The winner takes it all!

Get used to hearing much more about Grover Cleveland! Rarely mentioned amongst the pantheon of American Presidents, Cleveland served as President from 1885-1889 and having lost office, reclaimed the Presidency in 1893 serving until 1897.

Until yesterday, Cleveland was the only President to reclaim the White House after having previously served as Commander-in Chief.

Donald Trump has matched Cleveland’s feat with an emphatic election win that, depending on your political persuasion, is either a dramatic vindication of Trump’s resilience or a dispiriting commentary on the democratic process.

Very few* thought the result would be so pronounced. Even fewer thought there was any chance of Trump winning the popular vote.

Equally significant are the electoral results that have seen Trump’s Republican Party claim control of both Houses of the American Congress. Add to this the undeniable 6-3 pro-conservative opinion of America’s Supreme Court, a viewpoint made possible by Trump’s shameless ‘stacking of the bench’ when he was last President, and you have a President with as much power as any in living memory.  

Like his eponymous towers in New York and Chicago, he dominates the American political landscape in a way unimaginable after his bitter recriminatory exit from the White House in 2021. Time for an accountability alert!

Many have been left wondering how such power has been gifted to a man whose character and behaviour are questionable at best, and, at worst, clinically disturbed. Facts: Trump is a convicted felon; he has uttered an array of vulgar and misogynistic remarks over many years; he regularly dismisses those who have the temerity to challenge his opinions and is prone to hyperbolic oversimplification of issues- remember the line about illegal immigrants eating their pets and his pre-election promise to end the Ukrainian conflict “within a day of coming to office”?

He is the only President who refused to attend the inauguration of his successor, choosing to spend the day inciting criminal mobs to storm and defile the American Congress. He has never recanted his belief that victory in the 2020 election was stolen illegally from him.

Incredulity abounds. Even Australia’s conservative former Prime Minister, John Howard, has stated that someone with Trump’s character would never be pre-selected to run for election in Australia.

So, how and why has Trump achieved his remarkable re-election in the world’s most important democracy?

To some degree, it could only happen in America, where it has been observed that nothing is as successful and effective as excess. 

Trump, a billionaire property developer, casts himself as the brave, oppressed defender of the Great American Dream, whose transgressions are the false allegations of a conceited and resentful political elite. Trump is populism personified.

If Cleveland is rarely lionised, then former President Calvin Coolidge is never lauded. He is, however, remembered for his observation “that the business of America is business.”

On a recent trip to Canada, I made a point of speaking to as many touring Americans as possible about their thoughts about the Presidential election. The opinions of many were crystallised by a retired policeman from Southern California who told me, “I am a pocketbook American and whilst Trump is a little crazy, he will be good for business.” Coolidge lives.

As improbable as it seems, philosophical concerns about Trump’s criminal convictions or his seeming willingness to annihilate the separation of powers doctrine et al, are clearly secondary to millions of Americans battling the soaring cost of living.

Many people credit Margaret Thatcher’s long period in office as British Prime Minister (1979-1990) as the outcome of her luck in having the best type of political opponents. First, there was the Argentinian leader, President Galtieri, who ignited British patriotism by his short-lived takeover of the Falkland Islands in 1982, providing Thatcher with the opportunity to be seen as the saviour of British pride. Then there was Michael Foot, England’s 1980s combination of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, whose extreme left-wing ideology made Thatcherism appear moderate. Finally, there was the passionate union leader, Arthur Scargill, who initiated a national coal strike, providing Thatcher with a perfect case study of the industrial lawlessness she was seeking to eliminate.

Trump has been equally fortunate.

First, Trump, had the hapless Joe Biden to assist his case. 82 in under a fortnight,  let’s not forget that Biden’s crazed conviction that he could serve another full term as President led to his forced and ignominious withdrawal from the Presidential race.  As improbable as it seems, Biden’s cognitive decline made the intemperate and erratic Trump appear the more cogent and reasonable. After all, Trump is a spritely 78!

Has there ever been a more compelling moment in a presidential contest than when Trump dismissed Biden’s comments in their televised debate with the withering observation, “ I don’t know what he is saying, and I don’t think he does either.”?

Then Kamala Harris became the new challenger. The shock of the new created immediate interest. Her wish to “turn a fresh page,” however, was thwarted by her inability to indicate how her prescriptions for economic recovery would differ from the hapless Biden. Trump was able to freely cartwheel  and offer radical solutions. 

As in 2016, so it was in 2024. Kamala, like Hillary, could not hit Trump’s moving targets. Nor could she entirely free herself from Trump’s allegations that she was responsible a failure in immigration control on the nation’s southern border. Kamala tried to play the man, but increasingly resorted to ‘love-in’ crowds featuring Oprah, Beyonce and endorsements from Taylor Swift and Michelle Obama. These rallies probably failed to convince the “real families of Wisconsin” that Kamala was in the economic trenches with them. 

Biden continued to provide Trump with potent ammunition. The President declared after a remark by a comedian at a New York rally for Trump that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage,” that the “only garbage he could see were the Trump supporters.” This comment echoed Hillary Clinton’s infamous observation in the 2016 campaign that Trump’s supporters were a “basket of deplorables.”

The man who many would describe as “deplorable garbage” was again able to portray himself as a “rebel with a cause” and the only person capable of understanding “real Americans.” Equally, the result was a reminder to all Western governments that voters are, at a time of dwindling confidence in democratic processes, prepared to punish governments at times of economic hardship. Memories are short and ballot box vengeance is immediate when inflation injures one and all.

Ultimately, Trump was seen by the majority as the more decisive and effective antidote to America’s ills. Whether the American electorate has an equally clear conviction about the nature of Trump’s various prescriptions and remedies is an entirely different question.

In a pathologically exaggerated and distorted personality contest, there is little time to worry about the fine print. There are four years of Trump’s final presidential term to contemplate the roads that the Trump, Elon Musk and RFK Jr narcissistic express might take us.

*Congratulations to a loyal reader who correctly predicted the Presidential outcome down to the last Electoral College vote, assuming Arizona and Nevada are won by the Republican Party, as can be seen below. How fitting he turns 40 on Biden’s forthcoming birthday!