Trump: lies, insults and no real policy

For the first time since 2016, former president and candidate Donald Trump attended Wednesday night meeting with voters organized and televised by CNN. During the hour he was on stage, he answered questions from journalists kailtan collins and also from assistants, Republicans and Independents— with its usual mix of hoaxes, half-truths and turn-offs.

Trump repeated that the 2020 election was rigged, that he does not know the columnist E. Jean Carroll —who, according to a grand jury verdict, now owes $5 million for sexual assault in the 1990s— and on January 6, 2021, when a crowd stormed the Capitol (the seat of popular American sovereignty) to pervert the election process, it was “precious day”.

Thus, Trump’s appearance on CNN showed that he plans to stand his ground. His third candidacy for president of the (still) leading world power is, in short, more of the same. More irrationality, more division and greater institutional decay. Potentially more political violence, too, in a country where 81% of local officials said they had experienced harassment, threats or violence last November.

Judging by Trump’s performance in front of the CNN cameras, his campaign will once again be reeling real and imagined crimes dispossessed American whites. And they will, let’s put aside any imitation of realpolitik. During his speech, he avoided taking a stand not only on abortion, but also on what would happen to US aid to Ukraine if he returned to the Oval Office.

Trump allows himself to ignore real politics because both he and the movement behind him are locked into what he is political scientist Brian Klaas calls the country of authoritarian politics in which “Personality is above public management”.

Trump is in charge in that country the undisputed king and as such, can create and destroy realities at will. There, Collins’ attempts to refute Trump’s claims echoed in a vacuum. But also where the former president’s lies were met with applause and insults directed at his declared enemies (he went so far as to say Collins was “disgusting”) with laughter.

After discussion, criticism poured in on CNN. How could a purportedly serious chain offer a man recently convicted of sexual assault a pulpit from which to launch his taunts and lies to a pre-convinced crowd? CNN’s mistake was, quite possibly, to frame the debate as if it were not taking place in a country of authoritarian politics. There, where Trump rules, they could do little.