Ahead of next year’s presidential election, the U.S. Republican Party is busy selecting candidates. However, former President Donald Trump, the most likely candidate, did not participate in the TV debate to select the party’s presidential candidate . He was overwhelmingly number one in public opinion polls, but he argued that it was unfair for him to compete for the same seat as other candidates.
Of course, even in a TV debate without Trump, the topic was still Trump. Other candidates were busy paying attention to Trump’s ardent supporters, MAGA ( Make America Great Again). At the first TV debate held last month, when asked, ‘Would you support Trump if he were convicted and still nominated as a final candidate?’ six out of eight candidates expressed yes.
Indian entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the youngest candidate at 38 years old, said, “Former President Trump is the best president of the 21st century,” and even said, “If I become president, I will pardon Trump.” In the end, the two candidates who did not express their support for Trump were booed in the audience.
Trump was handed over to a criminal trial in March of this year on charges of giving money to silence a sexual scandal and covering it at company expenses. He was also indicted on charges including leaking classified White House documents, inciting the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 Georgia presidential election.
Although he is the first former or incumbent president to be criminally indicted and must campaign while undergoing four trials, he is far ahead of the competition thanks to the enthusiastic support of Magas. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a cool-headed assessment of his judicial risks within the party.
● Lee Jae-myung’s ‘first-and-after’ politics revealed as judicial riskWith about six months left before next year’s general election, Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung made a political comeback when his arrest warrant was dismissed. The court judged that there was a need to guarantee Representative Lee’s right to defense at this point and that there was no significant concern about destruction of evidence.
The Democratic Party is united around Representative Lee. With Representative Lee even taking on the image of a martyr for the Republic of Prosecutors, the Democratic Party is transforming into a perfect ‘Lee Jae-myeong Party’. The pro-Lee Jae-myung faction, whose position has become stronger, is cheering victory, emphasizing the ‘general election nomination paper with Lee Jae-myung’s seal’.
The prosecution’s unreasonable investigative practices and media play should be criticized in response to the dismissal of this arrest warrant. It is time to look back at the unilateral management of state affairs by President Yoon Seok-yeol and the ruling party, who never visited the sit-in even though the leader of the main opposition party went on a hunger strike demanding reform in state administration.
However, there are many things to point out about CEO Lee’s actions so far, who gained wings due to the dismissal of the arrest warrant. He used his party for his own political survival and suppressed critical voices within the party through his strong support base. If this behavior continues, it is highly likely that the dismissal of the arrest warrant will be a misfortune for Representative Lee and the Democratic Party.
Representative Lee left his political hometown, Gyeonggi-do, two months after his presidential election defeat, ran for office in Gyeyang-eul, Incheon, a Democratic Party stronghold without any connections, and wore a gold badge. At the end of the election, even in Gyeyang-eul, he was chased by an unknown candidate from the People Power Party, and despite serving as the chairman of the local election general election committee, he focused on campaigning in his own district instead of national campaigning.
He brought out the ‘Gimpo Airport Relocation Pledge’, which was scrapped during the presidential election due to opposition from Seoul-area lawmakers, and used it in the election in his own district. This contributed to the destruction of the Democratic Party candidate in the Seoul area in the local elections. The party suffered a crushing defeat, but he survived. Undaunted by the blame for his defeat in the local elections, he ran again at the national convention a month later.
When he became the party leader, he cleverly used the Democratic Party as a ‘Lee Jae-myeong Party’. He even revised the party constitution and regulations and prepared a ‘self-defense device’ so that he could maintain his position as party leader even if he was indicted on corruption charges. The Innovation Committee, which Representative Lee formed to prepare for next year’s general election, abandoned fundamental party reform and brought up a plan to abolish the representative system for party leader elections, which was demanded by ‘pro-Lee Jae-myeong’ members and hard-core supporters ‘dog daughters’. (They left only controversy behind… Refer to the ‘Democratic Party Innovation Committee’ section, where dissolution is reform) In
June of this year, Representative Lee, who declared ‘giving up the privilege of non-arrest’ in the representative speech of the National Assembly negotiating group, publicly called for the rejection of the arrest motion a day before the vote. I changed my words. If Representative Lee had appealed for approval as originally promised, he could have gained trust as a politician who keeps his promises and also reduced chronic factional conflicts within the party. However, he showed an attitude that no matter what happens to the party, he will live for himself.
