On the eve of the mid-term elections in the US, Portuguese analysts acknowledge that the campaign went well for the Republicans and favors a probable presidential re-election of Donald Trump, with Trumpism as “proof of life”.
“Donald Trump will take advantage of the more than probable victory of the Republicans (at least in the House of Representatives, in state governments and parliaments, and possibly also in the Senate, although in this case it is still open) to balance the already certain candidacy presidential election in 2024,” Germano Silva, an American political analyst for more than two decades, told Lusa.
For Agostinho Pereira de Miranda, a lawyer and expert on American politics, where he lived for almost a decade, rather than favoring Trump, this campaign gave a boost to ‘trumpism’, the conservative current among Republicans.
“This campaign showed that ‘trumpism’ is very much alive and that it will endure in American politics, with or without Trump,” Pereira de Miranda told Lusa, recalling the good performance of the Republican governor of California, Ron DeSantis, “whose re-election is virtually assured.
These two analysts – who will be present Tuesday night, as experts, at a conference on the North American midterm elections, at Culturgest, in Lisbon – agree that the political winds are favorable for the Republicans, especially for those who seem more in line with the Trump line.
Germano Almeida explains that the few “classical” or “moderate” Republicans who remained in the party, and who tried to stand up to Trump’s most radical line, were pushed aside.
“Let Liz Cheney, a key member of the commission investigating the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, say so, who was the number three Republican in Congress: she was crushed in the Wyoming primary, losing by 37 percentage points to a candidate she reveres. to Trump. , Harriet Hageman”, argued Germano Almeida, author of five books on presidencies in the United States.
Looking ahead to the electoral campaign that ends today, both analysts also seem to agree on the risks of repeating episodes of contesting electoral results, such as those promoted by former President Trump, in the face of the presidential victory of Democrat Joe Biden.
“There is a very important number of ‘denier’ Republican candidates (they deny that Biden won the last presidential elections),” confessed Pereira de Miranda.
Germano Almeida believes that “Donald Trump has opened Pandora’s box in 2020” and recalled that Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson has already said that if he loses to Democrat Mandela Barnes it will be due to electoral fraud.
“If the Republicans do not manage to take the Senate – and given the small differences that are expected for the contests in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona or New Hampshire – this is almost inevitable,” defends this analyst, arguing that the style of the ‘trumpist Republicans is “to enter the democratic game, but only accept it if you win”.
Germano Almeida argues that the rulebook of the ‘trumpists’ and the ‘deniers’ has three components that have recently been affirmed in the political-media ecosystem.
“1) the ‘fake news’ industry, which for followers of this wing takes the place of ‘mainstream media’; 2) political violence (in 2015, only 10% of Americans admitted this idea was legitimate , today there will be more than 40%); 3) challenge of the electoral system and future replacement of the elected representatives, so that this same system is controlled by those who legitimize the coup”, explained this analyst.
As for the Democratic campaign, the presence at the rallies of the current president, Joe Biden, and former president Barack Obama is explained by Pereira de Miranda as assets for fundraising, “the fuel of electoral campaigns.”
Germano Almeida is more skeptical about the effectiveness of Biden’s presence, although he acknowledges that Obama continues to be “the great star of the Democratic campaign”, where he seemed to recall that, when he was president, he suffered a heavy defeat in the midterm elections . in his first term, but he was still re-elected two years later.
“The current moment of this administration has made President Biden a problem and not an electoral asset for the Democrats. This explains the delay in the entrance of Joe Biden to the campaign stage, although this, in recent days, has increased in intensity”, Almeida defended.
The two analysts acknowledge that, in the campaign that is now ending, the two parties appeared with very different political agendas, with the Republicans pressing for the issue of inflation, crime and immigration, and the Democrats preferring social issues, such as the right to abortion or increased employment.
“The sentiment of the electorate seems to favor, globally, the Republicans: despite historically low unemployment (3.5%), the Biden administration has not yet managed to generate in the population the feeling that the worst is over,” he defended. German Almeida.
“Issues that could favor the Democrats -and where President Biden already has concrete work to show in these almost two years- such as the climate, infrastructure, post-covid recovery or help for families and students- are not among the priorities of this election”, concluded this analyst.
For Agostinho Pereira de Miranda, the great surprise of the campaign was the amount of money spent by both parties.
“According to civic organizations that monitor the phenomenon, this electoral campaign will cost around US$10 billion (the same amount in euros), an increase of around 150% compared to the 2018 midterm elections,” the lawyer recalled.
Source: TSF
