TheMarketForIdeas

The 2024 U.S. presidential election will play a pivotal role in determining the strategic direction to be taken by the United States of America. In any event short of a quick decline, the U.S. will remain the most active and multivalent superpower in the world, even in a multipolar paradigm. If for nothing else, then for its willingness and ability to subsidise its key partners’ security, as well as freedom of navigation and the Global Institutions which have, among other things, facilitated China and other revisionist actors’ ascent and development. Combined with the already decades-long ongoing and bipartisan tendency of power accumulation under the “Unified American Executive”, to the detriment of the U.S. Congress, the American elections would have already been of a crucial worldwide importance. Therefore, the Super Tuesday electoral marathon was closely analysed in the hopes that it could signal a “sea change” in the primary elections of the two parties, especially of the Republicans. Instead, the hopeful noises made by the national and global observers have proven to be in vain, as there was neither an out-of-nowhere spoiler contestant nor a consensus by the party camarillas to remove the aging gerontocrats of American politics. The electoral configuration for November 2024 seems to be that of Biden versus Trump, Biden being accompanied by Kamala Harris, while Trump is still keeping the vice-president seat empty in order to negotiate with certain ideological factions or owners of political machines in his favour. Donald Trump’s favourability indexes look very good and he appears to be the leading candidate in the race as long as the sequential legal challenges he faces won’t succeed in creating a precedent leading to the downfall of a favourite presidential candidate. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the apparent persecution of Trump appears to augment his support among the Republicans and independents, not to mention that voters who are motivated by a candidate’s “respectability” have not yet had enough reason to abandon him. From this standpoint, the Democrats who put forward lawfare options for “doing away with a danger to the Republic” appear to be “playing with fire”.

Manoeuvres/ploys in the primary elections

An American candidate could acquire two advantages resulting from the primary elections – he could either have such a good result within the first rounds, especially in the states which are considered representative of the average voter at a national level (e.g. Iowa for conservatives), or he could score a really good performance in the mass voted scheduled around Super Tuesday, which could grant him not only popularity/notoriety, but also a significant number of delegates. The Americans attribute a significant importance to the electoral contest in certain states and, therefore, early winnings might generate a self-fulfilling prophecy as donors, party influencers and those backed by political machines reorientate themselves towards a promising candidate in order to extract as many concessions as possible ahead of an eventual victory – concessions such as jobs in the new Administration, promises regarding policies on major internal and external issues etc.

Super Tuesday, the Tuesday within February or March when a number of American states, including the most important ones population-wise (which also implies economic and ideological importance) vote for their preferred candidate in the primary elections, represents a crossroads moment in the primaries for both parties. Over a third of potential state delegates could be won on Super Tuesday, which will separate the potential winners from the losers and might mark the difference between a clear victory followed by a cohesive campaign against the rival party, and a fratricidal race whose outcome would be established later, during which the attacks launched by the theoretically same-party candidates against one another will reverberate in the presidential campaign. One well-known such example was the 2008 primary Democratic campaign, during which Hillary Clinton launched a theory about Obama’s birthplace not being the U.S. whose purpose was to disqualify him from the race, a theory which was later adopted by the Republicans and which dogged Obama throughout his eight years of presidency. Another example is the 2016 competitive Republican race, in which the Democrats made media, political and financial interventions in favour of Trump in order to postpone (and cancel) Jeb Bush’s anticipated primaries victory and secure Trump’s instead – followed, of course, by his unexpected victory at the national level.

A monotonous Super Tuesday

On Super Tuesday 2024, the Republicans voted in the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Vermont. Donald Trump came out victorious, almost having the necessary number of delegates to guarantee his position as the Republican Party Representative in the presidential campaign. Nikki Haley’s dropout immediately following Super Tuesday, after some modest victories and the departure of the big donors, practically guarantees that the National Convention will be a mere formality and that, maybe, this was a last resort in order to save Haley’s chances of having a political career in the future. Haley registered massive losses even in the state where she was governor and only won the handful of Republicans in Vermont and in “the swamp” of Washington DC (right before Super Tuesday), which is another mainly Democratic zone.

