Trump’s Defeat Is Not a Foregone Conclusion
Donald Trump’s indictments are piling up. But it’s complacent to think he can’t win again.

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Windham, New Hampshire, on August 8, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier this month, former president Donald Trump addressed a crowd in Windham, New Hampshire. Unsurprisingly, Trump spent some of his time blasting various prosecutors for indicting him and repeated his familiar line that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen.” He also set aside a few minutes for boutique right-wing culture war issues, promising “a new executive order” to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory and pledging to ban Veterans Affairs from paying for gender reassignment surgeries.
Much of the speech, however, was essentially a rehashing of his 2016 campaign’s favorite themes. Absent a few topical references, in fact, large swathes could have been lifted straight from a Trump rally seven years ago. Attacking Republican opponents like Florida governor Ron DeSantis for wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, Trump struck his old nationalist posture on trade and promised to introduce a new tariff on foreign-made goods. He fearmongered about illegal immigration from Mexico and made vague noises about preventing World War III.
Peppering his speech with allusions to alleged Biden family corruption, Trump closed with a rallying cry that sounded uncannily like his improbably successful 2016 message: