This is the most dangerous illusion of all. In the United States, in Europe and everywhere else, it is easy to believe that Donald Trump has piled up so many failures that all we have to do is wait until November 2026 and the mid-term elections to wake up from this nightmare.
Everything points to this, given that the president is now threatening to lose interest in the war in Ukraine after having promised to end it ‘in 24 hours’; that his brilliant idea of customs barriers has turned into a fiasco, causing stock markets to plummet; that the judiciary, Harvard and the Federal Reserve chairman are resisting him; that the Supreme Court is disavowing him even though he filled it with his supporters; that polls are beginning to reflect the concerns of his more moderate voters; and that street protests against him are growing.
With all this going against him, it seems impossible that this man will not lose his parliamentary majority in a year and a half, or even sooner if Republican elected officials abandon him when they sense the wind changing. It seems impossible that he will be able to maintain his freedom of manoeuvre for much longer, but Donald Trump is far from having lost the game for two reasons.
The first is that it is not impossible that he will reach an agreement with the Iranian theocracy, which needs Trump as much as Trump needs them. Already very unpopular, the mullahs know that their regime would not survive the bombing of their nuclear facilities, as they would not have the means to mount a real response. Donald Trump, for his part, does not want to drag the United States into another war, especially since the oil monarchies would then have to face Iranian reprisals.
Unless he wants to humiliate the mullahs, Donald Trump could soon prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb. That would be no small feat. Not only could he boast about it and be applauded, but it would also give him the opportunity to work towards Saudi Arabia’s recognition of Israel and thus a historic compromise between all Muslim countries and Israel.
Donald Trump still has one card left to play, and because it is his last, he must play it right. That is his first asset, and his second is the Democratic Party.
After seeing such a man win a first presidential election in 2016 and a second six months ago, this party remains incapable of regaining unity, let alone an identity. By distancing itself from the trade unions in order to move closer to innovative industries, it has lost the support of too many blue-collar workers, men and women who are affected by social inequalities and the dismantling of their values and traditions.
It needs to reinvent itself, but it still does not seem to have understood that it cannot be just the party of changing mores and racial and gender equality, but must also rediscover its role as the party of the most modest and the marginalised.
As long as the American left remains stuck in its old debates between its left and right wings, it will leave the field wide open for Donald Trump. As long as it fails to say that it is time to end tax cuts for the wealthy and invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure, the denunciation of the ‘elites’ will continue to work against the Democrats.
The American Democrats do not need to refocus. They have done that only too well. Nor do they need to become more radical, as that has already cost them dearly. They need to return to defending those who are not born with a silver spoon in their mouths, who have only their work to feed their children and who want to live in a society that respects them.
In other words, Democrats must urgently remember that reformist leftists have never been as strong as when they imposed a fair distribution of wealth, advocated industrial and social progress, and embodied the ongoing search for compromise between capital and labour.
(Photo: whitehouse.gov)