Joe Biden ran in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and in American Samoa. He only lost in Samoa, even though this is the first time in the last thirty years when an acting President loses the primary elections. Joe Biden’s clear victory leaves room for only one possibility to change him through background manoeuvres/ploys within the National Democratic Convention, which would be quite doubtful from the point of view of the Democrats’ legitimacy among their voters, as well as potentially harmful in the race against Trump, since the acting President had had multiple opportunities to incentivise/reward key supporter groups such as young people with college debt. It seems unrealistic to assume that the Democratic faction which kept undermining Biden through discussions in their affiliated media about his cognitive issues and which launched influence peddling accusations against Hunter Biden (which would not have ended up in the mainstream attention otherwise through Republican accusations alone) will be successful in replacing him. A strong potential candidate would be the Californian Governor Gavin Newsom, who positioned himself as a statesman through continuing the “planetary diplomacy” affair started by his predecessor, Jerry Brown, by visiting China in order to lobby Xi Jinping that he should fight against climate change and by facilitating the Sino-US San Francisco summit. He has to realise that an electoral race without an incumbent president in 2028 would be to his advantage, while a late entry in the 2024 one will undermine his chances of winning and his image would be at risk of being tarnished by a very strong likelihood of defeat.

The final big uncertainty

The big question now is “Who will be Trump’s Vice President?”. Mike Pence is out of the equation after his “betrayal” back in 2020 and after his own weak presidential race, even though he was a good soldier in the 2016-2020 period who delivered to Trump the support of the Evangelical groups which he needed in order to cement his control over the Party. Now, Trump can count on the support of the religious right, especially after the constitutional rejection of the liberal abortion policy of Roe v. Wade by the primarily conservative Supreme Court which he helped establish. Had they not been attacking each other so vitriolically, Ron DeSantis could have made a good Vice President for Trump, having executive experience in Florida – and he could have generated a good “DeSantis 2028” platform. Generally speaking, Trump’s best opponents are those who embraced the populist trend which he represents. Vivek Ramaswami’s early abandonment might suggest his wish for a place in Trump’s cabinet or even the position of Vice President. On top of that, Ramaswami would bring both the diversity so idolised by most Americans, as well as a bridge towards the digital technology sector which is currently strongly aligned with the Democrats (with some exceptions, such as Thiel and Musk). The “surprise candidate” might be Tulsi Gabbard, a minor politician from Hawaii, but one with considerable personal assets – such as her sex, her obvious charm, military past, and Samoan origin, but also the fact that she is a non-interventionist Democrat who had left the party and attracted many Republican fans. Should we, after 24 years, re-enter the epoch of “Vice Presidents for show”, upon whom no important role is bestowed by the President so he may keep all the power to himself, then Tulsi Gabbard might be a subtle political choice for Trump.

Overselling Trump

We are already witnessing a hysterical catastrophism coming from some European and national commentators regarding Trump’s possible re-election. Ironically, these messages, together with the whining of the American and European elites are music to the ears of Trump’s supporters, since these opinions propagate beyond the like-minded anti-Trump public, and may also increase Trump’s chances of winning. They are also exaggerated and reflect the extent to which the European perspectives have been influenced by the American media, think tanks and academia, which are strongly pro-Democrat or rather pro-liberal. Partisan American presuppositions and biases/prejudices have been internalised by the Europeans, to the detriment of their own capacity to cultivate influence and to formulate and implement a cooperation policy with a potential future Trump Administration – just like in 2016, when the Europeans were the architects of their own alienation/estrangement from Washington DC and of their reduced capacity to influence its politics and moderate its tendencies. Perhaps the greatest dissonance from reality can be found in the theory of Washington’s abandonment of Europe, which ignores the fact that at no point in time since the end of the Cold War and until now has America been so influential in Europe from a structural standpoint (now also in the energy domain) or so well positioned to “extract” important technological, commercial, geopolitical, or strategic concessions from the Europeans. The theory according to which the Americans might leave could possibly reflect a perverted “wishful thinking” of the Western European elites, who view their dream of strategic, economic, geopolitical, and technological autonomy ruined by the impact of the war in Ukraine. Europe has probably become the most valuable American “imperial holding”, more important than even the partners of East Asia – and it will take priority for American efforts, even in the event of a potential fiscal, human or industrial power contraction in the U.S.

Photo source: PxHere.