The election of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday marked an incredible return for a former president who, four years ago, refused to concede defeat, incited a bloody uprising at the U.S. Capitol, was found guilty of felonies, and escaped two assassination attempts.
Trump earned a victory in Wisconsin, completing the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency.
The win supports his no-holds-barred approach to politics. As he promoted a gloomy vision of a nation overrun by violent immigration, he used extremely personal and frequently misogynistic and racist language to attack his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.
In a sharply divided country, the vulgar language and portrayal of hyper-masculinity struck a chord with irate voters, especially men.
Even before his victory was officially announced, Trump addressed crowds of ecstatic fans in Florida, saying, “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.”
While Harris did not perform as well as Joe Biden did in winning the presidency four years ago, Trump exceeded his 2020 performance in state after state.
While control of the House has not yet been decided, Trump will also work with a Senate that is currently in Republican hands when he returns to office.
Trump remarked, “Today you came in record numbers to deliver a victory, and we’ve been through so much together.”
He declared, “We’re going to reimburse you because this was something special.”
Trump has pledged to carry out an agenda in his second term that is focused on radically altering the federal system and seeking retribution on those he believes to be his adversaries.
With two assassination attempts against Trump and a switch to a new Democratic nominee just one month before the party’s convention, the results bring an end to an unusually turbulent and intense election season.
When Trump takes office on January 20, he will face several difficulties, such as increased political division and international issues that are putting America’s influence in the world to the test.
This is his second victory over a female opponent in a general election, having defeated Harris, the first woman of color to head a major party ticket.
Following Biden’s withdrawal from the contest due to concerns about his late age, Harris, the current vice president climbed to the head of the ticket.
Despite a brief spike in enthusiasm for her campaign, she found it difficult to persuade disenchanted voters that she was a change from an unpopular government.
Since the race was announced, the vice president has not made any public statements. Cedric Richmond, her campaign co-chair, stated that she would give a speech on Wednesday, saying, “She will be back here tomorrow.”
Since Grover Cleveland reclaimed the presidency in the 1892 election, Trump is the first former president to retake the presidency.
At 78, he is the oldest elected president and the first person with a felony conviction to be elected president. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, 40, who is his vice president, will be the highest-ranked millennial in the U.S. government.
Even before Trump’s victory was declared, foreign leaders began congratulating him.
When Trump returns to the White House, there will be a lot less checks on him. He intends to quickly implement a broad agenda that would change almost every facet of American governance.
Most of his congressional GOP detractors have been defeated or retired. Judges he appointed are now common in federal courts. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court, which consists of three justices selected by Trump, ruled that presidents had extensive protection from prosecution.
Democrats and some Republicans began warning about the shocks to democracy that Trump’s return to power would bring as a result of his words and actions throughout the campaign.
He frequently admired strongman dictators, promised to crack down on press outlets for negative coverage, considered suspending the Constitution, and threatened to use the military to target political opponents he called the “enemy from within.”
Vice President Mike Pence and John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, were among those who served in his first White House and either refused to back him or publicly warned of his return to power.
Trump appealed to Americans’ intense feelings of rage and wrath, whereas Harris centered a large portion of her opening remarks on themes of happiness.
He capitalized on people’s annoyance with exhorbitant costs as well as their anxieties about crime and illegal immigrants who came to the country during Biden’s administration.
To portray Democrats as ruling over and promoting a chaotic world, he also brought up the Middle East conflicts and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trump refined this approach in 2016, frequently using dictatorial rhetoric to portray himself as the only one capable of solving the nation’s problems.
“I said in 2016 that I am your voice. I’ll add today: I’m your warrior. Your justice is me. In March 2023, he declared, “And I am your retribution for those who have been wronged and betrayed.”
Trump frequently pushed ludicrous and unsubstantiated claims that immigrants were kidnapping and consuming pet dogs and cats in an Ohio town throughout this campaign.
He once began a rally by praising the genitalia of the renowned golfer Arnold Palmer and telling a long tale about him.
However, the shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July may have been the turning point. One of Trump’s fans was killed when a gunshot grazed his ear. Trump stood with a blood-stained visage and yelled, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” while lifting his fist in the air.
A second assassination attempt was foiled a few weeks later when Trump was playing golf and a Secret Service agent noticed a pistol barrel sticking out of the foliage.
When Trump left Washington in early 2021 as a reduced figure whose lies about his defeat fueled a violent insurgency in the U.S. Capitol, it appeared doubtful that he would return to the White House.
Laptops 1000He arranged a send-off for himself at Andrews Air Force Base, replete with a 21-gun salute, but few people outside of his family bothered to attend because he was so alone at the time.
He became the only president to be impeached twice when Democrats in charge of the U.S. House swiftly impeached him for his involvement in the uprising.
The U.S. Senate cleared him, with many Republicans claiming that since he had resigned, he was no longer a threat.
However, with the help of some elected Republicans, Trump attempted to stay relevant in politics from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Shortly after leaving office, Trump was visited by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican from California who was then the leader of his party in the U.S. House, effectively confirming his ongoing membership in the party.
Trump utilized the influence of his support to establish himself as the party’s undisputed leader as the 2022 midterm election drew near.
Although his favorite candidates nearly always won their primaries, some of them lost elections that Republicans thought were within their reach.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, which was supported by judges selected by Trump, sparked a backlash that contributed to those unsatisfactory outcomes.
The GOP began to wonder if Trump should continue to lead the party after the midterm elections.
If Trump’s future was uncertain, it was altered in 2023 when he was indicted on numerous state and federal counts for his involvement in the uprising, his handling of confidential material, and his meddling in the election.
His use of the allegations to paint himself as the victim of an overreaching government struck a chord with a Republican base that was growing more dubious of institutions and established power structures, if not overtly antagonistic.
The indictments “sucked out all the oxygen” from this year’s GOP primary, according to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran against Trump for the Republican nominee.
Without ever taking part in a debate against DeSantis or other GOP contenders, Trump easily won his party’s nomination.
In May, a New York jury convicted Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to a conspiracy to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn actress who claimed the two had sex, despite Trump’s dominance in the Republican race.
Although his triumph raises severe doubts about whether he will ever be punished, he is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
In two additional legal suits in New York, he was also found guilty for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and for exaggerating his assets.
The Georgia case against Trump for election tampering has stalled and he faces more criminal accusations.
At the federal level, he has been charged with inappropriately handling classified documents and attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump may name an attorney general who would drop the federal charges when he takes office on January 20.
Trump has promised to quickly implement a radical agenda that will change almost every facet of American governance as he gets ready to return to the White House.
This includes plans to start the biggest deportation campaign in the country’s history, use the Justice Department to punish his opponents, drastically increase the use of tariffs, and once more adopt a zero-sum foreign policy strategy that could jeopardize established international alliances, such as the NATO pact.
Trump had limited knowledge of the federal political structure when he arrived in Washington in 2017.
Senior staff members took it upon themselves to act as barriers, and the courts and Congress both worked to thwart his goals.
Trump has stated that this time he will surround himself with supporters who will carry out his program without question and bring hundreds of draft legislation bills, executive orders, and detailed policy papers.
