Trump’s staying power

Why the former president cannot keep out of the headlines

When Donald Trump took his final walk from the White House, boarded a helicopter and vanished into a cold sky, millions of Americans breathed a sigh of relief. With the former US president retired to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, they would no longer live in constant dread of new scandals or impulsive tweets.

Two years and two months later, it turns out that Trump addiction is hard to beat. His legal perils have dominated headlines for the past week, and Republicans continue to define themselves in relation to him.

He remains the favourite for the party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election. Trump is still living rent-free in the nation’s head.

“The hope that Donald Trump would melt away into Mar-a-Lago seems

sweetly nostalgic,” said Jane Dailey, a history professor at Chicago University. “There is something about Donald Trump that fascinates and grabs the gaze and holds on to it. Nothing seems to hurt him ever. It’s just bizarre.”

Now 76, Trump has continued to dominate news and make himself impossible to ignore. His conduct before and during the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021 was the subject of primetime congressional hearings. He inserted himself into the midterm elections for Congress and declared his own presidential run. And now he is on the brink of becoming the first American president charged with a crime.

A grand jury in New York is examining his involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about an alleged sexual encounter 10 years earlier. Trump has denied the claim, insisted he did nothing wrong and assailed the investigation, led by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, as politically motivated.

With an indictment seemingly imminent, Trump last weekend used his Truth Social platform to predict that he would be arrested on Tuesday and call for his supporters to protest. With that single post, he triggered a week of breathless will-he-won’t-he media coverage and speculation that demonstrated that, far from moving on after Trump, America remains as in thrall to him as ever.

Tuesday came and went without an arrest, though the prospect of it reportedly helped Trump raise $1.5m in three days. The breaking news from the grand jury was no news: it gradually became clear that it would not reach a decision last week.

Trump also contrived to turn his imminent disgrace into a loyalty test for Republicans, who for nearly eight years have rallied around him over and over again. Congressional Republicans at a conference in Orlando, Florida, to discuss the party’s legislative achievements, instead found themselves talking about Trump and his potential indictment. Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives, told reporters: “I think ... this is just political. And I think that’s what the rest of the country thinks. And we’re kind of tired of that.”

Potential rivals in the 2024 Republican primary were also forced to respond, rushing to Trump’s defence rather than risking alienating his base.

The hush money case, however, is only the beginning: Trump is under scrutiny from special counsel Jack Smith for his efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and the mishandling of classified documents after leaving office. In Georgia, a prosecutor has been investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally meddled in the election in that state.

Trump’s grip on the national psyche marks yet another break from his predecessors, who have largely devoted their time to preserving their legacies through philanthropic work and presidential libraries. Although Barack Obama continues to campaign for Democrats during elections, he no longer drives news cycles.

Trump’s refusal to leave the stage did not surprise Sidney Blumenthal, a former adviser to Bill Clinton. “Our long national nightmare continues,” he said. “It’s entirely possible and even likely that Trump could be the Republican nominee and has a possibility of re-entering the White House to, as he has promised, abrogate the constitution and the republic, destroy the western alliance and, in effect, rule as a dictator.”