Just about any other American politician would have abandoned ship in such a critical situation.
Not Donald Trump.
Never mind his appearance in a Florida court in connection with his management – delusional – of a series of secret documents. It doesn’t matter if he faces 37 charges this time around. It doesn’t matter if it’s alleged that he compromised his country’s national security. He stays the course.
The fact is that he is hardly weakened by this new slippage. Tuesday evening, a few hours after pleading not guilty, he went on the counterattack in front of his supporters.
“When you arrest your main political adversary, there is no more democracy,” he said, calling his indictment the “most heinous and diabolical abuse of power” in the history of states. -United.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger: Donald Trump is the personification of this saying.
It would be wrong to underestimate it. He remains a powerful and formidable politician. And he is well placed, despite everything, to win his party’s leadership race and face Joe Biden next year.
He also promised on Tuesday that he will win this presidential election and that “justice will be done”.
The fact is that a good part of his party’s voters are still ready to give him the good Lord without confession. A bit as if they were under the influence of a guru.
Polls confirm how substantial this support is.
Like the one done by CBS News/YouGov on June 9 and 10, where potential Republican voters were asked what concerns them most about this issue.
Result: they say they are worried, in a large majority (76%), to see that the indictment is “motivated by political considerations”.
Only 12% of those voters prioritized the “national security risk” posed by the documents.
Finally, 12% say they are concerned about these two statements.
In short, in the eyes of a large majority of Republicans, we are showing relentlessness with regard to the former president.
This impression has long been cemented.
Why would she change, when pretty much all Republican politicians have been following the same choreography for years every time Donald Trump slips up: they defend him as if he were the innocent victim of a dark plot.
Even his closest rival among the Republican contenders for the White House, Ron DeSantis, suggests that the ex-president is a victim.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s indictment, the Florida governor has promised that if he becomes president, he will “bring accountability back to the Department of Justice, eliminate political bias and end instrumentalization once for all “.
It is hopeless.
There are of course some dissenting voices. But not yet enough to speak of a trend. And even less of a turnaround.
Americans would be wrong to underestimate Donald Trump’s resilience, but they are not the only ones to be wary of his ability to bounce back.
The other Western democracies, starting with Canada, must above all not make the mistake of believing that it is over.
Last April, the German magazine Der Spiegel also revealed that “Berlin is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden in the next election”.
Thus, German diplomats are trying to establish contact with the allies of the former president, so as not to be caught with their pants down as in 2016, when he beat Hillary Clinton.
The Canadian government has the same approach, we were told at the office of Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
When Canada had to fight to save the North American Free Trade Agreement, networks were created – or strengthened – with members of Trump’s inner circle, but also with Republican politicians in Washington.
The current Canadian ambassador in Washington, Kirsten Hillman, for her part, played an important role in the renegotiation of the agreement.
Contacts exist, therefore. We would do well to continue to cultivate them and create others. Because Donald Trump has probably not said his last word.