It is always possible for a one-term President of the USA to make a comeback and be re-elected, to the extent that the two before Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter and George Bush, didn’t even try. But Donald Trump, after his loss in 2020, kept his hat in the ring, and got another chance in 2024. However, he didn’t square off against his nemesis, Joe Biden, but against his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, who lost. There will be speculation for years to come about whether she lost the election, or whether Mr Trump won it, but the polls reflected a nation divided strongly. She did get a large proportion of the votes of the American people, and though the Republicans have won both Houses of Congress, it is not by that much. Mr Trump may console himself that he won a majority of the popular vote, something he failed to do even when he won in the electoral college in 2016.
Does he have a mandate for his agenda? He might, because his party won control of both Houses of Congress. Perhaps more importantly, his control over his party will be greater than Presidents usually enjoy. He will also manage to shut down the federal criminal investigations against his, and it has now become unlikely that he will be sentenced to jail in the sentencing hearing he faces on November 26, though the felony for which he was convicted, diverting campaign funds to pay off a stipper with whom he had an affair, will remain on the books. That conviction symbolizes much of what is wrong with Mr Trump: sleaze. His critics accuse him of having demeaned the Presidency by his antics. They accuse him of racism and misogyny.
He was congratulated for his victory, even before it had been declared by the media by Russia’s President Vladmir Putin and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. That symbolizes how both expect the wind to blow: for Trump to end the support Biden was giving to Ukraine, and for the USA to give Israel an even freer hand in Gaza and against Lebanon. Pakistan can expect Trump to be even harder on Pakistan, because of the strength of his opposition to China. Mr Trump is not really a unifying figure, and his victory speech, while free of any of the bloodcurdling calls for revenge that have been a characteristic of his campaign speeches, it did not reach out to the losing party either. The next years may well be interesting; they will not be peaceful.
