DONALD TRUMP: AMERICA’S CHOICE AGAIN

By Michael Jarvis UK Correspondent

For years to come political analysts, historians, students of history and the global public will undoubtedly spend a lot of time assessing what is clearly another milestone moment in American and world history.

The second election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America is one for the history books.

Pledging to bring a what he called “golden age” to the United States, Mr Trump described his victory as campaign as “a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time. There’s never been anything like this in this country, and maybe beyond.”

In what is now generally accepted as a landslide victory, the populist and politically polarising Mr Trump swept the key US Electoral College system assuring him of a return to the White House, the US presidency - and with it the label of leader of the free world.

He has also secured the popular vote locking in 51 per cent or 77 million votes to his Democrat opponent’s Kamala Harris’s to 47.5 per cent or 66 million.

Voter turnout was projected to be around 65 per cent, slightly down from the historic 67 per cent turnout in 2020.

The history books and political commentaries already replete with timelines and perspectives on his first tenure from 2016 to 2020, have already written volumes on the 2024 presidential campaign and will no doubt have libraries with of material on his second stint in office.

That is largely due to Mr Trump’s aggressive and controversial style of populist and overblown rhetoric often seen as inflammatory and divisive.

This campaign, which pitted him against Democrat Vice-President Kamala Harris - who was hoping to be not just the first female president but the first Black woman in the top job - was no less brutal.

A late replacement for President Joe Biden (who had started campaigning for a second consecutive term but dropped out due to health concerns), her own bid for the top job got off to a profile-boosting start. But it seemed to have lost its momentum despite a series of high profile political and celebrity endorsements, including former president Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Vice President Kamala Harris called Mr Trump on Wednesday afternoon to formally concede the race for the presidency and congratulate him on his victory.

Donald Trump’s historic second-term victory makes him the first US presidential candidate to win a second non-consecutive term since Grover Cleveland - 22nd president in 1884 and 24th in 1892.

Having already served as America’s 45th president, he will now also be the 47th.

His other record of note is that this victory will make 78-year old Mr Trump, the oldest elected president, taking that record held by his now outgoing predecessor Joe Biden, whose 2020 victory over him Mr Trump vehemently protested throughout the Biden presidency.

That was marked at the outset by the infamous January 6th 2021 insurgency on the Capitol building when supporters of Mr trump attempted to prevent Mr Biden from being sworn in.

Other related protestations by Mr Trump over his loss led to a series of legal cases against which he lost, some of which are still pending.

Mr Trump is now highly likely to use his presidential powers to effectively have them quashed and pardon himself.

He had also promised during the campaign to pardon many of those who stormed the Capitol building.

Additionally, Mr Trump has a lengthy dossier of other legal issues to contend with, many of which have accumulated over the past four years.

However, with victory assured, attention now turns to whether and how  President-elect Trump will implement his campaign commitments.

In his victory speech, he vowed: “I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept. We’re going to keep our promises.”

Headline national issues for him are immigration in which he has threatened mass deportations; the economy with promises of lower taxes; further rolling back abortion rights; and relaxing climate regulations.

On the international stage, he has targeted an end (his way, but yet unspecified) to the Russian war on Ukraine, and the Middle East war involving Israel, Iran and the terror groups Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But it’s the economy which has clearly resonated again with the Trump base, despite signs of the US economy already bouncing back post-COVID better than many other Western nations.

World leaders, who have been flooding now President-elect Trump with congratulatory messages, will nonetheless be paying close attention to his administration’s policies both at home as well as its foreign policy, especially on matters of trade, global conflicts and climate change.

These policies will now be bolstered by the Republican Party regaining control of the Senate (and by press time on the verging of possibly controlling the House of Representatives).