US Election 2020 | Like in 2016, can Donald Trump win playing the victim card?

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That return began with the last of the debates of this election cycle, one the Democratic challenger and former Vice-President Joe Biden blew, but more importantly, there is the ghost of 2016 that is making a second appearance. For those with short memories, it was in late October that revelations about a Federal Bureau of Investigation into Hillary Clinton’s acid washed and hammered smartphones caused enough doubt for the voters and helped Trump claim the Oval Office.

Four years later, there’s what Trump describes as the “laptop from hell”. In this case, the device that Biden’s son Hunter left with a repair shop, from where it mysteriously wound itself to the FBI, which is now investigating its contents. Among the allegations are those of kickbacks and other assorted chicanery with dubious associations with Moscow’s mayor, a Ukrainian oligarch, even a Chinese energy company. The reality is that there is plenty of smoke, but much of it may well have been dispersed if the allegations had been critically appraised by US’ mainstream media or allowed to be demolished on social networks.

Instead, the news networks and major dailies have ignored the ‘revelations’ as if they were radioactive, while some have taken to trying to paint them as disinformation. Twitter and Facebook went further by censoring an article by the New York Post that first broke the story. Twitter just apologised for that move, after 14 days of locking the Post, a New York tabloid, out of its account, and after CEO Jack Dorsey’s roasting at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

All of this has enabled Trump to define these developments as evidence of his battle against the “fake news” and “Big Tech giants”, a repeated theme of his rallies in swing states in the last days of the campaign. It has also given him the leeway to peremptorily and in his bombastic style describe Biden as “corrupt”, possibly the politest of the observations about the former VP that he has made.

Just as in 2016, his supporters have responded and packed the rallies in their thousands, with chants of “Lock Him Up” and “Where’s Hunter?”, reminiscent of the manner in which Clinton was reviled earlier.

The fact that the media, which could have scrutinised the allegations and cast them in their true light, chose to avoid their very mention, has provided enough oxygen to revive Trump, as he has returned to the familiar shtick of playing the victim of the “Washington swamp”, even after four years of being President.

In the absence of major television networks looking at the Biden controversy and fairly analysing and reporting on its elements, pro-Trump cable hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity of Fox News have gone ballistic in their assertions of corruption, and without competition for the hottest story at this time, racked up historic viewership figures, thereby crafting their own tale out of thin material and ensuring the story reaches an even bigger audience than it would have otherwise. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, but the virality of pathogens grows without such exposure.

In normal times, Trump may have easily been toast on November 3 as the results streamed in. That may very well still be the result as polls indicate his chances of being re-elected are slender. But helped by blockbuster economic numbers and fattening up the slimmest of threads to attack Biden with, have caused a degree of uncertainty to enter the process, and may lead to many wondering whether he actually has a chance. That’s still very doubtful but he question for those quaking on November 3 night could well be: Trick or Treat?

Anirudh Bhattacharyya, a Toronto-based columnist and commentator on North American issues, has covered US Presidential elections since 2004. Twitter: @anirudhb. Views are personal.