In his farewell address to the American nation on the eve of the end of his term, outgoing President Donald Trump said, "As I prepare to hand over power to a new administration, I want you to know that the movement we started is still in its infancy."
This has led many commentators to speculate about the nature of the path Trump might take after leaving the White House.
Some believe that Trump will continue close to the Republican Party, becoming a "kingmaker" among its members in the House of Representatives, Senate and state governors.
While some analysts believe that Trump will devote himself to facing the accumulated legal challenges before him, especially the trial before the Senate, in addition to a number of cases filed before several courts in the states of New York, Florida and Washington, DC.
Speculation also indicates that Trump is considering establishing a right-wing news network that will pull the rug from under the feet of Fox among Republican viewers.
Aside from what Trump thinks about when he leaves the White House, his influence will certainly not disappear quickly.
He won 74 million Americans (47% of the vote), an estimated 11 million more votes than he achieved in the 2016 elections, despite being subjected to two-year investigations into Russian interference, and investigations aimed at isolating him that lasted for half a year against the backdrop of the Ukraine issue, and an unprecedented pandemic resulted. It resulted in the deaths of 400,000 Americans, and the injury of 24 million others by the end of his term.
With the disastrous end of Trump's presidential term, which witnessed his conviction in the House of Representatives after his supporters stormed the Capitol building;
Only 10 Republicans out of 213 - or only 4.7% - voted to convict Trump;
This is indicative of members' fear that Trump's anger will affect their political future.
Trump and the Republican Crisis
Since the 1960s, the Republican Party has encompassed various intellectual currents, which clearly crystallized with the passage of civil rights laws, which granted equal rights to blacks.
On top of these currents come the economic conservatives (with regard to taxes and the business sector), the social conservatives (those who strongly support the traditional family form and hostile to abortion), and the neoconservatives (those who pay for the use of force and foreign wars). The three currents agreed to reject the inflated role of the federal government.
The centrist Republicans associated with party institutions retained control of the party's compass leadership from the 1960s until 2008, and succeeded in containing the right-wing votes and pushing them to the margins.
Since the start of the rule of Barack Obama, the first black president in American history, which coincided with the largest economic crisis the United States faced before the start of the Corona pandemic;
A new right-wing movement is emerging within the Republican Party.
The economic crisis has left wide repercussions on large sectors of factory, mining and construction workers, and at the same time the fears of the lower classes of white Americans increased from the increase in immigration and the negative repercussions of globalization and the transfer of thousands of factories to China or Mexico.
The strength of the right-wing movement was demonstrated in the 2010 congressional elections, when members of the "Tea Party" group seized more than 80 seats in Congress, and gave the Republicans a majority of the House and Senate.
Trump's appearance on the Republican scene in 2015 came dependent on the grassroots of the party at the expense of the traditional Republican Party candidates and leaders, and he missed any challenge to Trump during the years of his rule, leading to the 2020 elections, in which no serious candidate competed with him for the Republican Party card.
Trump's absolute control of the Republicans
After thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, Republicans condemned the incident, and a limited number chose to blame President Trump for instigating the storming.
During Tuesday's Senate debate, Republican Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell noted that "the congressional storming was instigated by Trump and other powerful people."
Some understood McConnell's letter that Republicans want to turn the page on the outgoing president, and that it bore the wording of a threat to Trump to support the Democrats' efforts at trial.
But most Republican leaders do not agree with McConnell's position.
Senator Lindsey Graham confirmed - in an interview with Fox News yesterday, "It is unwise to try the outgoing President Trump before the Senate, as this will increase the division and may lead to the destruction of the Republican Party."
Senior Fox News broadcasters - such as Shane Hante and Tucker Carlson - launched a vicious attack on Senator McConnell's remarks, seeing his words as an attempt to destroy President Trump's record and legacy so that he would be banned from playing a political role in the future.
Who drives Trumpia?
The timing of Biden's inauguration as a new president comes as three-quarters of Trump's supporters continue to believe that the elections were stolen from them and rigged, and it took more than 25,000 American soldiers to secure the transfer of power, in light of President Trump's refusal to acknowledge his defeat in the presidential election, and Trump did not mention in his farewell speech. President Biden's name.
Trump said, "All Americans were horrified by the attack on the Capitol Building, in political violence that could not be tolerated. This was an attack on everything that Americans hold dear."
As soon as Trump leaves the White House, Republicans begin to search for a new leadership to rally around, and it is likely that there will be an ongoing and continuing "Trumpian current" among the right-wing Republicans in both houses of Congress.
Whether President Trump personally leads the Trump trend or competes for his leadership, one of the politicians who showed him great loyalty - such as Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, or Senator Josh Hawley from Mississippi - do not think that many of the commentators think that what Trump called for in terms of principles and policies will disappear from Republican agenda after Trump administration ends.