Patrick Cockburn – Trump Could be Re-Elected in the 2024, Yet Democrats are Still Obsessing Over the Steele Dossier

This is what happens when a political class becomes cut off from reality, thriving in an environment of institutional corporate corruption

Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso)

Cross-posted from Counterpunch

File:Donald Trump (8567813820) (2).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0

Belief in their own propaganda and an obsessive hatred of Donald Trump are once again threatening to capsize those who want to stop him and the Republicans from retaking the White House and dominating Congress.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton tried to put unrelenting focus on Trump’s failings, convinced that these were so flagrant that they would alienate the majority of voters. The demonisation backfired because it gifted Trump millions of hours of free television time as his every word was covered by the media, while Clinton’s speeches were cut or ignored. Assisted further by Clinton’s comically inept campaign, Trump was able to win an election that he had expected to lose.

Five years on and the Democrats have just been defeated at the polls in a series of closely watched elections for much the same reasons as they lost in 2016. They pursued their old strategy of portraying Trump as the source of all evil. In the Virginia gubernatorial election, in which the Democrats suffered their worst reverse, the Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe failed to win in a state carried by Joe Biden with a large majority. A former governor with an undistinguished record, he was regarded by many as a party hack close to the Clintons and with a limited appetite for campaigning. He portrayed his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin as a dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporter, although Youngkin had distanced himself from the former president.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*