Grover Cleveland, meet Donald Trump.
The first United States president to serve two nonconsecutive terms now has company from a man pundits considered at one point to be politically dead. His standing following two impeachments, the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, his exit of the presidency without attending his successor’s inaugural on Jan. 20, 2021, and the successive charges filed against him was so egregious that no electoral recovery was thought possible.
But Trump, who apparently never believed he lost his 2020 re-election race to President Joe Biden, didn’t think he was finished, and his Trumpworld of supporters didn’t either. So every new charge filed against him, every Democrat’s slanderous remark about him, every newscaster’s biased comment concerning him only made them love him more.
On Election Day Tuesday, all of that translated into what may be a popular vote win (a first for Republicans since 2004), a comfortable electoral vote majority and Senate coattails that nobody forecast.
And the win is even more remarkable since he had Hollywood, academia and the national media, in addition to Democrats, lined up against him and willing to do whatever was necessary to pull the unprepared Democrat nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, over the finish line and to victory.