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The future of America at stake
A clear map for the 2024 showdown is yet to emerge and might not for several more months
Donald Trump and Joe Biden / gpo.gov
The 2024 presidential election in America is just under a year away and a lot of noise has been generated and expectedly so, especially from a small group of Republicans who hope they can somehow wrest the advantage from the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.
For a person who is yet to formally concede he lost the 2020 showdown, Trump continues to baffle both the Grand Old Party and Democrats. Party elders and those in the fray within the GOP continue to see the former President still in the lead; and Democrats must be stunned that in spite of adverse court rulings, Trump continues to maintain a solid grip with perhaps a correlation between legal setbacks and a rise in poll numbers.
And Trump continues his lead over President Joe Biden, however slender it may be. But a bigger worry for the Democrats is that aside from the dwindling political fortunes of the Democratic incumbent, the rising star within the GOP, Nikki Haley, also gets the better of Biden in a hypothetical matchup.
There is bound to be uncertainty in the Republican line up at least until the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primaries are out of the way and to see if the current front runner in the pack, Haley, manages a clear win, pulls ahead and further closes the gap with Trump.
After initially dismissing her as a “birdbrain”, reports have it that the Trump campaign--perhaps at the suggestion of the former President himself-- is sounding out the former United Nations ambassador could be a running mate. Despite his name calling, Trump has said on more than one occasion that Haley is a bright prospect in the party.
It may be too soon to get into the Number Two slots in the GOP without even having an idea of who is the lead candidate; but the Biden campaign must be getting ready for a different sort of battle with candidate Haley as this would be focused on policy alternatives, domestic and foreign.
In ways more than one the Biden campaign strategists would prefer a re-match of 2020, as much of the focus would be the lies, conspiracy theories and attempts to derail American constitutional and democratic process through the January 6 riots, not to forget all the criminal and civil indictments that the former President has managed to accumulate in the last one year or so.
Frustrating to many is that a clear map for the 2024 showdown is yet to emerge and might not for several more months. For now, two states—Colorado and Maine—have taken Trump off the ballot and some more are expected to follow. The decision to refuse to place Trump on the ballot will find its way to the United States Supreme Court, after the appeals process have been completed.
This aside, the apex court has to decide on the immunity question on indictments, not to forget whether Trump can even be on the rolls in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment which bars a insurrection tainted person from contesting elections. To begin with the top court will have to answer the question if January 6 qualifies as an insurrection.
The bottom line in the expected political circus environment is not too hard to see: a re-run of the worn out rhetoric of the last four years plus as opposed to any meaningful debate on the pressing domestic and foreign policy issues.
Republicans want Biden on the ticket so that he can be seen as a bumbling old man and mentally incompetent to finish a second term; and Biden supporters hoping for Trump to project of America further sliding into intolerance and divisiveness that his first term and aftermath was all about.
Currently Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami has been in Washington DC as Special Correspondent for The Hindu and the Press Trust of India covering North America and United Nations.
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