Being wrong has never felt so good.
Following Donald Trump’s sour defeat four years ago and the disastrous events of Jan. 6, my view of the 2024 election was simple: Republicans couldn’t win with Trump, and they couldn’t win without Trump.
I didn’t even think about whether the opponent would be Joe Biden or somebody else. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter because Trump had proven to be so polarizing that he could only be a spoiler.
By running in 2024, he would divide the GOP and effectively hand the presidency to the Democrats.
Congress, too, would probably turn blue, leaving the GOP as a sad, shrunken party hanging on to some red state legislatures and state houses.
Yet here we are, hailing the King of All Comebacks. Although a few states remain to be called, victory has been secured.
History turned in Pa.
As politics go, this was a resurrection.
Thank God I was wrong.
If there was a single turning point, it was the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa. Rising from the stage with blood smeared on his head and face, Trump raised his fist and demanded that his shocked followers “Fight, fight, fight.”
Any doubts about his heart were dispelled in that perilous moment, and millions of Americans followed his lead across the finish line.
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Fight, fight, fight they did, and now he’s going back to the White House.
In many ways, the victory this time is even more striking and important than in 2016.
He has totally reshaped the GOP, making it both far more diverse and more centered on the middle and working classes. It has all the earmarks of a durable coalition.
As I wrote at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, it was clear from the first night that the party could now be called The Workers Party.
It was a masterful move by Trump, along with his Ohio running mate, J.D. Vance. And with GOP also taking back the Senate, and the House still in play, it’s the Dems who suddenly find themselves in the wilderness.
What is their base? Who favors their far left social agenda and feckless surrender on the global stage?
Yet it must be said that Trump’s victory is even greater than the results indicate. For not only did he defeat Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and the Democratic machine, he also beat the media.
The major outlets disgraced themselves with their propaganda-level coverage.
They lied about him, demonized everything he said and saw devious motives in everything he did. They called him a Nazi, Hitler, a dictator — there were no rules in their filthy game.
Day in, day out, they applied two entirely different standards for him and his opponents.
They even cheered on the unprecedented attempts to prosecute and imprison Trump, all while echoing the scurrilous left’s talking point that he was a threat to democracy.
As if locking up your opponent protects democracy!
They also supported Big Tech assaults on free speech. As such, they betrayed the First Amendment and soiled their own profession.
Media comeuppance
They hate it when Trump calls them the Fake News, but they too often proved him right.
This same media showed no interest in Biden’s cognitive decline until the disastrous June debate.
Suddenly they said he couldn’t go on, but didn’t give a fig about the presidency being in the hands of somebody too addled to run.
They only wanted to defeat Trump and so switched the protection racket to Harris, who essentially was handed the nomination without lifting a finger.
What about democracy?
It didn’t even bother the media that she gave them the cold shoulder, nor did they care she was refusing to lay out any policies.
They reasoned that the less the public knew about her, the better her chances of winning — which is all they cared about.
If they have any shred of decency, they will examine their conduct and pledge to return to the days when there was an honest effort at fairness.
Meanwhile, the nature and details of Trump’s victory are so sensational that it will become a legend and tale for the ages.
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Future candidates for all offices and both parties will study his campaign to learn how he was able to pull off one of the most stunning reversals in American political history.
The mechanics, the plan, the rallies, the policies, the coalitions — they all played a part. But no analysis of this remarkable moment will be complete unless it recognizes two other super power ingredients.
First, nobody will ever outwork Trump. He is relentless, sleeps little and would rather do something than just talk about it. Nothing to him is impossible.
Second, he has the heart of a tiger and the will of a champion. I remember seeing him at a small gathering after one of the most brutal days in his rigged Manhattan criminal trial.
His Teflon resolve
He was being treated very unfairly and even outrageously, yet he was upbeat.
To hear him talk about the campaign, tell jokes and stories, answer tough questions and take criticism — you would have thought he didn’t have a care in the world.
And now the real work begins.
He inherits a country badly in need of leadership and policies that address desperate public needs, including national security.
The whole world will be watching and waiting to see what he does. There will be rough waters, and he will make mistakes.
But he has removed any doubt about his fierce commitment to America and its people. So much so that even his opponents should make it their business to help him succeed.
He has earned that.
