Trump, the most polarizing figure in modern American politics, now must preside over a nation deeply riven by social, racial, cultural and economic hostilities that he has strategically exploited on the campaign trail for nearly a decade. It was, for him, a successful strategy. The last time a defeated U.S. president avenged his loss was in 1892, when Grover Cleveland did it.
“This was the greatest political movement of all time,” Trump said just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Now it’s going to reach a new level of importance because we’re going to help our country heal.”
Trump’s path back to the White House ran through Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, states he reclaimed after he lost them in 2020. He remained locked in close contests with Harris in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada as he looked to pad his Electoral College margin.
It was a campaign unlike any other, waged by a unique figure in American history. Trump emerged victorious even though he faced a dozen Republican primary challengers, four indictments, a criminal conviction, a finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, the bullet of a would-be assassin and the Democratic candidacies of the president and his vice president.
Nothing served as a more apt metaphor for Trump’s perseverance than his reaction to being shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. After a bullet clipped his right ear, a bloodied Trump rose to his feet, jabbed his fist in the air and yelled “Fight, Fight, Fight!” The iconic sequence was incorporated into late-campaign ads as part of his closing argument.
Trump’s return to the White House extends a volatile era in which both the presidency and control of Congress have routinely been decided by thin margins, reflecting an electorate almost evenly split between the two major parties. Through a firehose of false and polarizing information and smears of his rivals, especially Harris, Trump painted America as a corrupt, economically failing and crime-ridden nation. He leaned into violent rhetoric, referring to a shooter firing into the reporters covering his rallies or guns being pointed at a former Republican U.S. representative who doesn’t support him.
Voters chose him to lead the path forward, despite warnings from the left and his own former aides that he will rule as an authoritarian.
It wasn’t just Trump who endured. His Make America Great Again movement proved resilient with voters. Trump re-harnessed the backlash against establishment powers during his grievance-filled third campaign, according to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who is an informal adviser to the president-elect.
“The great mistake that analysts make is that they focus on Trump, rather than the underlying momentum that has created Trump,” Gingrich said in an interview. “Trump is the personification of at least half the country rejecting, decisively and vehemently, the governing elite.”
And yet Trump will have to work with the governing elites in Congress to enact laws and fulfill his mandate. During his first term, he found resistance to the most extreme elements of his agenda in both parties. Riding his coattails, Republicans this year seized control of the Senate, while control of the House still hung in the balance Wednesday morning.
Trump’s campaign this time was fought mostly on familiar policy and political terrain, including promises to cut a suite of taxes — for Social Security recipients, tipped workers and wage earners — raise tariffs and stop illegal immigration. Trump rode the perception that his business acumen would help alleviate prices at the grocery store, in the housing market and beyond.
The outcomes of congressional races that haven’t yet been called could affect his ability to deliver on his policy agenda. But there are signs, including Biden’s and Harris’ supporting tougher border security, that he has moved the debate about immigration — even among Democrats — in his direction.
Trump has said on the campaign trail that he would quickly end long-running wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. But he was reticent when it came to the details. His critics fear that his adoration for global strongmen — Russia’s Vladimir Putin, first and foremost — is a harbinger of his pursuing a more authoritarian course at home. For Ukraine, that could mean being forced into a bad deal to end Russia’s years long invasion.
Trump’s opponents worry that his wide authoritarian streak will lead him to follow through on threats to prosecute, harass and even deport his political adversaries, including officials who prosecuted him.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social media platform in September. “Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.”
