Trump's dark side
IT WAS A MOMENT for Donald Trump to be gracious, magnanimous, perhaps even presidential. Instead he lashed out at his opponent's clothes. "When I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn't so fancy, I said, 'What's she doing? We won,"" he said of rival Nikki Haley in New Hampshire last Tuesday night.
Trump had just won the first primary election of 2024 and all but clinched the Republican nomination for US president. Party leaders and campaign surrogates are now eager to banish Haley to irrelevance, move on from the primary and unify against Democrats. They want Trump to pivot to an almost inevitable rematch with Democrat Joe Biden in November.
Yet the 77-year-old remains consumed with rage over Haley's unwillingness to quit the race. His petulance offers a reminder of the unhinged behaviour that turned off-independent voters in New Hampshire and could prove to be a liability in a head-to-head contest with Biden. It is also at odds with what is an unusually professional and disciplined campaign operation.
Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: "Donald Trump wants the race to be over and we see evidence of why that's important for the Trump campaign from his speech, which was essentially a train wreck and exhibited all the worst tendencies of Donald Trump. It was an undisciplined Trump and this is what turns off independent voters."
She added: "This is the achilles heel for the Trump campaign and they know it. The sooner this gets wrapped up then he doesn't have any more of those impromptu late night speeches. Their worry is not that they're not going to win the nomination; their worry is the damage that Trump having to respond to Haley will do in the general election with independent voters."
Denne historien er fra February 02, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9500+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra February 02, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9500+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Alison's world The graphic novelist faces up to midlife in this playfully fictionalised memoir
Alison Bechdel emerged in the 1980s with Dykes to Watch Out For, a groundbreaking weekly strip that featured a group of mostly lesbian friends. Since then, her acclaimed graphic novels have focused mainly on herself and her family.
I need to drop everything and get on with doing nothing, quickly
I am sitting in my office shed, marvelling that an email from a car hire company I last used six years ago feels entitled to employ the subject line DROP EVERYTHING.
Fire starter Springsteen's anti-Trump broadside divides fans
As the lead singer of a Bruce Springsteen cover band, Brad Hobicorn had been looking forward to performing at Riv's Toms River Hub in New Jersey last Friday.
A new Syria: sanctions relief gives the shattered country a chance to rebuild
The startled joy that greeted Bashar al-Assad's fall six months ago was shadowed by the fear of what might follow.
I wanted us to finish our journey on a high'
Saint Etienne are calling it a day after 35 years. They discuss their final album, turning down Cher's Believe and a career defined by friendship and invention
The museum of absolutely everything
Poison darts, a dome from Spain, priceless spoons and Frank Lloyd Wright furniture... our architecture critic is wowed by the V&A's new east London outpost for 250,000 of its mind-boggling artefacts
Over a barrel Shortage of sugar shakes Cuba's rum industry
It is a crisis that would have sent a shiver down Ernest Hemingway’s drinking arm. Cuba’s communist government is struggling to process enough sugar to make the rum for his beloved mojitos and daiquiris.
Whiz up or wing it? Dips worth doing yourself and the ones to buy
Is it always better to make your own dips, or can I just buy them?
How a tiny village was engulfed by a mountain
It took a couple of minutes for 9m tonnes of rock to obliterate Blatten-but as glaciers melt, such disasters are more likely
Time warp Romance is beautifully drawn in a tale of two couples whose lives overlap, a century apart
Time is layered in Northern Irish writer David Park's latest novel.
