Donald Trump still believes he’ll be able to seize power, one way or another

How is Donald Trump coping these days? The answer seems to be “Not very well.” As the political journalist Aaron Rupar pointed out on Tuesday morning, the 45th president is “having a meltdown” on Truth Social, prompted presumably by the fallout from the FBI raid on his home at Mar-a-Lago.

For the benefit of those who didn’t choose to join the far-right “free speech alternative” to Twitter, Rupar posted a video of himself scrolling through Trump’s Truth Social feed. It showed that in just a day and a half, Trump shared an eye-watering number of memes about Joe Biden, Democrats, and even Republicans who he doesn’t think are sufficiently loyal to his continuing cause.

“I support pipelines... in Germany. I support border security... in Ukraine. I support oil production... in SA and Venezuela. I support assault rifles... for the Taliban. BUT YOU AMERICANS NEED TO SHUT UP AND OBEY,” read one meme featuring an image of Biden. It was shared by a Trump supporter, and reshared by Trump himself, who commented: “Crazy, but true!”

“TRUMP WON” read another slogan, emblazoned over a photo of Trump in the Oval Office. “I DON’T WORK FOR YOU!” yelled an image of Biden. “MEDIA – YOU’RE HELPING DESTROY AMERICA,” read a post that featured a photograph of the conservative conference CPAC and its attendees. One particularly bizarre meme showed Biden driving a car that was crashing into a cowboy-hat-wearing Barack Obama, while an FBI agent stood, arms folded, outside Mar-a-Lago. In that meme, a speech bubble coming from Biden read: “I know nothing. What [a] car wreck!”

On and on it went: images of Obama with the words “So we basically keep lying and they will never figure it out, right?”; a photoshopped picture of Biden kissing Mark Zuckerberg; a video made by a Maga-supporting woman, titled “What did Trump REALLY accomplish,” which the ex-president declared “much better than highly paid TV ‘talent’.”

There were conspiracy theories about the FBI colluding with Democrats to steal the 2020 election and then working to put rioters (sorry, “patriots”) in jail; quotes from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four shared unironically; and declarations that “YOUR ENEMY IS NOT IN RUSSIA” beside a still from the State of the Union address showing Biden, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi. There were attacks on “RINO [Republican in Name Only] lowlifes” that included lifelong GOP members and senior officials Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy and Mitt Romney.

Perhaps most disturbingly, there was a meme that showed both the elephant and the donkey, representing the Republican and Democratic parties, crossed out, with “ULTRA MAGA” (represented by a lion) presented as the true alternative underneath. And perhaps most tellingly, there was a black-and-white photograph of Trump with a quote overlaid that read: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

In its original format, this was an advert made by Nike that featured a black-and-white photograph of Colin Kaepernick, and it referred to the fact that Kaepernick had lost his career in the NFL after kneeling during the national anthem as a protest in support of Black Lives Matter.

It’s unclear whether Trump – who shared the altered picture that featured himself, adding the words: “We have no other choice. We are losing America!” – knows the reference, but what he does know is that he’s comfortable asking people to “sacrifice everything” for him; for a person, rather than an ideal.

It’s difficult not to read “sacrifice everything” as sinister in that context, considering that people died on 6 January 2021 during the Capitol riot – including Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter shot dead by a Capitol police officer as she attempted to smash through the doors of the building, who has become something of a martyr for the far-right.

When Kaepernick “sacrificed everything”, he lost his lucrative career in order to shine a light on racist discrimination in the US. When Babbitt “sacrificed everything”, she laid down her life for a man she’d never met after he told her she should help to overturn a democratic election.

In the past year, Trump’s social media tone has become much more angry and compulsive. His output was always erratic, but it used to lean towards the self-aggrandising and celebratory; now it leans bitter. This seems strange for someone who keeps half-promising that he’ll run for the presidency again in 2024.

Reading those memes and shares, it’s hard not to conclude that Trump really does seem to have abandoned the idea that he can get democratically elected again – but he doesn’t seem to think that should matter. He still believes that he’ll be able to seize power, one way or another. Clearly, so do a lot of Trump loyalists in the Republican Party. Lindsey Graham predicted “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted after the FBI raid – and as The Washington Post pointed out, that prediction “reads more like a threat”.

Later this week, Trump plans to appear at a rally in support of two Republican candidates he’s thrown his weight behind: Doug Mastriano, and the TV personality turned politician Mehmet Oz. Both are trailing their Democratic opponents in polls, and Oz in particular – a favourite of Trump’s – has already made some very public faux pas (never mind the fact that he doesn’t even live in the state he’s running to represent).

It’ll be interesting to see whether his appearance makes any difference. DC insiders have noticed that Trump picks are not polling well, and McConnell has stopped crowing loudly about Republicans taking back the Senate at the midterms in November.

It’s difficult to know how many times Republicans need to be told that Trump is a liability before they back away from his increasingly radical, proto-fascist politics. Perhaps the midterms will hammer it home. Then again, if Trump is able to turn the situation around and the GOP takes back the Senate, we may be heading for Trumpism on steroids in two years’ time.