Trump Touts Poll Showing ‘Revenge’ as His Top Theme for Second Term

Former President Donald Trump prepares to testify during his fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City, on Nov. 6, 2023. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump has touted a poll showing that voters believe “revenge” would be the top theme of a potential second Trump term in the White House, as he faces numerous civil and criminal cases that he has denounced as the work of political foes trying to hamstring his presidential campaign.

President Trump on Tuesday shared on Truth Social the results of a poll commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail, which asked 1,000 probable voters to describe in a single word what a second Trump term would be like.

“Revenge,” was the top response, according to the poll, the results of which were summarized in a word cloud President Trump shared on social media.

“Power,” was the second most popular response, followed by “economy,” “dictatorship,” and “America.”

Trump’s ‘Revenge’ vs. Biden’s ‘Nothing’

The finding that most likely voters think a second Trump term would be marked by a desire to exact vengeance comes as the former president faces numerous civil and criminal cases that he has denounced as politically-motivated attempts to thwart his White House run.

Not long ago, the notion that a former president—much less the frontrunner by far for the Republican presidential nomination and the incumbent president’s main rival—would face major legal troubles that could land him in jail was almost inconceivable.

Yet that is now the reality confronting the former president, who faces 91 felony counts in four criminal cases in Washington, New York, Florida, and Georgia. If convicted, he could potentially be looking at years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and insisted that all the charges are part of a plot to upend his chances at a political victory in 2024.

President Trump has repeatedly accused his political foes of having “weaponized” the Justice Department against him in a bid to “rig” the 2024 election against him, while continuing to maintain that he was cheated out of a win in the 2020 presidential contest.

The former president has also threatened to use the levers of power to investigate his political opponents if he wins in 2024, which ties into the theme of “revenge,” as predicted in the poll.

By contrast, President Joe Biden’s potential second term in office was most commonly characterized by the word “nothing.”

Other popular picks for the top theme for a second Biden term were “economy” and “peace.”

President Joe Biden walks to the South Lawn before boarding Marine One and departing the White House in Washington, on Dec. 05, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

While President Trump has teased the possibility of getting back at those who he believes are baselessly trying to use lawfare to undermine his presidential run, he has called attempts to paint him as a “dictator” as just the latest “hoax” and “Democrat disinformation.”

‘Could Certainly Happen in Reverse’

In October, President Trump said he might push the Justice Department to investigate his political opponents if he wins in 2024, suggesting that the various indictments he’s been hit with have released the retaliation “genie out of the box.”

He made the remarks in an interview on Univision in response to a question posed by the reporter, who asked: “You say they’ve weaponized the Justice Department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re reelected?”

“Well, he’s unleashed something that everybody, we’ve all known about this for a hundred years,” President Trump said, presumably referring to President Biden and his administration.

President Trump claimed in the interview that prosecutors have “done indictments in order to win an election,” accusing the Biden administration of breaking with the precedent of not targeting political rivals with investigations and indictments.

“We’ve watched other countries do it and, in some cases, effective and in other cases, the country’s overthrown or it’s been totally ineffective,” the former president said.

“But we’ve watched this for a long time, and it’s not unique, but it’s unique for the United States. Yeah. If they do this and they’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” he continued.

“It could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box,” President Trump added.

Meanwhile, a number of media outlets recently ran a round of alarmist pieces warning against a Trump dictatorship, a claim that the Biden campaign signal boosted.

For instance, The Washington Post ran an article on Dec. 4 headlined, “The Fear of a Looming Trump Dictatorship,” while Salon’s Dec. 5 piece was titled, “Americans Are Sleepwalking into a Trump Dictatorship.”

In a speech at the New York Young Republican Club’s 111th Annual Gala on Dec. 9, President Trump dismissed warnings that his potential victory in 2024 represents a threat to democracy as a “hoax” and “Democrat misinformation.”

“Can you believe it? This is their new line, you know,” President Trump said. “Here we go again—‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ ‘Mueller, Mueller, Mueller,’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.’ One hoax after another,” he said.

“But no, I’m not a threat. I will save democracy. The threat is Crooked Joe Biden,” President Trump said. “And that’s what it is, it’s a hoax. We call it now the threat-to-democracy hoax, because that’s what it is.”