By Aly Kamadia, Editor-In-Chief, iDose

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

My eyes and ears digested the scene unfolding in front of me, as an annoying question kept poking away: Would Donald Trump become president?

Again?!

Approaching the question demanded summoning humility. After all, nobody had the slightest clue about the many curveballs that fate may have decided to throw onto the game known as the 2024 American Presidential Election.

That said, it didn’t hurt to take a snapshot of the current moment, given that the Republican primary drama had already begun.

One of the most important episodes of the drama was held on August 23^rd, 2023, when a packed debate stage of feisty Republicans auditioned to convince voters that they were the Saviors that America was praying for – the ones who could rescue the country from its many ills.    

The key takeaway from the entertaining fight was that Trump reigned supreme on the stage, while effortlessly claiming a debate victory. Which was quite informative considering that the ex-president didn’t even bother showing up.

While Trump didn’t physically attend, the presence of his spirit filled his fans’ hearts with love while intimidating those daring to challenge him.

Savvy politicians like Nikki Haley, whose insatiable hunger for the presidency had been accompanied by years of plotting, had to tread extremely cautiously when criticizing the ex-president, lest the many Trump fans in the crowd overwhelm the building by their loud booing (as they did with Chris Christie).

Trump’s decision not to attend the debate was an easy one. According to the polling, he stood tall at 56%, while his second-place competitor, Ron Desantis, was almost down to single digits at 13%. (The numbers were roughly the same in mid-September 2023.)

Why attend a debate that only risked damaging such a relaxing lead?

Another fun fact for Trump (not that he knew) was that since 1972, there had only been five out of roughly 90 non-incumbent primary candidates who were polling at less than 14%, 15 months prior to the election, that went on to defy the odds and ultimately win the primary (source: FiveThirtyEight).

Thus, after nearly a decade, the undisputed god of the Republican Party, Trump, was set to face off against Biden in 2024.

But what about all of Trump’s legal issues? Surely the four indictments against Trump would kick him off of the Republican Party’s throne? And wasn’t there a possibility that Trump would serve hard jail time behind prison bars?

Such delusionally infested thoughts were nothing more than the offspring of relentless propaganda, often created by pundits pretending to be in the business of journalism. I sympathized with some, as they appeared genuine in their lack of cognitive capacity to accept a reality in which Trump was still an extraordinarily powerful force. Hence the alternative fantasy that they strived so hard to imprint upon the minds of their viewers.

For instance, during the episode of Trump’s most recent indictment (late August), I was watching MSNBC. Some pundits focused on the idea that Trump was “surrendering”, while a number of them took turns proclaiming that even those occupying the most powerful political office on the planet (i.e., the US presidency), weren’t immune from American-style ‘rule of law’. Everyone, MSNBC viewers were told, was equal in the eyes of the law.

This was utterly absurd.

How could anyone pretend that the ‘rule of law’ was equally applied when roughly half a million Americans were sitting in jail, before their trial, simply because they couldn’t afford bail? (Multiple sources. Not to mention, another million facts that would expose the ‘justice is blind’ ideal as contrasting a little too much with reality.)

Why weren’t these pundits going through the list of potential crimes that all preceding American presidents may have committed since the great nation’s founding, alongside reminding their viewers about the number of days that any relevant president had been jailed behind bars (hint: the answer was less than one day)?

Disregarding inconvenient truths about America’s horrifying mass incarceration and the questionable legality of some past US presidents’ actions, the propaganda remained nothing short of breathtaking. It became glaringly apparent to anyone who contrasted the gossip repeated by pundits to the live camera footage that they were speaking over.

In the real world, was it considered “surrendering” when a billionaire ex-president got off his luxurious private jet, only to be escorted by a motorcade of about a million black tinted-vehicles, presumably with some heavily armed for Trump’s personal protection?

On Trump’s path to Fulton County Jail, did the word “surrendering” come to mind given that the large and armed motorcade enjoyed a silenced path with no other vehicles, because all roads and highways were shut down to make way for the god of the Republican Party?   

Was I supposed to believe that someone was “surrendering” when they spent a grand total of twenty minutes in a building where no cameras were permitted, during which a self-serving mugshot was snapped?

That mugshot portrayed a strong and defiant Trump, which he immediately posted on his official Twitter/X account. Under the Apprentice 2.0 portrait read the words, “Election Interference. Never Surrender!” Also included was the link to Trump’s official website, and the tweet predictably received an astounding number of views – more than a quarter Billion at the time of this writing.

After this apparent “surrender”, Trump jumped right back onto his fancy private jet, probably munched on some KFC, and then perhaps sat on a golden toilet while checking how many millions of dollars were pouring in from his mugshot – all while wondering if he’d be president again.

How could I not burst out laughing at that moment, even if the giggling was laced with tragedy?

To be clear, the legal indictments against Trump were serious.

But so was Trump’s political power, the topic of which received virtually no commentary among those incapable of accepting reality and/or sticking to a deceptive narrative.

Part of Trump’s political power translated into a loud, predictable and messianic message directed to tens of millions, including the roughly 74 million who voted for him in 2020 (second highest number of votes in American history). 

During a South Dakota rally held only weeks after Trump’s “surrender”, the Savior was blasting “Crooked Joe” and Washington elites who, according to Trump, were politicizing the justice system to stop him from saving America from their abuse.

Even when all his legal troubles were considered, there was simply zero evidence to indicate that any of the indictments against Trump would stop him from successfully running in the Republican primary (and most likely winning), as well as contending in the general election against Biden. In fact, a strong argument could be made that the indictments presented Trump with the political opportunity to act as a victim (e.g., corrupt elites trying to stop the Savior, setting a trial date not-so-coincidentally literally the day before Super Tuesday, etc.).  

Undoubtedly, Trump stood in the enviable position for a showdown against Biden in 2024.

Speaking of Biden, Joe’s son, Hunter, had soon found himself indicted on federal firearms charges.

During the same week, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he was ordering House Republicans to launch an impeachment inquiry against Biden, accusing him of a ‘culture of corruption’.

Glancing at all the polling revealed that Biden and Trump were virtually tied for a competitive matchup.

Yes, it was impossible to meaningfully speculate upon the many curveballs that might be thrown into the picture until November 2024 (e.g., affordability crisis, sentiment on direction of the country, Biden approval rate etc.). But that only made the current assessment easier.

At the moment, Trump’s likelihood of being the next president was just as high as Biden’s.

And insofar as history was any guide to Trump’s future actions, one of America’s viable futures included the very nature of its democracy being tested yet again by him.

Though this time around, American democracy wouldn’t confront an amateur. It would grapple with a Trump that had four years of presidential experience under his belt.

And with four in ten Americans unable to afford a $400 emergency (source: Federal Reserve, 2023), along with a host of horrific economic conditions that much of the country faced, there was no reason to believe that the populism that Trump accidentally tapped into was about to fade away anytime soon.

Indeed, populism beyond America was also thriving. Its very conditions were nurturing the blossoming of authoritarianism throughout the world.

It was a great time to be a charismatic fraud.  

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Aly Kamadia is Editor-In-Chief of iDose Magazine. Kamadia holds an Honors BA & MA in Political Science, both from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He currently serves as Director of Kamadia & Associates.  To read selected articles by Kamadia, click here.