what another period will bring

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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

Just before Donald Trump spoke last month in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman nearly took his own life, a short video was played showing George Washington crossing the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.

“When will they ever learn?” asked the narrator in a deep voice. “This man cannot be stopped.”

After a commanding victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, in which he swept the battleground states and had a solid lead in the popular vote, the 78-year-old Republican is heading back to the White House for a second term.

Trump’s return represents a stunning political comeback for a man who had left office in disgrace in 2021 – defeated by Joe Biden, impeached for a second time and widely condemned for trying to overturn the 2020 election and instigating the attack on the US capital on 6 .January. .

It also marks a new era for the United States and the world, reflecting a sharp rightward shift in the American electorate, which has embraced not only Trump’s brand of demagoguery but also his “America First” nationalist agenda.

Trump will now feel justified in moving forward with plans he has laid out throughout the campaign: high tariffs on a wide range of imported goods, more confrontational relations with traditional US allies and a massive crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump may also feel free to deliver the retaliation he has promised against his political enemies by testing the country’s democratic institutions.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said during his victory speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, near his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Throughout the campaign, Trump was able to de-stigmatize all of his legal problems, including a criminal conviction in New York and other state and federal charges.

He benefited from the country’s rejection of the policies of the administrations led by Biden and Harris, particularly the high inflation that played out under their watch, an increase in migrants at the southern border, their failure to end wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and a perception that they were too liberal on social issues such as transgender rights.

Trump was also able to overcome his biggest headwind — the backlash against conservative efforts to limit abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to strip women of their constitutional right to end a pregnancy.

The new right-wing coalition built by Trump and his allies in recent months was fueled by his strong support among male voters, gains across minority groups and a large advantage among non-college-educated Americans more generally. The violent rhetoric, misogyny and xenophobia that permeated Trump’s speeches were ignored.

“We put together a coalition of groups that hadn’t necessarily identified with the Republican Party and did very well with them, and that’s what propelled us to a very significant victory,” said Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra in Michigan. Financial Times at its party in Novi, on the western edge of Detroit. He cited support from members of the Middle Eastern community as well as members of the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters Union.

The loss to Trump will trigger a major round of soul-searching among Democrats, touching not only on their fading appeal with lower- and middle-class Americans, but also the fateful decision to first support Biden’s re-election bid and then switch to Harris at the eleventh hour.

Although Harris shifted to the political center during her brief campaign, courting anti-Trump Republicans and national security hawks while taking a more pro-business approach to economic policy, too few voters took up that seat in a country that has become far more populist in relation to economic policy. year.

Democrats will now have to regroup in opposition to the new American right under Trump, which appears far stronger than it was after the 2016 election. It now includes an alliance with Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, and a potential heir to JD Vance, the Ohio senator-turned-vice president who has embraced populist views on trade and economic policy and vowed to be tougher on Wall Street.

Trump has also grown closer in recent weeks to Robert F Kennedy Jr, the vaccine skeptic and scion of the famous Massachusetts political dynasty who made his own bid for the White House before endorsing Trump. He is now in line for a role in his administration.

But even before he sets out to secure the loyalists he needs to staff his administration, Trump will bask in his political renaissance. “We overcame obstacles that no one thought were possible,” he said.