Dina Mahmoud (London)
Although the calendar indicates that we are now in the second half of 2024, a significant number of observers of the heated presidential race in the United States have begun to feel that time has taken us back eight full years, specifically to the year in which former President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump faced his then-“Democratic” rival Hillary Clinton, and inflicted an electoral defeat on her, which brought him to the White House in early 2017.
After Vice President Kamala Harris was chosen to represent the Democratic Party in the election marathon instead of its president, Joe Biden, Trump’s approach to confronting his current competitor, based on directing harsh personal criticism at her, seemed not far from the one he relied on in the 2016 race, while he was still a novice in the world of politics, to defeat Clinton, who had a rich career in the corridors of decision-making in Washington, including her assumption of the position of Secretary of State (2009-2013), her election as a member of the Senate (2001-2009), in addition to being a former first lady (1993-2001).
In his first successful campaign, Trump, who was known at the time as a prominent businessman with many real estate and media projects, launched a wide-ranging and sharp attack campaign on all his competitors, “Republicans” and “Democrats” alike. As part of this campaign, the “Republican” billionaire described his opponents within his party, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, with epithets such as “limited energy,” “tiny,” and “liar.” He also did not hesitate to accuse his Democratic rival, Clinton, of being “crooked or crooked.”
Four years later, in his unsuccessful bid to remain in the Oval Office for a second term, then-President Trump repeated the same tactic against then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, calling Biden “Sleepy Joe,” in the context of questioning his mental abilities and his fitness to run the country due to his advanced age.
Now, many Republicans are worried that their candidate, who dreams of returning to the White House through the November 5 elections, has decided to resort for a third time to “personalizing” the electoral confrontation, after he repeated, during the past few weeks, his very sharp personal criticism of “Kamala Harris.”
Former Republican officials said that returning to the “2016 formula” at a time when Trump is struggling to change the course of the current election race, which has begun to tilt toward the Democrats, is very risky, given that such tactics based on personal attacks may have become less effective these days.
While these methods were new and exciting to voters in the middle of the last decade, many of whom considered them an indication that they were dealing with a different type of candidate characterized by “frankness and directness,” they have now become – according to experts in opinion polls in the United States – somewhat annoying to segments of voters, who see them as “unjustified insults” that may reach the level of rudeness, which makes them alienating to voters, rather than attracting their support.
These experts stressed that Trump’s dilemma in this regard is increasing, in light of the fact that his current methods are arousing the resentment of more moderate voters.
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