Tarnished Trump may hand Biden a new term

Former US president Donald Trump speaks at the NRA conference in Indianapolis.

It is a good time to be an octogenarian president seeking re-election in 2024.

Joe Biden has always been underestimated and his political obituary written and rewritten. But Biden, with a string of accomplishments and almost certain to face Donald Trump, has as good a chance of re-election as any president despite his advanced age.

Trump was a criminal businessman and criminal president who committed high treason against the US when he sought to undermine and then overturn the 2020 election. Trump was a terrible president who diminished US global standing by weakening alliances and disastrously managed the pandemic response. (Anyone for an injection of bleach?)

US President Joe Biden in Ballina, Northern Ireland, last week.

The charging of Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to the payment of hush money to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actor Stormy Daniels has energised his supporters and resulted in a surge in campaign donations. It has all but guaranteed Trump the Republican nomination for president next year.

But the indictment – the first time any former president has been charged – probably dooms Trump’s election chances. Most US voters, according to polls, believe Trump acted illegally and should be disqualified from running for president again. Independent voters, especially, see Trump as toxic.

Trump’s political star has been declining. He narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 with three million fewer votes. He presided over a Republican midterm campaign that resulted in losing the House of Representatives in 2018. He then lost the presidency in 2020 with seven million fewer votes than Biden. And, before his term ended, lost the Senate. He is drawing smaller crowds than during the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns. He does not attract the media attention he once did. Last year’s midterm elections demonstrated how diminished Trump was when many of his candidates lost and Biden’s Democrats had among the best midterm results for any party in a century.

The former president’s legal troubles are just beginning. The Justice Department is investigating the removal of government documents from the White House. Of more serious concern is the department’s criminal probe into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his incitement of the US Capitol riot that resulted in death and destruction.

Perhaps the most serious is the Georgia investigation into Trump’s attempt to strongarm officials into stealing the state’s electoral votes. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a phone call. That is evidence of an attempted coup. No president is above the law. It would be political not to bring charges if there was credible evidence of illegality, and there is.

Yet, for all that, Trump leads rivals for the Republican nomination for president. Indeed, he is ahead of yet undeclared Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by a 2:1 margin in polls of Republicans.

Other challengers such as Nikki Haley and Asa Hutchinson have little chance against Trump. Former vice-president Mike Pence may enter the race. In any event, the campaign will be a demolition derby with Trump destroying his opponents.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Republican Party is hostage to Trump; it has become a cult of personality. Forget about the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisen­hower, Ronald Reagan or George HW Bush. That party is long gone. Moderate Republicans such as Thomas Dewey and Nelson Rocke­feller are extinct. And good luck finding an authentic conservative such as Barry Goldwater or George W. Bush.

The Republican Party, captured by Trump, has no coherent philosophy or ideology. It has become a party of extremists with members of congress and supporters subscribing to bizarre conspiracies and motivated by grievance. It is nativist, protectionist and undemocratic.

Most Republican politicians support the Dobbs decision by the US Supreme Court and subsequent state laws limiting or banning a woman’s right to have an abortion, but most voters do not.

If Trump fails to win the Republican nomination for president, he could run as an independent or mount a third party bid. This also would be disastrous for Republicans.

In 1912, former president Roosevelt failed to wrest the Republican nomination from incumbent president William Taft and ran as Progressive candidate. This allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency with 41.8 per cent of the vote.

Theodore Roosevelt campaigning in Milwaukee.

While Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Marianne Williamson are challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination, they have no chance of winning.

But another potential third party bid by a group called No Labels could spell trouble for Biden. This well-funded so-called centrist and bipartisan party, registered in several states, is scouting for a presidential nominee. It could draw votes from Biden.

A Biden-Trump contest, both as major party nominees, is all but set for next year. It would be the first presidential rematch since Eisenhower versus Adlai Stevenson in 1956. Trump would be the fifth former president to contest an election as a party nominee, following Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland and Roosevelt. Only Cleveland won.

Biden can point to many achievements from infrastructure spending and lowering the cost of medicines to student debt relief and investment in renewable energy. He passed a gun law reform bill and elevated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court. The biggest issue in the campaign will be the future of US democracy, as it was in the midterms, and Trump is viewed by many as a threat to the republic.

Biden gestures as he delivers a speech in Northern Ireland.

Next year’s election will be, as ever, quite the political show. The big story is that Trump’s indictment, with more charges to come, have energised his base and likely given him a lock on the Republican nomination. But Trump’s criminal past, now catching up to him, probably has made him unelectable. It leaves Biden, who will be 82 a fortnight after election day, poised to make history. Again.