In fact, Representative Lee’s move to become a former and later party was predicted long ago. Representative Lee has been adept at using the party for his own benefit since his early days in politics.
Representative Lee served as deputy spokesperson for the Democratic Party from 2008 to 2010. If you look at the party’s website, you can see 22 comments made under the real name of Deputy Spokesperson Lee Jae-myeong at the time. Among Representative Lee’s comments, opposition to the 2nd Lotte World was the largest with six. He said that for the construction of the second Lotte World, Seoul Airport in Seongnam City had to be relocated or a new runway had to be built, which was an issue that was strongly opposed by the Seongnam region.
At the time, there were three comments opposing the integration of Seongnam, Hanam, and Gwangju, which was promoted by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, which was the second largest number. Representative Lee, who suffered hardships in the 2006 Seongnam mayoral election, was extremely opposed to regional integration as the party’s deputy spokesperson, and ultimately the integration was aborted. Representative Lee, who maintained his position as mayor of Seongnam as deputy spokesperson, ran for the mayoral election in Seongnam the following year and was elected.
Usually, a party’s deputy spokesperson plays the role of writing necessary commentary from the party’s perspective, focusing on issues or pending issues that the leadership cannot take care of. Regardless of his or her ruling or opposition party, he or she rarely writes comments directly that involve the interests of his or her constituency. A Democratic Party official who was familiar with the situation at the time recalled, “When he was deputy spokesperson, Representative Lee seemed to focus more on comments about his own constituency than the comments the party wanted,” and “He was definitely different from ordinary deputy spokespersons.”
● Maga and the Dog, the evils of extreme fandomThe political actions of Lee, who calls himself a frontier general, are similar in many ways to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was an outsider in mainstream American politics.
Trump has used his social media presence to galvanize his supporters during each of his political crises. He does not hesitate to criticize prosecutors or specific judges who are critical of him. In the face of Maga fandom politics, Republican lawmakers are increasingly refraining from publicly criticizing Trump.
Last December, the Democratic Party’s Public Relations Department produced a web newsletter containing the real names of 16 prosecutors investigating Representative Lee and distributed it on social media. During the process of being summoned by the prosecution, Representative Lee posted a post on Facebook stating the time and location of his attendance along with the phrase, “I will stand up to you proudly,” effectively issuing an “order to mobilize my sons and daughters.”
A search was made for the lawmakers who voted for the arrest motion, focusing on the daughter-in-law, and some lawmakers had to release photos of themselves as negative votes taken during the vote on the arrest motion, which was held anonymously, and stage a skit on social media claiming their innocence. .
● Lee Jae-myung’s arrest warrant dismissed, this is not the time to cheerThe book ‘How Democracy Collapses’, a bestseller in the field of American politics, emphasizes that in order to prevent extremists and agitators in a democratic society, political elite groups and political parties must act as gatekeepers of democracy. But unfortunately, the Democratic Party, which has been taken over by the dog-daughters, has long since lost its function.
Now, paradoxically, the credit goes to Representative Lee. Representative Lee said in an interview immediately after his arrest warrant was rejected, “I hope that we will now return to the true meaning of politics, where we compete to see who can properly play a greater role for the people and the country, rather than a war where we kill and eliminate the스포츠토토 opponent.”
Although this is a statement directed at the government and the ruling party, it is also something that Representative Lee himself must realize. The public’s fatigue is reaching its peak as they watch the political chaos that has occurred since the last presidential election due to what Representative Lee has done.
Already, the strong pro-Myeong faction is considering the vote to pass the arrest motion as a ‘relevant act’ and is even fiddling with the disciplinary card. In a situation where the floor leader and supreme committee members are all pro-Myung, and the tens of thousands of newly joined party members are also strong supporters of Representative Lee, the phenomenon of Lee Jae-myung becoming stronger.
For Representative Lee, the time to choose has now come. Will he strengthen his position through extreme party affiliation, but take a path that distances him from winning the general election? Or will he stop the open hunt for non-partisans and restore the identity of the Democratic Party by restoring democracy within the party? The last opportunity has come to Representative Lee to abandon the ‘first and then later party’ and to grow into a national leader rather than a father to a daughter through ‘first and later party’.