On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended a golden escalator with his wife, Melania, in his iconic tower of the same name in New York, climbed onto an improvised stage and gave a speech that will be remembered as a before and after in the political history of the United States. “I’ve been watching politicians, I’ve dealt with them my whole life. If you can make a good deal with one of them, then there is something wrong with you. These are our representatives: they will never make America great again, because they are controlled by lobbies, by donors and by the special interest,” he said before a few dozen people and television cameras. And he continued with his big announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially a candidate for president of the United States and we are going to make our country great again.”
It’s been almost nine years and these four words, Make America Great Again, have become more than just an outsider’s campaign slogan. They are now a civil religion, a dogma, an ideological distinctive: the dividing axis of the acute political polarization in the United States and the world. They are also “a threat to democracy,” in the words of the current president, Joe Biden. And they are once again the slogan of a presidential candidate.
But, on this occasion, they do not represent a television celebrity who has recently landed in the mud of politics, but rather the first president to suffer two impeachments in history, the first former president criminally charged and the undisputed leader of a party that has become his image and likeness. In the name of that four-letter acronym, MAGA, the largest attack on American democracy since the Civil War took place on January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump followers tried to prevent the certification of the legitimate winner of the election at the Capitol. the elections.
Trump made the leap into politics at the age of 69, after two decades threatening to do so one day. And he did it with the Republican Party, after having identified as a Democrat in 2004. His announcement was received with skepticism by the press, the citizens and the establishment of his party. His tone and his proposals were described as too radical, absurd and far from the national interest.
“I am really rich,” he noted as one of his main assets, in a country that idolizes billionaires: “I am, by far, the most successful person who has ever run to lead this country.” And he sold a series of campaign promises, which nine years later still sound familiar: “I’m going to build a big wall, and no one builds walls better than me, believe me,” he said, backed by his real estate empire, “and I’ll make Mexico do it.” pay.” “I will repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare”; “I will be the toughest president you have ever had against ISIS”; “I will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons”; “I will end the billion-dollar debt”; “I will end fraud, waste and abuse of the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.”
The polls did not give him the slightest option against the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who was endorsed by an enviable resume and a profile, in principle, more traditional and suitable to occupy the White House: more than two decades in politics, as a first lady, senator and secretary of state. But, with an aggressive campaign on social networks and with a strident, simplistic and provocative speech, against the established order, hostile to the conventional media and far from the Washington bubble, Trump knew how to exploit the boredom of Americans with the political class.
In the last months of the campaign, in 2016, the magnate was on the cover almost daily in media of all ideological spectrums. Today he is 77 years old and his scandals continue to capture media attention, and no wonder: convicted of sexually abusing and defaming journalist Jean Carroll, and for continued fraud by having inflated the value of his estate in New York ; accused of trying to subvert democracy in Washington, for his attempt to manipulate the results of the elections in Georgia, for retaining a hundred classified documents in his residence in Florida when leaving the White House, and for document falsification in the bribery of the actress Stormy Daniels porn to silence an extramarital affair in New York. A total of 91 criminal charges in four different processes.
The acronym MAGA is no longer an innocent campaign slogan. It is the flag of a loyal base of Trump followers – who, since 2016, has managed to maintain around 40% of popular support – who consider him innocent of all these crimes and explain his judicial problems by the persecution of a “state “deep” that has designed a “witch hunt” so that Trump does not become president again, a position that was taken from him with “the great robbery” of the 2020 elections.
MAGA also represents a discourse that, over the years, has become more authoritarian, more conspiratorial, and less fun. Trump is no longer the showman he was in 2016: his comic monologues have become more like homilies, supported by the MAGA liturgy. His religious services begin with the song Justice for all, a song associated with the extremist QAnon movement in defense of those accused of the assault on the Capitol. And, in his populist oratory, he preaches that only “rapists, murderers and drug traffickers” enter through the southern border, that he would “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell it wants” with NATO allies that do not spend enough on Defense, or that he is “the only American” capable of “avoiding World War III.”
The former president has the Republican nomination on track, which he could consecrate next Saturday in the South Carolina primaries, a state where his only rival, Nikki Haley, was governor, and where he dominates with 63% of voting intentions. Barring a surprise, in November he will face Biden again, electorally worn out by his age (81 years, four older than the magnate), by the record numbers of migrants, by inflation and by his support for Ukraine in a stagnant conflict, and for Israel, which has already taken the lives of some 28,000 people. According to the latest Ipsos survey, the race is as close as in 2020: Trump maintains 37% of voting intentions, compared to 34% for Biden.