chambers of Congress.”
‘WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF CHAOS’
Several polls point to Democrats taking the House and thereby starting impeachment proceedings, according to Brendan O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics from the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
Professor O’Connor also warned the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the release of which was delayed until after the midterms, could contain “explosive material”.
“If we think we’ve had two years of chaos, there’s a whole new level of chaos coming,” he said.
“The presidency will turn into a circus. On one level, it makes for a great reality TV show … will Trump survive? But it also means all sorts of big issues won’t get addressed, everything will grind to a halt.”
If Democrats do manage a strong showing, there could well be implications for Australia, according to Emma Shortis, a Fox-Zucker Fellow at Yale University and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.
“Sometimes it’s hard to see how midterms would affect us in Australia,” she told News Corp Australia.
“But the outcome of these midterms are critical to Trump’s future — if he manages to maintain control of Congress, he will be able to continue to push his own agenda. “For us, that means more Trumpian foreign policy — like trade wars with China.
Also, he would be able to influence the Supreme Court to stay conservative … and the Supreme Court is so powerful it can decide presidential elections that affect us.”
Professor O’Connor agreed there would be dangers to Australia if a US president was “stymied domestically”.
“They may flex their power internationally. Trump is impulsive by nature and in a crisis, he hits back twice as hard,” Prof O’Connor said.
“Anyone trying to predict foreign policy to our region or globally has got to be nervous.
“A frustrated Trump, a Trump who feels persecuted by the Democrats and facing impeachment proceedings … these are not the conditions for a clear minded foreign policy thinker.
“These conditions are ripe for the President to over reach or over react, and that is not something any of us should look forward to. We’ve seen a moderate version of Trump in the past two years and now we are going to see a highly stressed version of Trump.”
SECOND TERM SPRINT
Regardless of which party performs best next week, there is little doubt that the race for 2020 will begin in earnest as soon as the dust settles. While President Trump now enjoys solid Republican support and there is no current credible challenge to his leadership, the Democrats have no such clear path to their next presidential candidate.
“The big question, I think, for the Democrats is: If they want to defeat Trump, right, can they unify, can they find a compelling candidate,” says Dr Bose.
“And that’s not easy, because I think there is a big generational — I don’t know if I’d say it’s a battle, but a conflict within the Democrats between the current leaders — the elite, if you will — and the rising newer representatives.
Dr Bose said that although “a lot of things that can happen between now and then”,
“the issue for the Democrats is that being the challengers in 2020 poses, I would say, a particular burden of unity just because the — holding the office, being the incumbent, if the economy is doing well, generally tends to favour the incumbent.”
This anticipated immediate start to campaigning for 2020 will likely bring more tough talk from the Trump administration and more accusations from his detractors that he is stoking division, criticism which has arisen before in recent US history.
“Democrats will be trying to suggest that Trump’s rhetoric has created people who are already unstable, or who have problematic ways of thinking about politics, to act out on this violence,” Prof O’Connor said.
“The precedent to this is the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings set off by anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh. Bill Clinton very quickly came out and linked the attack to the federal shutdown and the Republican Congress. This led to a backlash and Clinton was re-elected in 1996.”
