It was, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a message to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on November 6, “history’s greatest comeback.”
Netanyahu, the first world leader to congratulate Trump, may have been indulging in hyperbole, but he was not too far off the mark.
Trump’s triumph over Vice President Kamala Harris in yesterday’s presidential election in the United States was nothing less than a stunning victory over adversity.
Twice impeached, indicted on numerous felony counts, and the object of two assassination attempts, he was reelected against all odds as America turned sharply to the right in an election that reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible,” said Trump, adding he would assume office in January with an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
He was bent on winning. After a shooter almost killed him last July during a campaign rally, he shouted “fight, fight, fight,” streaks of blood on his face, as he was hustled away by Secret Service agents.
The iconic photograph of his close call with death was seared into the consciousness of tens of millions of Americans.
At 78, he is the oldest person ever to be elected president and the first former president since Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century to win a second non-consecutive term. Having been the 45th president, he is now poised to be the 47th president.
The Republican Party standard-bearer, he defeated Harris, his Democratic opponent, by a greater margin than was forecast and improved on his showing in the 2016 election.
Trump edged past Harris in key swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Early indications are that he prevailed among white, African American and Latino blue-collar workers and attracted more Jewish and Arab American voters than four years ago.
Americans were clearly ready for a drastic overhaul. They were upset with the soaring and often unaffordable cost of living, the unreasonably high price of housing, and the southern border crisis caused by a flood of illegal migration.
The majority of voters cast their ballots for Trump despite a tsunami of indictments levelled against him.
He was indicted by the federal government in connection with his role in attempting to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, which, he claimed without a shred of evidence, he had won, and in fomenting the unprecedented January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill.
Having refused to accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency, he cast himself as a victim of a crooked political system.
A narcissist and a braggart, he painted an exceedingly dark picture of America in decline, but promised to resurrect the “American Dream” and make “America great again.” He said he would revive the economy by means of tariffs, disentangle the U.S. from global conflicts, uproot subversive elements (the “enemy within”), and sharply curtail the right to abortion.
Harris, the second woman after Hillary Clinton to be defeated by Trump, replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate this past summer after Biden’s disastrous performance in a televised debate with Trump. Widely regarded as physically feeble and mentally diminished, Biden became a lame duck president.
Biden, however, compiled a list of accomplishments during his four years in office. He dragged the country out of the Covid-19 pandemic. He began to rebuild crumbling infrastructure. He passed important climate change legislation. He sent weapons and munitions to Ukraine to repel a Russian invasion in 2022.
But inflation, as expressed by fast rising food and housing prices, dealt Americans a heavy blow, which translated into adverse political consequences for the Democrats.
Trump exploited these problems to his advantage, saying he would fix them. He portrayed Harris — the first African American and Asian woman at the head of a presidential ticket — as a dim-witted rival. He claimed she was “dumb as a rock” and had a “low IQ.”
Harris, in turn, called him “unhinged” and “unstable” and condemned him as a fascist, a bigot and a threat to democracy.
These attacks on his character and beliefs had no real impact on Trump’s constituency. Trump was their man, regardless of his ideas and obvious flaws and deficiencies.