2 weeks Ago
Donald Trump has declared his presidential triumph the greatest political come- back in history. However, you have to have been away to make a comeback, and the soon-to-be 47th US president has not been away – his constant presence has eclipsed all others on the political stage since 2020. Surviving two assassination attempts also conferred the bragging rights of a latter-day Lazarus.
Pollsters and the press were in agreement it would be a close-run thing, but Trump’s total faith in himself and his appeal never faltered. They say you should campaign in prose and govern in poetry, but Trump has “gangsta-rapped” his way to the White House, holding 900 rallies along the way. He turned his 34 convictions and felon status into an outsider’s badge of honour.
His remarkable winning of the popular vote makes him the first Republican to do so since George W Bush in 2004. The most begrudging Democrat will have to admit it was a bravura performance by the oldest man ever to be elected, The emphatic result gives Republicans a degree of control even the most optimistic among them can scarcely have dared to dream of. But Democrats will have much to beat themselves up about.
Allowing Joe Biden to be their standard bearer when he obviously no longer had the capacity for the rigours of the role was indefensible. It was simply too steep a climb to the top of Capitol Hill for Kamala Harris to achieve in only 100 days. While Trump and his backers zoned in on inflation and immigration, Harris’s team put too much focus on his fitness for office.
It turns out putting a “bogeyman” in the White House was not keeping Americans awake at night. But the price of a basket of groceries was, and that should not have been a surprise in a country where a box of cereal now costs $9 (€8.40).
The struggle to survive was more of an issue than the many moral failings of an irredeemable maverick. Trump made it impossible to engage on issues. His “weave” made throwing a policy punch futile and landing one impossible.
If world leaders’ congratulations sounded forced through gritted teeth, it is because they were. Trepidation about his commitments to pile on tariffs, pull US funding to Ukraine and give Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand in his Middle East war runs deep. Giving the cold shoulder to Nato and denying climate change in a ruthless America First agenda is dangerous.
One suspects fantasies like making inflation disappear and throwing 11 million “criminal migrants” out of the US overnight will be tempered by reality. Trump’s critics will also be hoping that between the restraints of his handlers, love of golf and low boredom threshold, he will not be in the Oval Office often enough to wreak half the havoc he has threatened. As for his retribution pledge, he would do well to heed Frank Sinatra’s advice: “The best revenge is massive success.
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