As Donald Trump digested news of a diminished online presence this week—a two-year suspension from Facebook for inciting the Capitol attack, and confirmation that his blog shuttered due to a “staggeringly small audience”—North Carolina’s Republican convention on Saturday night was poised to potentially strengthen an anaemic political operation.
In the wake of his loss to Joe Biden, Trump’s political operation shrunk “to a ragtag team of former advisers who are still on his payroll, reminiscent of the bare-bones cast of characters that helped lift a political neophyte to his unlikely victory in 2016,” The New York Times reported. Most of these figures, The Times pointed out, “go days or weeks without interacting with Mr. Trump in person.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s brash businessman persona seemed to have waned. While he travels to Manhattan from his New Jersey golf club to work out of Trump Tower “at least once a week,” his commute draws scant attention. In his Trump Tower office, he is “mostly alone, with two assistants and a few body men.” He no longer has the company of longtime cronies and staffers, nor his children, per this Times report.
It’s unclear what Trump will say at this conference, which The Times described as being “billed as the resumption of rallies and speeches.” But Trump’s presence could show just how much sway he holds over the Republican party. It could also test the extent to which his day-to-day supporters remain loyal to him.
Facebook announced on Friday that the company would suspend Trump for two years. This announcement follows the recommendation of Facebook’s oversight board. Trump was suspended from the social media site in January, for inciting supporters to attack the US Capitol building, in service of his lie that Joe Biden won because of electoral fraud.
“Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs, remarked in a statement on Friday.
Suspension from Facebook would likely pose a devastating sucker-punch to most politicians’ aspirations—it’s a platform where beneficial disinformation can proliferate, not to mention an opportunity for direct access to voters. But Trump’s response to this ban might have teased his political future—namely, dropping a strong hint that he’d run for president again in 2024.
“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!” remarked Trump’s statement responding to this suspension.
These comments came amid reports this week that Trump believes he will be reinstated to the White House by August. Trump did not say in his Facebook statement Friday whether he thought he’d resume his role due to reinstatement, or due to a successful presidential run in 2024.
Regardless of these will he-or-won’t he vagaries, recent metrics showed that Trump’s hold on the Republican Party was strong. “Even in defeat, Mr. Trump remains the front-runner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024 in every public poll so far,” The Times noted.
The extent to which Trump might attempt a comeback was further underscored by revelations about how much he tried to influence results in Arizona’s election. Emails were released this week in which the Republican president of the Arizona state senate said Trump called her after his election defeat last year, to thank her “for pushing to prove any fraud”.
The emails add to understanding of the evolution of Trump’s “big lie”, that his defeat by Biden was the result of mass electoral fraud, and how it fuelled the deadly Capitol assault.
The Arizona emails were obtained by American Oversight, a legal watchdog, via a Freedom of Information request. They showed how Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, pushed officials to act and how a controversial election audit in Arizona’s most populous county came to be set up.
Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia are prominent among states which produced Biden victories Trump and his supporters insist won by fraud. They were not.
The release of the Arizona emails showed how Trump pursued his claim of fraud after the election was called.
Election day was 3 November. Biden was declared the winner four days later. The Democrat won by more than 7m votes and by 306-232 in the electoral college. That was the score by which Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, a result Trump called a landslide.
Regardless, Trump went on the offensive with a frantic legal effort to prove fraud, led by Giuliani and almost entirely laughed out of court.
In one Arizona email released on Friday, dated 2 December, Karen Fann, the Republican state senate president, told two constituents she had spoken to Giuliani “at least six times over the past two weeks”.
Threatened later in the month with being recalled from office by “the new patriot movement of the United States”, Fann wrote that the state senate was “doing everything legally possible to get the forensic audit done”.
Republicans in Maricopa county, the most populous county in Arizona, mounted a controversial audit of ballots. Most analysts view the audit as part of a concerted attempt by Republicans in state governments to restrict access to the ballot or produce laws by which results can be overturned.
In the emails released by American Oversight, Fann told the constituent threatening action against her she had been “in numerous conversations with Rudy Guiliani [sic] over the past weeks trying to get this done”.
She added: “I have the full support of him and a personal call from President Trump thanking us for pushing to prove any fraud.”
Fann also told a constituent concerned about the use of taxpayers’ money: “Biden won. 45% of all Arizona voters think there is a problem with the election system. The audit is to disprove those theories or find ways to improve the system.”
The emails also show the involvement of Christina Bobb. A reporter for One America News Network, a rightwing TV channel praised by Trump, Bobb has raised funds in support of the Maricopa audit.
Another fringe rightwing network, Newsmax, has said it will show Trump’s return to public speaking on Saturday evening.
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
