The slaughter of Trump has begun Insight into the Russian soul: the endless violence robs people of empathy

Donald Trump had warned his biggest competitor months ago. Should Florida Governor Ron DeSantis run against him in the party’s internal race for the U.S. presidential nomination, he will “reveal things about him that are not going to be very flattering,” Trump told Fox News last November. And he added, “I know more about him than anyone – except maybe his wife.”

It was a threat not just against Ron DeSantis. Whoever dares to take on him in the party still sworn to Trump should know that whoever opposes him will face everything, including the destruction of his own private life.

Yet more and more competitors now dare to come out of the cover and announce that they want to run for the Republicans. And Trump is carrying out his threats. Even at this stage of the application phase, his methods are aimed at the political and personal destruction of his opponents. The Trump carnage has begun.

Timid attempts at demarcation

How thin the ice is on which Nikki Haley moves, for example, became clear from her first official campaign appearance in her home state of South Carolina. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations dares and competes with her former sponsor. Haley mentioned Trump’s name only once in her maiden speech in Charleston, when she discussed being his ambassador to the UN.

Haley tried to distance himself from Trump with coded messages. “We are ready to leave behind these outdated ideas and fading names of the past and move on,” she shouted, and everyone knew who was meant. “We are more than ready for a new generation.” The mother of Otto Warmbier, who was murdered in North Korea, also appeared. That also seemed like an indirect criticism of Trump, who once defended North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un by saying, “He told me he didn’t know anything about it and I’ll take him at his word.”

Such secret skirmishes are challenging. On the one hand, Haley needs to position himself clearly enough against Trump while winning the applause of his supporters at the same time. Whether that is enough is doubtful. According to a recent Morning Consult poll of the Republican electorate, the former governor of South Carolina has just three percent. Leading the survey, with 47 percent: Donald Trump.

Trump’s punishment follows

But even Haley’s tentative attempt to escape is chastised by Trump. The former president was lenient in an initial response. “I advised Nikki to follow her heart,” he wrote on his social network Truth. Then Trump mockingly added, “In polls, that’s one percent. Not a bad start!!!» But then he followed suit, saying a major reason for Haley’s previous appointment as a UN ambassador was to remove her as governor of South Carolina. He wanted to please the people there.

At the same time, Trump’s team deployed completely different weapons. Haley had barely finished her speech in Charleston when the Trump campaign team sent some kind of informational newspaper to the press and its supporters. It is titled with the words: “The real Nikki Haley”.

In it, Haley is attacked in all relevant policy areas. One of the accusations is that she has Trump’s greatest enemy Hillary Clinton as a role model. Haley also wants to cut back on health care. She also heats up the war in Ukraine because she calls for fighter jets instead of working for a peaceful solution. Haley opposed Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. As for her candidacy, she was also fickle. Haley once even ruled out going if Trump reapplied for 2024.

Trump’s team doesn’t seem to take Haley too seriously as a competitor, but the one-man party is also about principles. There is no other option than to discredit this opponent as early as possible and as hard as possible. You probably don’t need to go any further — who knows, Trump may still use her as a vice presidential nominee.

brutal methods

As announced, Trump is much less prudish about his biggest rival Ron DeSantis. He has not yet announced his candidacy. But that could also be a sign of how carefully Florida’s governor prepares his own campaign. Reason enough for Trump to pull out all the stops now. After all, DeSantis is closest to him in polls.

With cynical remarks, Trump recently fueled rumors that Ron DeSantis had approached his underage students when he was a history teacher. There is hardly an accusation that could be worse. Trump shared a photo of 23-year-old DeSantis with schoolgirls and sarcastically captioned it, “It’s not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing!”

Trump’s warning shots are getting more aggressive: He sees DeSantis’ candidacy attempt as “a grand act of disloyalty,” he insisted afterwards. Time and time again he beats down his potential rivals, and Trump even has a new nickname ready for him. Referring to DeSantis’ rather compact figure, he calls him “Meatball Ron”, the Florida meatball.

Is Trump Going Easy on His Next Vice President?

In the meantime, what Trump thinks of his former Vice President Mike Pence, he no longer tries to hide. He considers him a traitor and a weakling since Pence did not veto Joe Biden’s vote count in Congress on January 6, 2021.

Pence’s presidential candidacy is considered secure. Should Trump again become the Republican presidential nominee, one thing should also be taken for granted: Mike Pence will no longer be his deputy.

A candidate who now also wants to run against Trump could be considered instead of Mike Pence and also instead of Nikki Haley. Like them, he hails from South Carolina and so far he has one decisive advantage: he has yet to draw the wrath of Trump. His name is Tim Scott. He is currently the only black senator in Washington, a strong supporter of Trump and has long been regarded by Republicans as an exceptional political talent.

Trump is still silent on Scott’s candidacy. Attacks against him are not known. It is quite possible that he will end up choosing him if he again turns down a woman as a vice presidential candidate. It would fit into the calculus to get more votes from black voters. With a black vice presidential nominee, Trump could at least mitigate the accusations of racism that always accompany him.