Oh how Donald Trump has fallen | Cas Mudde

Just a few months ago, it was received wisdom that the Republican nomination was his for the taking. Now, that's not the case

He is running! In the least surprising news of the year, a low-energy Donald Trump announced that he is running for president again last night. The speech itself was also predictable, hitting the traditional authoritarian and nativist favorites. We heard about the invasion" at the border and radical Democrats" in the White House, all spiced up with the usual combination of self-complimenting anecdotes and self-serving lies that we have come to expect from the former president.

What was much more interesting was the almost complete absence of prominent Republicans in Mar-a-Lago and even the lukewarm interest of the US media. At various channels, journalists were analyzing" Trump's run while the former president was giving his speech on mute in the background. Even Fox News's Sean Hannity cut into the speech after a little over half an hour.