While the Republican appeared headed for a clear victory in November, opponents and allies of Donald Trump now say the Republican nominee appears stunned. Both by the assassination attempt he was subjected to in mid-July and by the withdrawal of Joe Biden’s candidacy.
Sometimes vengeful, sometimes angry: Faced with the Republican nominee’s recent forays into the US presidential election, campaign watchers are wondering about the former president’s strategy, faced with the dynamism of his rival Kamala Harris, 59.
Error. Joe Biden, who at the age of 81 was questioned about his mental acuity, until then acted as a lightning rod for the age of Donald Trump, who at 78 became the oldest candidate in a US presidential election.
For now that the Democratic president has given way to a younger, more eloquent and more energetic candidate, some of Donald Trump’s faults are being brought to the fore: his rambling remarks with a sometimes apocalyptic tone, his lack of energy in the absence of an audience and his memory lapses on certain names.
On Thursday, during a news conference touting his economic program, Donald Trump first broached the subject, his eyes often glued to his binder.
“Brew”. But the businessman has gone off the rails on numerous occasions, notably vilifying wind turbines that kill birds or even disputing the number of supporters at Kamala Harris rallies.
Former (brief) adviser to Donald Trump in the White House before they fell out, Anthony Scaramucci said the former president was “very concerned” about the change in the dynamic of the campaign. His diets, his procrastination and his attacks? So many elements that underlie Donald Trump “is now scared, surrounded and very angry,” declared Anthony Scaramucci on the MSNBC channel.
The inventory of his Prévert-style laments only keeps getting longer: “They’re not nice to me,” he notably declared on Thursday. The billionaire has redoubled his efforts to attack Kamala Harris, whom he accuses of “turning black” for electoral reasons and whom he describes as a “communist”. “I think I’m within my rights to launch personal attacks,” he said again Thursday. “I don’t have much respect for her. I don’t have much respect for her intelligence and I think she will be a terrible president,” he added.
US Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a speech at a college in Raleigh, North Carolina, August 16, 2024. – Allison Joyce – Raleigh (AFP)
“Stop complaining.” Faced with Donald Trump’s sometimes outrageous attacks, Kamala Harris’ campaign team decided to take a provocative stance. Thus, the Democratic camp emphasizes the former president’s “selfish” and “filled with personal grievances” grievances and no longer hesitates to describe him and his companions as “weird”. A dig that has the gift of annoying the Republicans, Donald Trump in the lead.
Several leaders of his party are practically begging the former president to concentrate on important issues rather than on playground squabbles. His former rival in the primaries, Nikki Haley, asked him on Fox News to “stop complaining” about Kamala Harris. Donald Trump “doesn’t win by talking about the size of the crowd” at everyone’s meetings, she said.
Denigration has long been “a central element” of Trump’s style, Elizabeth Bennion, a political science professor at Indiana University, told AFP. And if his animosity continues to electrify his electoral base, the impact of such a strategy on undecided voters is “less clear,” the researcher believes. “Some observers have wondered whether Trump would potentially show reticence to a candidate who is a multiracial woman,” she adds, stressing: “The answer is clearly no. »
Michael MATHES
© Agence France-Presse