Bubbling Rage Against Trump Could Topple His Campaign, Historian Argues

Bubbling rage against Donald Trump and the political elite protecting him from criminal prosecution has the potential to topple the former president’s campaign, argued American historian and scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Thursday.

Speaking with the Guardian’s Margaret Sullivan, Ben-Ghiat addressed the media’s false equivalency between President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance and Trump’s four criminal cases, authoritarian rhetoric, campaign agenda, and problematic first presidency.

“Mass protest movements had electoral consequences in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections,” Ben-Ghiat noted. Sullivan adds that the scholar “is convinced that we are ripe for another round – and the stakes are higher than ever.”

Ben-Ghiat argued that Republican aggression is not a sign of strength but a response to the growing liberal sentiment among American citizens. “Part of the reason for so much aggression from the GOP and the courts to take away our rights, including the right to free and fair elections, is because America is becoming more progressive,” she said. “Republicans cannot win without lies, threats, and election interference, including assistance from foreign powers.”

Sullivan condemned the assistance she believes Republicans have received from the mainstream media’s recent coverage of Biden’s age issues, which she argues are not worse than “Trump’s criminality and authoritarian intentions.”

Sullivan criticized CNN’s decision not to fact-check the presidential candidates and “Trump’s barrage of lies” in real-time during the debates. She also called the New York Times editorial urging Biden to resign “another example of targeting the president and letting Trump off the hook.” Sullivan pointed out that, “To my knowledge, only the scrappy Philadelphia Inquirer has written a similar editorial about Trump.”

Sullivan feels news coverage does not accurately reflect the growing sentiment in America that Trump is a problematic candidate. “Too much of the politics coverage is out of whack with reality,” she writes. “The media is baying for Biden’s head, but – with some exceptions – seems mostly bemused by Trump or at least habituated to how dangerous he is.”

On July 4, Sullivan urged Americans to remember the power they hold. “One friend, active in voter protection efforts, praised ‘all of the grassroots volunteers working to preserve democracy who I am sure will continue in all the ways possible if Trump wins,'” Sullivan writes.

Sullivan mentioned the surge of small-dollar donations following Biden’s debate struggles and credited “the courageous judges, court personnel, jurors et al who are working, despite the risks to themselves, to see that justice is served in the cases against Trump.”

She also suggests that Americans concerned about the Supreme Court should contextualize their concerns by acknowledging the overall resilience of the system. “Just over a month ago, Trump became the first former US president convicted of felonies,” Sullivan writes. “Trump allies who wanted to charge that the courts have been weaponized found it harder to make that argument less than two weeks later when Hunter Biden, too, was convicted in a jury trial.”