Donald Trump’s journey from a near-martyr in July, having narrowly escaped an assassination bid in Butler, Pennsylvania, to a rather lonesome figure in August, highlights an unexpected turn of events. His newly found aura of invincibility seemed to have abandoned him just when he needed it most.
The Republican representative has thus far had a particularly challenging month, thrown off guard by the surprising resurgence Kamala Harris has injected into the Democratic march. Monday night’s tumultuous web-based conversation with Elon Musk on X epitomised the perplexing flip the 2024 election campaign has taken.
The democrats could not help but revel, terming the 45-minute latency in the interview, due to technological glitches, as the work of a saboteur. Musk likened himself to a modern day Johnny Carson while assuring viewers that the issues were due to a blatant attempt to obstruct the platform. This chat signified a public strengthening of the Musk-Trump bond, heralding the return of the former President to the realm of Twitter/X.
Merely three weeks back, Trump had addressed his followers at the grand finale of the Republican gathering in Milwaukee. An atmosphere of victory permeated the night, coupled with an intense flavour of old-school evangelicalism. The horrifying revelation of a live assassination attempt on Trump cast a different hue over the convention.
In the wake of Biden’s withdrawal, the Republican’s fantastical echo-chamber seemed in shambles, landing Trump in a derelict space amidst shattered mirrors. Confronted by his delegates, Trump, with a bandage for a shot-wound to his ear, made a pledge to disclose all about the incident. However, he cautioned they wouldn’t hear the tale again from him, citing its recounting as too agonising.
Despite the immense pain, he narrated the happenings at Butler with Musk and the observers in an animated manner yet again on Monday night. It’s likely that even the staunchest Trump supporter would have secretly admitted his convention speech lacked direction; he even succeeded in making his account of the assassination attempt protracted and boring. Nonetheless, that night wrapped up with a small array of Trump family members on stage with balloons dropping as the Republicans felt secure, indifferent to their leader’s subpar performance given his vitality and vigour when compared to his opponent, Joe Biden.
Trump’s struggle to accept the dissolving of this perception is understandable, and he is not alone in this. In the weeks preceding the convention, Tim Alberta, a renowned author and journalist, composed a stunning profile on Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, the puppet-masters of Trump’s electoral campaign for the Atlantic magazine. The profile was deliciously filled with gossip and depicted the high confidence within the campaign.
However, it also brought to light the heavy reliance of the whole strategy on using Biden as the pedestal to highlight Trump’s assumed virtues. When Biden made the spectacular decision to withdraw from the race, it destroyed the Republican façade, leaving the Trump campaign in an empty, broken room as the country embraced Harris fever.
Since then, everything Trump has stated publicly, including his words on Monday night, is an effort to reclaim the leverage that seemed inevitable in Milwaukee. Last week, he speculated that Harris being chosen as the Democratic candidate appeared to be “arguably unconstitutional”. He revisited this theme in his conversation with Musk, describing it as a coup against the US president. “He didn’t want to leave, and they said: ‘we can do it either the friendly way, or we can do it the tough way’.”
Despite the Butler incident, Musk chimed in by saying, “Indeed, they just took him behind the shed and essentially executed him.”
The hypothesis that Democrats have orchestrated an inner rebellion against the incumbent president is something that the suddenly splintered Republican campaign is likely to capitalise on. Accusations from Trump suggesting that the images demonstrating Harris’s enormous rallies have been constructed via artificial intelligence seem desperate. Realisation is slowly setting in for him that the forecasts of a straight victory have evaporated as he grapples with his fresh adversary, termed “Radical Kamala Harris from San Fransisco” on his newly-activated X account.
The most recent national polls place Harris four points up, 50-46, amongst electors in the crucial swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. More ominously for Trump, Harris and her vice-presidential choice, Tim Walz, have invigorated the Democrat stronghold, resulting in a rousing surge in energy and fundraising. While Trump might have seemed dynamic on the campaign trail in contrast to Biden, he must be taken aback, possibly even alarmed, by Harris’ dynamic and stamina-filled campaign over the last three weeks. Reconciling himself to match this level of intensity will be a challenge, especially when he is 78 and his challenger is a vibrant 59.
The upcoming, misery-filled week in Chicago, where Trump’s adversaries—Barack Obama, the Clintons and Biden himself—will command the stage on consecutive nights of the Democratic convention, is not helping his cause. The spotlight and news coverage will be undeniably focussed on them throughout the week.
There’s no doubt the Trump campaign will be employing those days to devise a masterplan aiming to alter the narrative and wrestle Harris from her mantra of “we’re not going back”, pulling her towards the realm of fear and division where Trump has thrived.
However, achieving this will be hard. A quick scroll down his X account will reveal his post from January 8th, 2021: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
As he struggles through this strenuous August, his odds of making it to the next inauguration are looking less and less promising.