Louisiana Attack: Donald Trump’s Political Exploitation

The car-ramming attack on a busy street in New Orleans risks exacerbating the already tense political climate in the United States. The future Republican president could take advantage of it to impose a more authoritarian style in Washington.

Horror on New Year’s Eve on a pedestrian street in New Orleans. Bourbon Street, a very popular area for jazz and festivities, has given a nightmarish start to 2025. A vehicle-ramming attack claimed 14 lives and many more were injured. It was reminiscent of the attack in Nice in 2016 and, more recently, one at the Magdeburg Christmas market.

The tragedy will undoubtedly make the Jan. 20 transition of power from Democratic President Joe Biden to Republican President Donald Trump all the more dramatic. The United States has been growing seriously more destabilized since the Mar-a-Lago billionaire’s victory in the November presidential election. The president-elect has put together a cabinet that has baffled most experts, for whom competence remains a necessary qualification for the job. The Republican president-elect immediately posted disinformation on social networks suggesting that the alleged New Orleans attacker was an immigrant.

But he was born in Texas and served eight years in the U.S. Army, where he was decorated for bravery in the fight against terrorism, particularly in Afghanistan. The New Year’s Day explosion of a Tesla cybertruck, built by Elon Musk’s company, in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas can hardly be seen as a coincidence. The explosion highlights the risk of political violence that could characterize the second Trump administration.

2 Weakened Democracies

The terrorist attack in New Orleans, whose presumed perpetrator pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, raises questions about the new threat the jihadi group could pose in the West and the United States. The power vacuum left by the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria could reinvigorate Ithe Islamic State group, which has far from disappeared. Across the Atlantic, several of its affiliates were arrested in 2024.

The Bourbon Street attack, as well as the one in Magdeburg in December, took place in two weakened democracies. A new wave of terrorism could weaken these countries even further. In any case, people have already exploited the New Orleans attack for political purposes. By denouncing justice system incompetence and corruption, Trump is laying the foundation for an authoritarian takeover of power in Washington.

Finally, there remains a troubling aspect. The drivers of Bourbon Street and the Cybertruck were both former military personnel. Should this be seen as a coincidence? The phenomenon of radicalization (Islamist or far-right) of veterans is of great concern to the U.S. authorities. Their reintegration into civilian life appears increasingly complicated. Several dozen of them participated in the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 …