What do Trump rallies mean in a post-Trump era?

Over the weekend former President Donald Trump held a Save America rally in Ohio. This comes with Trump’s first major move to an alt tech platform called Rumble.

Notice that the title card does not say “former” President Donald J Trump, but that it just reads “President”. The rally itself was “high energy” and drew a sizeable crowd considering he’s not currently the president. The event however was very reminiscent of the exact type of rally that Trump was having during his presidency.

Trump has certainly found a sweet spot in the space that he occupies in that it is a fusion of a rockstar, a stand-up comedian, and a political icon. It’s been a long time in America that someone has been able to draw such crowds just for a rally or speech on some sort of social topic. America has an interesting tradition in the great orators being politically bent, we usually think of them in a Presidential fashion, but there have also been people that rally around social issues like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Billy Sunday. Trump, however, no longer being president, has found a space in which he can still rally socially although it’s extremely similar to his presidency.

Trump, many years ago, reached the level of a cult of personality, but we seem to be getting to a point where the social timelines are fracturing around his Giga-sized persona. Currently, in America, we are being subject to this Arizona audit that is happening with whispers of corruption in the government with accusations that Trump had the election stolen from him leaving half the country believing that he is the true president. With him doing these rallies he’s very much socially resuming the presidential role, blurring the lines of what the president is and what the president isn’t. We have also seen him do something like this when he created the Office of Donald J. Trump which was headed with a seal that was very similar to that of the Presidential Seal.

We have this juxtaposed with the official Biden presidency, the two sides adamantly believing the other is wrong creating this sort of Hegelian dialectic. An interesting dichotomy with Biden at the official position in the White House while Trump on the other hand is assuming a similar role to his fan base but from his own space at Mar-a-Lago.

When you see what is happening in America and pull back from a zoomed-in view attempting to observe what is happening from a more macroscopic level it seems like this is very orchestrated. This is very “American” in that we seem to be observing this “Ordo ab Chao” play out before our eyes. It’s questionable that Trump holding rallies like this could lead to more conflict between the opposing factions in America especially if he is seen to be assuming his former presidential role further socially dividing the country as each side makes their line in the sand. On one level Trump holding these rallies could be seen as dangerous and extremely divisive. On another level, it’s just another testament to American politics being more like a Shakespearan reality TV show in which it has been weaponized as a sort of propaganda against the American people. A Hegelian dialectic playing out pitting the two sides against each other in this controlled way that will lead to a new synthesis of a more stable outcome. If this is true it would assume that Trump has some sort of remnant connection to the intelligence community which would likely implicate something to do with Space Force, but that is something that is yet to be seen.

Perhaps from a foreign perspective, this is the common understanding of American politics. That it means less to the world than it does to us here in the states. That it truly is like a reality TV show that we seem to get caught up in as if it was some sort of Red vs Blue team sport. Although what Trump is doing could lead to more divisiveness among Americans it seems to be something that is more tightly controlled socially than what it might appear from a surface-level observation. What is more interesting is how the Biden administration will exercise foreign policy in the coming months and years and how other nations will respond to that action. Although our government might be able to keep a lid on the controlled chaos that may come to a head in America, how other countries respond to a more war-like stance from the presidential administration is yet to be determined. Ultimately Trump has less of an effect in this regard when it comes to foreign relations, and it’s in foreign relations where the action taking place in the time ahead will matter most.