Trump’s challenges for 2024 | Atalayar

Donald Trump’s announcement of a presidential run for the White House came as no surprise. The billionaire had been nursing a suspense about his comeback for two years that he has found difficult to maintain. Against the advice of his advisers, Trump wanted to announce his campaign early on two occasions and ignored the idea of doing so after the midterms. Now, a week after the polls were held, the Republican’s candidacy for 2024 is official. 

The news had to be triumphant. Surrounded by 30 US flags and in front of allies and advisors, Donald Trump announced his presidential run at his residence in Mar a Lago, Florida, already considered the strategic centre of the Republicans at the behest of Washington. “Are you ready? I am. America’s comeback starts right now,” a prelude to the expected: “To make America great and glorious again, I am announcing tonight my candidacy for the presidency”.

In his speech, Trump ran through his policies during his term in office between 2017 and 2021, contrasting them with those of the current president, Joe Biden. From what he perceives as good management of the economy, of “historic tax cuts”, of a “controlled pandemic” and of immigration actions, to what the Democrat blames: “blood-soaked” streets, an “invasion” on the southern border and, in foreign policy, “taking the United States to nuclear war”. 

The speech ended with the same formula used by the candidate for the 2016 presidential election, Make America Great Again, which gave him the resounding victory to occupy the Oval Office. “We will make America strong and proud again. We will make America safe again. We will make America great again. And we will restore its greatness,” he said.

With the nomination announced, there are now two intense years of challenges ahead, especially for a candidate like Trump. “This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate. It is a task for a great movement”, the former president acknowledged. First challenge, his appointments with Justice. Trump was indicted for the first time in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice, for his activities before and after the assault on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 and now for his retention of classified documents in his Mar a Lago mansion after leaving office. The Justice Department is considering criminal charges. 

In this sense, what also seems to be taking its toll on him for 2024 is his insistence on promoting conspiracies about the last presidential election, as expressed by his advisors. 

The next challenge that Trump did not end up contemplating as such in his speech is the Democratic party itself. The “red tide” did not get the results it had hoped for and the Democrats were able to save the Senate in the mid-term elections, pending the results on control of the House of Representatives, which under all odds is expected to go to the Republican ranks.

With the hangover from the Democrats’ victory in the Senate, the party has not yet considered nominating the next candidate for 2024, although all indications are that it will be Joe Biden again, despite the fact that he will then be 82 years old. However, the current president will be no match for Trump: “We have a president who falls asleep at global conferences and who gets his countries mixed up”, he joked in his speech. Biden, for his part, reacted to the announcement of his candidacy from the G20 summit in Bali with a tweet: “Donald Trump failed America”.

Donald Trump failed America. pic.twitter.com/fylyocYcse

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 16, 2022

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is not leaving a red carpet for Trump either. In these two years of legislature and, above all, these “midterms” have left the former president with two clear rivals: the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and the former president, Mike Pence. Donald Trump refuses to stay in the shadows and will have to overcome, as he did with the two impeachments, the challenges during the remaining two years of the Democratic legislature.

Americas Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra.