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Donald Trump Jr stood on the flatbed of an 18-wheel truck at rodeo grounds in Williams, Arizona, and made his fathers re-election pitch to a seemingly unlikely audience: Native Americans.

The US presidents campaign claims he has been the fiercest ally of the Native American community. Don Jr was here on 15 October to launch the Native Americans for Trump coalition drawn from the Navajo, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Lumbee, Zuni and White Mountain Apache tribes.

But Don Jr, 42, had also come to bash Democrats. They pander, he said, according to the Arizona Daily Sun newspaper. They tell you everything you want to hear and do exactly the opposite. They lie to you for years you guys understand that better than everyone.

It was one of numerous campaign stops for Trumps eldest son, seen by many as the heir apparent to the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement. Like his father, Don Jr delivers fiery populist speeches, tweets conspiracy theories and, above all, relishes goading, shocking and outraging liberals on air and online. Like his father, he has come to personify modern Republicanism.

And as Trump continues to trail his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, in the polls, attention has turned to who may take up his mantle after November.

Trumpism replaced conservatism as the ideological underpinning of the Republican party and, because of that, they dont really fight about issues any more, said Rick Wilson, a longtime Republican strategist co-founder of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.

They fight about affect and whether or not theyre winning these ephemeral social media battles and, in that world, the highest order goal is the owning of the libs. It is a throwaway phrase substituting the validity or strength of an argument with a sort of self-satisfaction that you have been transgressive in some way towards liberals or progressives.

Wilson added: Donald Trump Jr is a master of that. He is a post-Republican Republican. He is there only to engage in that performative dickery that is lib owning in the Trump world. It is a political performance art to show your contempt for norms, institutions and education.

It has become the ideological underpinning of the GOP [Grand Old Party, or Republican party]. Theres no party of ideas any longer. Theres no there there except for sort of the screeching fury of Trumpism.

After spending some years finding his path, including a stint as a ski bum, Don Jr has followed in his fathers footsteps. He is a graduate of his fathers alma mater, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and went into the family business. He is now an executive vice-president at the Trump Organization and a leading campaign surrogate for the president.

Now, Don Jr, whose father worried about naming his son after himself in case he turned out to be a loser, is adept at throwing red meat to the base, sometimes with greater discipline and precision than his father. He has written books entitled Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, and the self-published Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats Defense of the Indefensible.

His girlfriend, the former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, often joins him at rallies and virtual fundraisers. She delivered a memorably raucous speech to an empty room at this years Republican national convention, culminating in the stentorian battle cry: The best is yet to come!

When a SurveyMonkey poll for Axios in January asked who Republicans would consider voting for in 2024, Don Jr was second only to Vice-President Mike Pence (Ivanka Trump, who had been considered for the role of her fathers running mate in 2016, came fourth).

Asked if he is considering running for political office during an interview last month on CSpans Books TV, Don Jr replied: People have been doing that after the RNC [Republican national convention], Its Don Jr versus Nikki Haley for 2024! I go, Oh, thats interesting, I didnt even know I was running.

He added: Whether Im going to run or not, I have no plans on it right now. My goal is 2020. Well worry about everything after that but I will stay involved, one way or another, thats for sure.

Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies and Running Against the Devil, argues that Don Jr speaks fluent Maga and is in fact the frontrunner.

What I tell all these Republicans who think theyre going to run in 24 for president Ben Sasse and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz is theyre not going anywhere, he said. They should stop right now, theyre wasting their time and everyone elses, because the nominee in 2024 is going to be Donald Trump Jr. He will come in, he will have his fathers endorsement and he will promise great feats of lib ownership.

Leading exponents of owning the libs including Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, a non-profit that wages culture wars at schools and universities, and Candace Owens, founder of the Blexit organisation which urges Black people to desert the Democratic party and a sense of permanent victimhood.

Their social media point-scoring is symptomatic of an age of negative partisanship in which many voters support is motivated more by loathing for the other side than belief in their own. Some Democrats have also acknowledged that their enthusiasm for this years election is about voting against Trump than voting for Joe Biden, a 77-year-old white moderate making his third run for the White House.

Conversely, when Don Jr and his father bash Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden at campaign rallies, they generate louder reactions from the crowd than when they set out agenda items or achievements. Don Jrs Twitter feed offers his 5.8 million followers little by way of policy but a torrent of Democrat-baiting and conspiracy theories.

In May he posted on Instagram a meme that falsely insinuated Biden is a paedophile, later insisting that he had merely been joking around, though the disinformation has made its way into the minds of voters.

His current pinned tweet is a video that asserts, without evidence, that: The Biden family has spent decades in Washington DC enriching themselves by selling access to Joe Bidens taxpayer funded office. Hunter Biden is corrupt. Jim Biden is corrupt. Joe Biden is corrupt.

Critics say this invective is filling a vacuum where ideology used to be. David Litt, a former speechwriter for Obama, asked: What does the Republican party under Trump stand for? They dont stand for small deficits. They dont stand for the rule of law. They dont stand for exporting democracy around the world. So they really stand for making Democrats upset.

The one way you can be sure that youre a member of the Trump- era conservative movement is that respectable liberals are either scared or appalled or both by some of the things you said. So it becomes this kind of identity politics where the identity is based not on who you are but on who you arent and who you make upset.

Litt, author of Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years and Democracy In One Book or Less, added: I think Donald Trump Jr is a perfect example of this because he is a white, straight male who is set to inherit hundreds of millions or billions as long as the tax situation works out and, despite all of that, he seems quite certain that hes persecuted.

I think that idea of saying the real civil rights movement is the fight for Republican billionaires to be able to do whatever they want has become this strange core tenet of the Trump-era Republican party.

But Don Jrs fate could be decided on 3 November. If, as polls suggest, his father suffers a humiliating defeat, he could be thrust into a battle for the future of the Republican party with senators, governors and other political veterans.

Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama, said: It really all depends on the election. There are basically two scenarios. If his father loses, Don Jr and his father might use all those Twitter followers to form some sort of rightwing media empire. If his father wins then Don Jr is going to be front and centre.

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'Owning the libs': how Donald Trump Jr became the unlikely political heir apparent - The Guardian