Donald Trump has pulled off a
modern political miracle. His return to the White House is a story about
American society, but it is also a story of Trump’s political resilience.
No other leader in any
democracy, let alone a democracy of the complexity, history and sophistication
of the United States, has ever done what Trump has done in the last nine years. He is the
only person since Franklin Delano Roosevelt who has been a nominee of a major
party for president thrice in a row. He
is the only former American president who, after a criminal conviction, not
just won his party’s nomination but has also won the national elections yet
again, with an even bigger margin. And he is the only leader who has taken
over one of the two major parties and completely reshaped its ideological
worldview and political base.
Trump’s electoral win
of 2024 has to be seen in the context of his political debut in 2015.