How Trump’s unprecedented meddling in the Democrat nomination battle could transform the 2020 fight

Analysis: In attacking the Democratic contenders, Mr Trump may be elevating the very candidates he is hoping to delegitimise

Donald Trump's administration is increasingly attempting to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. (Getty)

This past week, Joe Biden was the inspiration for what was perhaps the busiest morning Donald Trump has ever had on Twitter.

Just before 6am, Mr Trump started his day with a harsh reaction to the endorsement of Mr Biden by the International Association of Fire Fighters. Retweeting a Fox News contributor, the president of the United States claimed he had personally done more for firefighters than any union.

He then spent roughly 20 minutes retweeting supporters who had a beef with firefighters generally, and with the former vice president especially — he hit that sucker a grand total of 60 times.

Veteran campaign strategists say that it is pretty odd behaviour for a sitting president to bother attacking hopefuls competing in the other party’s primary, even if Mr Trump has seemingly incorporated bashing Democrats into his official job description. But, they note, that the habit the president hopes will delegitimise his opposition could ultimately have unintended results.

“The reality is it is unusual. I don’t remember Barack Obama or George W Bush or any other president in recent memory who spent so much time and effort attacking his potential democratic opponents,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic campaign strategist, told The Independent.

Of course, Mr Trump repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primaries, saying the only tool she had to beat him was the "woman card". He attacked Bernie Sanders, too, calling the democratic socialist a "communist" to try and stir up Cold War-era fears around the populist senator. These days, though, it's Mr Trump's current job title that makes it different.

“I think that it’s very unusual,” Mr Bannon said.

But, while the president’s short temper when it comes to Mr Biden and other democrats in the 2020 primary field is pretty unusual — at least, when compared to more “traditional” presidents, that is —Mr Bannon and others also say it could actually have an upside for the very candidates that Mr Trump is trying to take down.

Far from hurting the likes of “sleepy” Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren (whose nickname from Mr Trump is less about her stamina and more a racist reference to Native Americans) or “crazy” Bernie Sanders, political strategists say the president may actually be putting a fire behind their technically-nascent campaigns.

“With at least 21 people in the race, at last count, every one of these strategists has got to be hoping that Trump will attack their candidate to give them a boost,” Jim Manley, another Democratic strategist who previously worked for former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, said.

“It really gives someone a boost to be attacked by a sitting president like that,” Mr Manley continued.

Put another way, the president is acting as his own sort of perverse king or queen maker in the 2020 democratic primary, and getting the president riled up to the point he gives a candidate a nickname is its own currency in a burgeoning field that frequently gets ridiculed for its size by late night comedians.

Mr Biden, for his part, seems to have sensed that Mr Trump attacking him is a pretty good sign. For the vice president, visibility may be less the desired impact than defining oneself as the leading opposition to the president.

“I understand the president’s been tweeting a lot about me this morning ... I wonder why the hell he’s doing that?“ Mr Biden said after the president’s Twitter storm.

He added to that: “I’m going to be the object of his attention for a while.”