Trump’s Proxy Play in North Carolina Shows How Princes Outlive Their Offices

A sitting congressman wins his party’s primary in March, then in August abandons his re‑election run. Into that hole steps a new Republican nominee, Jennifer Balkcom. Onto her, almost at once, descends the benediction of a former president: on his own platform he calls it his “Great Honor” to endorse her, praises her as an “America First Patriot,” and ties her openly to the “wonderful people” of North Carolina’s 11th District. She replies that she is “incredibly grateful” and “proud to stand and fight for the people of Western North Carolina.” You call this a campaign story. I call it a lesson in how a prince survives through other bodies.

When I wrote in The Prince that one must follow “the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it,” in W. K. Marriott’s translation, I meant exactly this kind of scene. By imagination, one might say: this is simple party routine, a leader helping a loyal nominee. By effectual truth, we must ask instead: whose power is being maintained, with what instruments, and at whose expense? A leader’s first duty is to maintain his position. Once a man has been president, his position is no longer only an office; it is a claim to speak for a people, and such a claim must be fed or it withers.

Trump’s incentive is plain. He cannot permit important contests in his former camp to unfold without his mark, for that would teach friend and foe alike that events can proceed without him. So when Chuck Edwards ends his re‑election bid after winning the primary, a vacuum appears. The party will fill it somehow; the question is whether it is filled under Trump’s sign or another’s. By moving quickly to embrace Balkcom as an “America First” figure, he converts a local succession problem into a referendum on his continuing centrality. A prince who does not intrude on vacancies loses them to other hands.

Here appearances are not decoration; they are an arm. Most people judge by the eyes, not the hands. The endorsement is made not as a whispered instruction but as a spectacle on his preferred platform, Truth Social. The phrases are chosen to bind three images together: Trump himself, Balkcom, and the people of “Western North Carolina” still “rebuilding…after Helene,” as she puts it. The message is that he remains the fountain from which help and recognition flow. Whether he truly can deliver “real results for our communities” matters less in the short term than that candidates believe they must seek those results under his banner.

Balkcom, however, is not merely the object of this move; she is also its test. A new nominee is like a new captain taking over a battered company. She declares herself ready to “stand and fight,” but in politics no one fights empty‑handed. Endorsements like this are arms: they bring money, volunteers, attention, and fear in the hearts of rivals who hesitate to cross both the candidate and her patron at once. In The Prince I distinguished between one’s own arms and auxiliaries; here, Trump lends his as a kind of auxiliary force. If she triumphs, it shows his artillery still fires; if she fails, it shows his cannon misfires or his powder is damp.

Notice also the timing. Edwards’s withdrawal on August 5 creates what I called occasione: the occasion that fortune offers. Many politicians possess appetite but not the swiftness of hand to exploit such openings; many possess skill but cannot find the river when it floods. Trump has both the habit of swift declaration and a standing narrative — “America First,” himself as champion of neglected regions — ready to pour into any vacant channel. He does not wait for a long deliberation in party councils; he defines the succession before others can frame it. In this sense he behaves as the fox, anticipating snares, and as the lion, making rivals think twice about laying them.

The republic, for its part, should read these maneuvers without either panic or naiveté. Endorsements are not crimes; they are instruments through which leaders attempt to extend their dominion over free institutions that, in theory, belong to the people. In the Discourses I argued that a people, given proper orders and the chance to correct its mistakes, is often more constant than any prince. The citizens of North Carolina’s 11th District will decide whether Balkcom’s gratitude and Trump’s “Great Honor” serve their concrete interests. If they reward this proxy rule without demanding accountability, they will teach every future prince to govern them at a distance through clients. In a corrupt people, proxies grow where tribunes ought to stand.

The best objection to my reading is that perhaps this is all more improvisation than design — that a man accustomed to constant speech simply blesses any ally who asks. This is possible; fortuna can make even cunning moves look like accidents. Yet in politics, repeated improvisations in the same direction amount to a strategy. Trump again chooses to occupy the empty space personally, to stamp the new candidate with his exact language, to make her victory or defeat a commentary on his own strength. Whether this proves skilful will depend not on this Truth Social post, but on whether Balkcom, with these borrowed arms, can win and then act without becoming only another biography of opportunity wasted.

A prince playing for durable glory must ask what remains after the spectacle fades and the vote is counted; on that question in this case, I still lack the necessary facts.