Indomitable Trump

By their vote last week, Americans may have swapped their legendarily libertarian political culture for imperialism – maybe unwittingly. They returned the 45th president, Donald J. Trump, to office as the 47th president in a sweeping victory for his Republican party that has dumped Democrats on the fringe of political power. With his reputation for pushing the limits of executive authority beyond historically familiar borders, the world might be about to witness unprecedented absolutism in the age-long bastion of democracy that is effectively now a MAGA (Make America Great Again) kingdom. Going by antecedents, which do not necessarily cast the future pathway in stone, that seems the promise of a new Trump era.

The thing about presidential elections in the United States is that whereas it is only Americans who vote, the outcomes reverberate far beyond the country’s borders and impact, directly or not, on other nations across the world. That obviously is the reason global interest typically attends presidential races in the country, and the 2024 poll which climaxed with election day last Tuesday was no less a cynosure of eyes. This year’s election was perhaps even more keenly watched because of the historical significance that respective bid by the two leading contenders embodied: Trump for his mercurial nature and, at 78, being the oldest to be elected to the country's highest office, and that is not mentioning that he is only the second president in his country’s history to serve two non-consecutive terms; and Vice-President Kamala Harris for Democrats, who aimed at breaking “the highest, hardest glass ceiling” in U.S. politics by becoming the first female commander-in-chief but fell flat.

Contrary to opinion pollsters who projected a tight race between both contenders, thereby underestimating Trump’s support, the former president and now president-elect won emphatically in the election. He netted 295 electoral votes – 25 more than the 270 votes needed to clinch the presidency. Although the electoral vote count fell short of the 306 votes he polled to win his first term in 2016, he also outpaced Harris by a substantial margin in popular vote in this year’s election. It was unlike in 2016 when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton with whom he duelled polled some 2.9million popular votes more than he did, and it reportedly marked the first time in 20 years that Republicans won the popular vote in a presidential election. Winning both the all-important electoral vote count and the popular vote is a comprehensive mandate validation that Trump has under his belt in wielding executive power when he returns to the Oval Office from 20th January, next year, which was not even there during his first term bullish as it was.  

The ex-president’s stunning comeback was facilitated by his conquest of all the battlegrounds, including the so-called “blue wall” states that are traditionally Democrat strongholds. Some states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts and Wisconsin voted Democrats in every election between 1992 and 2012 . In 2016, Trump breached the blue wall and flipped to red several of those states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan – all three that were major battlegrounds in the latest election. He became the first Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988 to take Pennsylvania. In the 2020 poll, Biden, a native of Scranton in Pennsylvania, won back all three states and seemingly resurrected the blue wall. Pennsylvania was the most crucial battleground in the 2024 election because both Trump and Harris made its electoral votes central to their respective path to victory. When the races were called at the close of voting last Tuesday, it was Trump who won the state as well as other battlegrounds like North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada, thereby effectively shutting Harris out of any path to the presidency.

“Americans voted, wittingly or not, for unchecked power and it’s time to belt up for the ride”

But it wasn’t just Trump’s personal victory that defined his storming back into power last week. He heralded a congressional rout of Democrats as well. In the 2024 election, Republicans flipped the control of the U.S. Senate and were firmly on course to retain the House majority they secured under the Biden presidency. American democracy historically thrived on division of executive and legislative powers between Republicans and Democrats, but now, Republicans boast of a governing trifecta with their simultaneous control of the White House and the two congressional chambers. What this means is that Trump has no impediments to executing his fancies for his second term – well, at least until another mid-term poll in 2026. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate. We have taken back control of the Senate – wow that’s good!” he told his supporters in celebration of Republican win of the U.S. Senate last week.

Americans made their choice. When Trump returns to the Oval Office in January, he will be the most powerful president in modern U.S. history with few restraints; and that will be so amidst an autocratic inclination he has shown himself to harbour since bursting into global spotlight in 2016. When he returns to the White House, he’ll be able to take advantage of filleting of guardrails on presidential power that he undertook during his first presidency, and which he intensified through legal manoeuverings  out of office. His past does not invariably dictate his future direction, and just because he has a sweeping mandate does guarantee that he will spurn constitutional checks and balances. But the instincts he betrayed even in the run-up to the latest poll suggest he may seek to obliterate all restraints.

Helping Trump along the way will be the fact that he has crushed all opposition in the Grand Old Party (GOP) and exerts a peerless grip on the fold that is now carved in his personal image and not historical ideologies. He has a Republican-controlled Congress in tow and, hence, has monopoly on Washington power; and no other American president ever came into office armed with a Supreme Court ruling that grants immunity to presidents for official acts. Note: that ruling came from a conservative court majority installed by Trump in his first term, which many legal observers fear could be a rubber stamp on future power grabs by him. Americans voted, wittingly or not, for unchecked power and it’s time to belt up for the ride.

It wouldn’t have mattered if only America, which made its choice apparently from calculated self-interest, will be impacted. But unless he drastically alters course, Trump’s return portends fresh dislocation of the familiar world order and likely retreat once again of the U.S. from global leadership in preference for pushing narrow national interests. Recall that his first tenure was characterised by disalignments with his country’s traditional allies and affectation towards reputed dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, such that Biden touted his 2021 advent in power on the catchphrase, “America is back!” 

The outcome of last week’s poll sent leaders of the European political community huddling in Budapest on Thursday, and none better articulated the mood than French President Emmanuel Macron who described Trump’s victory as “historic (and) decisive moment indeed,” but told his fellow European leaders they must not “forever delegate our security to America.” Macron added: “He (Trump) was elected by the American people, he will defend American interests. The question is whether we are willing to defend the European interest. It is the only question and our priority.” That is Europe. It is worse regarding Africa that Trump was reported labelling, among others, “shithole countries”  during his first presidency. With his xenophobic ultra-nationalism on the campaign trail leading up to the 5th November poll, it is doubtful he thinks otherwise now or has a better view of the continent. 

Well, America has made its choice and will have to live through it. So will the remainder of the world with the fallouts of that choice as it severally affects us. Still, there are some good lessons to learn from the U.S. poll. One is the speed with which Harris conceded the election in submission to the people’s will. In a twist of irony, her job as the current vice-president obliges her to preside over certification of her own loss and confirmation of Trump’s win at the official count of electoral votes in Congress early next January. But that is the beauty of democracy.

It is also noteworthy that Trump’s victory highlighted his grassroots connectedness with voters in defiance of media bookmaking that he often dismissed as ‘fake news.’ And why did voters flock to him? The American economy. People’s choices are often informed by their pocketbook; the challenge is whether the system would allow such choices to be expressed unhindered at the ballot box like America did.