Taken from UNIVISION
By Marcos Gonzalez Diaz
The real earthquake that shook the American election campaign when Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy after listening to the requests of members of his party, convinced that it was impossible for him to win the presidential election after his poor performance in the debate against Donald Trump, still resonates.
Indeed, the former Republican president had a clear lead in all polls of voting intentions until then.
In this tight race to reach the White House, it is undeniable that the Republican retains enormous support from the citizens for whom he already governed between 2017 and 2021, a presidential mandate that for many analysts was one of the most tense and aggressive in the recent history of the country.
The truth is that his administration was full of great controversies due to his positions on migration, foreign policy or the Covid-19 pandemic. But the controversy followed him even after leaving the White House, when he was subjected to up to four legal proceedings and ended up as the first former president to be convicted of criminals after being found guilty in the ‘Stormy Daniels case’.
So what do Americans continue to value about Trump’s proposal, and why do the Republican’s huge controversies of recent years not seem to have paid off for him electorally?
Why do the controversies surrounding Trump seem to have no effect on his popular support?
For Geovanny Vicente-Romero, a political strategist and government communications consultant, the controversies not only do not harm Trump, but they serve to strengthen his position among voters who expect, precisely, a leader surrounded by controversy.
“Trump finds his daily fuel in controversy. I imagine that the day he doesn’t appear in the media can be a depressing day for him. And there is a sector of society that sees in him a reflection of their own anti-system sentiment that has an affinity with Trump’s polarizing message of ‘them vs. us,’” she says.
“So these controversies give meaning to his narrative, since he defines himself as politically incorrect and, therefore, his voters do not expect “conventional” behavior from him,” adds the professor of Strategic Communication at Columbia University in New York.
Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2013, believes that beyond the controversies, the Republican knows how to exploit a “force” that convinces millions of people.
“In a brutally polarized country, Trump has channeled social, ideological and racial fears to present himself as someone who can suddenly and with a stroke of a pen change the future by looking to the past. The challenge and the core problem is that nostalgia is not a recipe for intelligent public policies,” he tells Univision News.
“The great danger to the American Republic is the fact that its political system has allowed a man who faced two impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, who instigated a seditious attack on the Capitol in an attempt to carry out a coup, who has faced four criminal proceedings against him and who is, today, a convicted criminal, to run again for president,” adds Sarukhán, a diplomat for more than 20 years and currently an international consultant in Washington.
Vicente-Romero agrees. “All this reputation (or propaganda) of a strongman makes many of the Americans who vote for him have a selective memory, they only remember the positive aspects of his administration and want to give him a chance so he can continue using the same slogan of ‘Make America Great Again.’”
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