OPINION
Donald Trump’s convincing Iowa win in the Republican party primary election this week raised many questions for observers of American politics around the world. How can the former president remain so popular when he faces 91 felony charges and voters must remember his shambolic time in office, which made the United States a laughing stock on the world stage? What do the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020 continue to see in him that eludes most political commentators? And is the Trump phenomenon about him personally or an insight into a wider social and political trend in the US and possibly around the world?
To the dismay of US Democrats and even some Republicans, it has become clear that Trump is winning because of his legal troubles, not in spite of them. Most politicians would have been buried long ago by the avalanche of scandals that have come his way, but every fresh revelation only reinforces his supporters’ belief that their man is the victim of a smear campaign by the left-leaning, liberal establishment. Even Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination refuse to challenge his many false claims, most notably that the 2020 election was stolen from him - a bizarre projection of his own blatant attempts to overturn the result.
Polling suggests that less diehard Trump voters don’t totally buy into these myths but are happy to go along with them because Trump’s obsession with culture wars over normal political issues matches their own priorities. An Associated Press poll held just before the Iowa primary found most Republican voters were far more concerned about immigration than other economic issues which more directly affected their financial wellbeing and nine out of 10 supported building a wall on the Mexican border. Evangelical supporters have turned a blind eye to Trump’s personal misconduct because he has enabled them to roll back abortion law.