Washington Donald Trump ought to be watching someone else be sworn in on Monday instead of taking the oath himself, according to two centuries of political experience.
After leading a disastrous attempt to stay in office in spite of his loss in the 2020 election, he resigned. Later, in a criminal case in New York involving hush money payments to a porn star prior to the 2016 election, he was indicted four times and found guilty of thirty-four felony counts.
When he declared three years ago that he would run for president again, the New York Post, which is usually supportive, discounted his most recent attempt with the corny headline, “Florida Man Makes Announcement.” The item appeared on page 26.
That was back then.
The 78-year-old Trump will finish his unlikely comeback at lunchtime, making him the first former president since Glover Cleveland in 1893 to lose reelection and win reelection four years later.
The fact that he is receiving a second term and a second opportunity is evidence of his unique combination of political savvy and tenacity, as well as the extreme polarization of the country. Even when other Republicans had had enough of him, his supporters remained steadfast.
Trump took advantage of supporters’ dissatisfaction with exorbitant costs to convince them that he, the multibillionaire celebrity with the private plane and lavish mansions, was the only candidate who would remember them when he came back to power.
In addition to winning the popular vote, he swept all seven swing states. He ran on a platform of defying convention, breaking rules, and upending a federal bureaucracy that seemed disconnected from the everyday problems of Americans—qualities that many Democrats found so offensive.
Millions of voters were looking for someone who would not play nice, and they found their impolitic champion in the frequently aggressive, profane Trump.
According to Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, Trump’s popularity has persisted because the Republican base still prefers a fighter in that position. It would have been expected that the Republican Party would have severed its connection with Trump. However, he was able to secure a second term by mobilizing the base and staying aware of where the majority of devoted Republicans were.
There was also the factor of luck. At a campaign rally last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania, an assassin’s bullet did not pierce his skull, but instead injured his ear when he twisted his head to look at a chart at the perfect moment.
Both the 2016 and 24 elections saw little opposition to Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris had only four months to put up a strong campaign after President Joe Biden, who was elderly and ailing, abruptly withdrew from the race in July.
According to Republican pollster Whit Ayres, Trump might be the luckiest politician in my life. The man is simply really fortunate!
Trump will have a lot of political capital when he takes office, which he may use whatever he pleases. Though by narrow margins, his party is in charge of both the House and the Senate. Trump gave House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, his job. Many Republican politicians who were awarded Trump’s prized endorsement also feel this way.
With Biden’s approval rating wallowing in the 30s and his historical record soiled by his party’s crushing defeat, Democrats are in a state of sorrow and confusion.
According to Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis, “we became a party that is out of touch that listens and talks to elites.” We will continue to have political backlash unless we truly listen to middle-class and working-class Americans about their difficulties, concentrate on everyday concerns, and begin discussing those issues in a regular manner.
Trump filled the power void in the interim following the election on November 5 by making statements from his resort on the beach in Palm Beach, Florida, after Biden resigned.
He declared his desire for the United States to purchase Greenland.
Canada, too.
The Panama Canal, too.
Using the caps lock key on his social media account, he threatened that if the hostages held by Hamas were not freed, there would be hell to pay. He sent Steven Witkoff, his Middle East ambassador, to assist in negotiating the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was declared last week.
World leaders were once again in the position of figuring out what Trump truly meant and intended to accomplish while watching from foreign cities. Were his threats merely rhetorical or genuine? It became more urgent than ever to ask whether Trump should be considered seriously, literally, or both. Trump’s proposal to declare Canada the 51st state was a joke, and a lousy one at that, according to a Canadian official.
In an interview, the official stated, “We see this as positioning.” As a businessman and negotiator, President-elect Trump has connected many of the dangers to issues along the border that he wants to see resolved.
We’re not going to be the 51st state. The official went on, “That’s a nonstarter.” This was once thought to be a joke. We no longer find it really amusing. The joke is no longer relevant.
When the 45th president becomes the 47th, the most difficult part starts at noon. Trump set a high standard for himself by promising numerous reforms right first.
Trump stated in an interview with Kristen Welker, anchor of NBC News Meet the Press, on Saturday that he would sign a record-breaking amount of executive actions as soon as he became office.
He has promised to deport a large number of illegal immigrants from the United States. He promised to stop the conflict between Russia and Ukraine at least 24 hours after taking office.
Trump responded, “Absolutely,” when Welker questioned him last month about his intention to terminate birthright citizenship on his first day in office.
This won’t be simple. According to people close to the Ukrainian administration, Trump’s foreign policy team has not yet presented a peace proposal to the country’s leadership, NBC News said.
According to legal experts, birthright citizenship is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment and cannot be revoked by legislation or presidential order.
Naturally, terminating birthright citizenship through an executive order or a congressional act is illegal, according to Harvard University constitutional law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe. That significant change in our country’s legal and political structure could only be made by a constitutional amendment that modifies the wording of the 14th Amendment.
Ultimately, cutting costs might be Trump’s most significant political obstacle.With cumulative inflation exceeding 20% under Biden, as opposed to less than 8% during Trump’s first term, he was re-elected by an optimistic electorate.
Trump may encounter opposition in the 2026 midterm elections if he is unable to provide Americans with some respite at the grocery shop and the pump.
In an interview with Time magazine a few weeks after his win, Trump reset expectations by saying, “I’d like to bring them [grocery prices] down.” Once something is up, it’s difficult to take it down. You know, it’s really difficult.
Trump will have to face the consequences of the 2026 midterm elections. Democrats are optimistic that the elections will signal the beginning of their comeback. They will be able to block Trump’s legislative program and judicial nominations if they take back control of the House and Senate. They would also have the ability to subpoena documents, which would allow them to begin looking into Trump’s activities. The Republican National Committee is already planning for the next elections because of that possibility.
If we let Democrats seize back control of the House and the Senate, everything changes, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told members at the party s winter meeting on Friday. The extreme left will not hesitate to halt President Trump’s plans. They will resurrect the worst excesses of lawfare that we have dealt with for the last eight years.
We would see headlines about impeachment proceedings and useless Democrat political stunts, Whatley added. We cannot let that happen again.
Whatever happens, Trump has already carved a unique place in the long arc of America s experiment in self-government. Had he lost in November, his first term might have been perceived as a one-off, a reaction to the cautious centrism that his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, symbolized.
His return demonstrated that Trumpism was a genuine and powerful movement. Whether it endures when Trump finally leaves the stage is another question.
Let s face it. Donald Trump is sui generis, Ayres said. There s no one out there like him. No one with his mix of bravado, charisma, political instincts and entertainment value on the horizon in either party. It s hard to imagine Trumpism without Donald Trump.
Hard for Trump to imagine, either.At a campaign stopin Michigan toward the end of the race, he speculated about who might succeed him in 2028.
In four years, somebody will come down, and that person s going to be hot as a pistol, he said. And you know what? They re going to draw about 300 people.