It has recently been reported that Donald Trump kick-started his 2020 campaign with a rally at Amway Center in Orlando in mid-June. Over the course of his speech, the sitting US president would preach against the “unholy alliance” of lobbyists and special interests and warned that nefarious entities in “Washington back rooms” want to take him down.
According to The Hill, at the meeting Trump would complain a lot about the “rigged system,” that prevented him from achieving his stated goals and added that the swamp would carry on fighting back both viciously and violently.
But is there any truth to those statements and who could be interested in hijacking the election process in the US?
In spite of formidable opposition that the US bureaucracy, the Democrats and most American intelligence agencies mounted against him, Trump still managed to reach a lot of the goals he promised to pursue. He addressed the issues that were hurting America the most, mainly through putting the US economy on the mend. Back in 2016, the absolute majority of his opponents assured that the GDP growth rate above 3% a year was unattainable, adding that Washington was unable to create industrial workplaces, but little did they know. It’s easy to see that the reindustrialization of the United States has already started and it’s proceeding at a steady rate. With solid economic numbers on his hands, Trump has managed to bring unemployment levels to the lowest they have been in the last seven decades.
After the massive failure of the investigation of the former special counsel Robert Mueller about the non-existent Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, no matter how many American media sources would try to use Russophobia to advance the agenda of Trump’s opponents, it will get them nowhere. Although the public hysteria about Russia and its “dubious ways” remains massive across the US, largely due to the 24/7 Russia-bashing across the US media, the general public has lost all interest in looking into new “sensational” allegations, so this madness will die out on its own eventually.
But it may be Trump’s turn to take a jab at his opponents, as he assigned the US Attorney General William Barr on the mission of investigating the role that the authorities of a number of US satellite-states may have played in launching the Mueller investigation against him. For sure, Ukraine is on the list of prime suspects, especially after the revelation that a Ukrainian diplomat Andrei Telizhenko made to Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. According to this confession, Kiev tried to influence the 2016 election in a bid to get Hillary Clinton elected.
However, there’s those who have taken an incredibly methodical approach on their quest of taking Donald Trump down. For sure, we’re speaking about US intelligence agencies, and the team of the former CIA director James Woolsey that leads this effort. The people that have been sponsoring Woolsey in his attempts to increase the tension applied on the Trump team are not used to losing. So they’re going to carry on their efforts to break the Trump administration from within by releasing articles similar to the anonymous confession that was published in the New York Times. Allegedly, this piece was drafted by a person working in the White House and it criticized the way the presidential administration operates as well as the internal structure of his office. It was later revealed that this article was penned by the Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN Nikki Haley, acting on the behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the organization closely associated with James Woolsey.
Speaking about Trump’s opponents, we should not forget the politicians associated with the military contractors, or, to be more specific, those lobbyists working for Lockheed Martin. Among them one can find Madeleine Albright, the person who would draw a comparison between Trump and the fascist dictators of the past. It’s hardly a secret that Lockheed Martin played a major role in the recent resignation of the US Secretary of Defense. The fact that Patrick Shanahan, who represented Boeing, was forced to step down only to be replaced by Mark Esper, who is connected with Raytheon – the largest US military contractor, speaks volumes about the role that Lockheed plays in the world of US politics. Lockheed will now have a chance to draw more attention to its disastrous F-35 project. It’s clear that its lobbyists would be now in prime position to advertise this overpriced catastrophy to Donald Trump as the ultimate solution to the “Iran problem”.
As for foreign policy matters, there’s no denying that Trump is being hated with a passion in the absolute majority of European capitals, but local politicians are still forced to dance to his tune. Trump has also managed to compel the seemingly uncontrollable North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to put an end to the practice of shooting ballistic missiles over Japan and conducting nuclear tests. Mexico was put under tough pressure and accepted most of the conditions put forward by Washington. Even Canada would mount no resistance in signing new interstate trade agreements. As for China, it has been making one concession after another, in spite of its attempts to resist Washington’s pressure.
Therefore, it is nearly impossible to beat the sitting US president in the election race. There’s only two possible scenarios that could lead to the downfall of Donald Trump – a major economic meltdown or a major protracted conflict. However, there’s not enough time for economic recession to take its tall on America before the election even if it occurs, but it seems silly even to assume that major American corporations and banks will try to inflict damage on themselves to take a shot at the US president.
This means that the only way for Trump to lose the election is to get himself be misled in a major conflict. That is why the situation in the Persian Gulf is becoming increasingly important for Trump and his political career. Moreover, he must remain mindful of the undefused conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Korea.
But that where the pressure applied on him by the US intelligence community and the so-called “Middle Eastern allies” of the US starts to kick in. It is possible that he may fall victim of a provocation or a false-flag event, even though he knows that he must avoid the actual shooting war in the Persian Gulf at all costs. Plainly speaking, Trump will not succeed if he’s going to be scared to openly oppose CIA, Tel-Aviv and Riyadh.
But does he have the guts for that? Only time will tell.
Jean Périer is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.
