Trump returns to Washington: "Our country is going to hell fast"

Donald Trump, during his speech this Tuesday in Washington. Andrew Harnik (AP)

Donald Trump is back on the scene (or crime scene: it all depends on which half of the country you ask).

The former president of the United States returned to Washington for the first time on Tuesday, a year after the attack on Capitol Hill and leaving the White House, to offer a speech focused on citizen insecurity, law enforcement and border protection. with Mexico.

“Our country is going to hell quickly”, he has sentenced, before painting an apocalyptic landscape of “cities that, ruled by the Democrats, have become war zones”, controlled by “drug addicts and homeless people”, in which that "Satanists who prey on children are released on bail."

He has promised to impose the death penalty for drug traffickers if he returns to power ("if you execute one of those, you save 500 lives," he has said) and has advocated "giving back to the police their authority, their resources, their power." and its prestige.

Trump has referred to “the anti-police narrative of the radical left” as “the big lie,” in a sarcastic reference to the way the media refers to the conspiracy theory he still espouses, according to which the election of 2020 were stolen from him.

“Have you ever heard that expression before?” he added.

He has also suggested that Democrats should allow the "homeless into their backyards" so they can "dirty their property, attack their families and get high where their children play."

It was the first time that he was seen in a public act in the city, 566 days after his last rally, with which he endangered the lives of hundreds of policemen, and 140 were injured (although he has not made any reference to that). ).

It was on January 6, 2021, shortly before leaving the White House.

He then harangued thousands of his followers who knew they were armed to march to the Capitol and influence the certification of the electoral votes that gave victory and the presidency to Joe Biden.

The insurrection that followed is the subject of a criminal investigation, carried out by the Department of Justice, and another parliamentary one,

The return was loaded with symbolism.

media

, the intellectuals, the scientific

…—conspired against him to remove him from power against his will.

This time it was certainly a more peaceful audience.

Hundreds of activists and Republican officials from all over the United States gathered for the two days of talks and debates at the America First Agenda Summit, in a festive atmosphere, in which the great figures of Trumpism posed for one selfie after another.

For the closing speech they scheduled the former president.

Senators, attorneys general, governors, state legislators or old glories of the Conservative Party came from all over the country to participate in a meeting that aspires to lay the foundations of the Party's policies. Long-term Republican, beyond the next elections in November, and even beyond the presidential elections of 2024. “We are here to strike the seal, to set the axis that ensures freedom in this country, not for two or four years! but for 100 years!” exclaimed Brooke Rollins, former Trump White House interior adviser, at the opening of the forum on Monday.

She agreed with the rest of the speakers in painting the previous Administration as the one that left the most extraordinary economic and security results in the history of the United States.

Rollins is president and CEO of the pressure group close to Trump America First Policy Institute (AFPI), organizer of the meeting.

Founded in 2017, it is led by a group of advisers and officials from the former president's cabinet, who, after the defeat in the last elections - a defeat they consider, without evidence, to be the result of electoral fraud - are preparing a political agenda for the next president. Republican, be it Trump or another.

One of the stars of the meeting, veteran politician Newt Gingrich, compared that effort to that carried out by the Heritage Foundation

still in operation, but which has seen better days) to prepare the ground for Ronald Reagan's conservative revolution. in the early eighties.

That agenda consists of 10 points, which were the focus of the tables and speeches, in which issues such as inflation, the price of gasoline, electoral integrity or immigration have been addressed.

The AFPI aspires to “make the world's largest economy work for all Americans”;

“to return control of health care to patients and doctors” (control, which, they say, they lost during the pandemic, with the confinement and vaccination mandates, to “restore America’s historic commitment to freedom, equality and self-government", to "give parents more control over their children's education", to "end the wall with Mexico", and, incidentally, end human trafficking and defeat drug cartels by south of the border;

to “ensure world peace through the use of American strength and leadership”;

to achieve energy independence;

to “facilitate voting and make it more difficult to commit electoral fraud”;

and to improve security in cities.

The last point is especially dedicated to Washington, known by its critics as

the swamp, because it is literally built on one, but above all because of its image that evokes the rottenness of political corruption.

AFPI is committed to "draining that swamp."

Weather hazards have made Trump's appearance in the Washington swamp coincide with that of his vice president, Mike Pence, who was scheduled to speak in the city on Monday, but a storm delayed his arrival.

He finally intervened in another republican forum, the Young America's Foundation (foundation of the young America).

“Some people may choose to focus on the past,” Pence said in his hour-long speech, which elaborated on the need to turn the page on the 2020 voter fraud hoax. “But elections are about the future.

And I think conservatives need to focus on the future to take America back."

Although he did not name him (other than to gloss over the achievements of his Administration), Trump floated on Pence's words.

As has been proven in the eight sessions of the committee investigating the assault on Capitol Hill, the former president put enormous pressure on his deputy in the weeks leading up to January 6, because he wanted him to use his power so as not to certify Biden's victory, despite the fact that it was not clear that such a thing was legally in his hands.

Trump put Pence's life in danger with a tweet in which he singled out Pence in the midst of an insurrection, and seemed to agree with the cries of the mob calling for him to be "hanged."

In recent weeks, Pence is showing signs of stepping up ahead of the 2024 election.

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