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Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.
With a victory in Wisconsin declared early Wednesday morning, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.
The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal – often misogynistic and racist – terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters – particularly men – in a deeply polarized nation.
As president, he’s vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and pursuing retribution against his perceived enemies. Speaking to his supporters Wednesday morning, Trump claimed he had won “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
The results cap a historically tumultuous and competitive election season that included two assassination attempts targeting Trump and a shift to a new Democratic nominee just a month before the party’s convention. Trump will inherit a range of challenges when he assumes office on Jan. 20, including heightened political polarization and global crises that are testing America’s influence abroad.
His win against Harris, the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket, marks the second time he has defeated a female rival in a general election. Harris, the current vice president, rose to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden exited the race amid alarm about his advanced age. Despite an initial surge of energy around her campaign, she struggled during a compressed timeline to convince disillusioned voters that she represented a break from an unpopular administration.
Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election. He is the first person convicted of a felony to be elected president and, at 78, is the oldest person elected to the office. His vice president, 40-year-old Ohio Sen. JD Vance, will become the highest-ranking member of the millennial generation in the U.S. government.
There will be far fewer checks on Trump when he returns to the White House. He has plans to swiftly enact a sweeping agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. His GOP critics in Congress have largely been defeated or retired. Federal courts are now filled with judges he appointed. The U.S. Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, issued a ruling earlier this year affording presidents broad immunity from prosecution.
Trump’s language and behavior during the campaign sparked growing warnings from Democrats and some Republicans about shocks to democracy that his return to power would bring. He repeatedly praised strongman leaders, warned that he would deploy the military to target political opponents he labeled the “enemy from within,” threatened to take action against news organizations for unfavorable coverage and suggested suspending the Constitution.
Some who served in his first White House, including Vice President Mike Pence and John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, either declined to endorse him or issued dire public warnings about his return to the presidency.
While Harris focused much of her initial message around themes of joy, Trump channeled a powerful sense of anger and resentment among voters.
He seized on frustrations over high prices and fears about crime and migrants who illegally entered the country on Biden’s watch. He also highlighted wars in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to cast Democrats as presiding over – and encouraging – a world in chaos.
It was a formula Trump perfected in 2016, when he cast himself as the only person who could fix the country’s problems, often borrowing language from dictators.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he said in March 2023.
This campaign often veered into the absurd, with Trump amplifying bizarre and disproven rumors that migrants were stealing and eating pet cats and dogs in an Ohio town. At one point, he kicked off a rally with a detailed story about the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer in which he praised his genitalia.
But perhaps the defining moment came in July when a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear and killed one of his supporters. His face streaked with blood, Trump stood and raised his fist in the air, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Weeks later, a second assassination attempt was thwarted after a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun poking through the greenery while Trump was playing golf.
Trump’s return to the White House seemed unlikely when he left Washington in early 2021 as a diminished figure whose lies about his defeat sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He was so isolated at the time that few outside of his family bothered to attend the send-off he organized for himself at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with a 21-gun salute.
Democrats who controlled the U.S. House quickly impeached him for his role in the insurrection, making him the only president to be impeached twice. He was acquitted by the U.S. Senate, where many Republicans argued that he no longer posed a threat because he had left office.
But from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump – aided by some elected Republicans – worked to maintain his political relevance. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who at the time led his party in the U.S. House, visited Trump soon after he left office, essentially validating his continued role in the party.
As the 2022 midterm election approached, Trump used the power of his endorsement to assert himself as the unquestioned leader of the party. His preferred candidates almost always won their primaries, but some went on to defeat in elections that Republicans viewed as within their grasp. Those disappointing results were driven in part by a backlash to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that revoked a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, a decision that was aided by Trump-appointed justices. The midterm election prompted questions within the GOP about whether Trump should remain the party’s leader.
But if Trump’s future was in doubt, that changed in 2023 when he faced a wave of state and federal indictments for his role in the insurrection, his handling of classified information and election interference. He used the charges to portray himself as the victim of an overreaching government, an argument that resonated with a GOP base that was increasingly skeptical – if not outright hostile – to institutions and established power structures.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination, lamented that the indictments “sucked out all the oxygen” from this year’s GOP primary. Trump easily captured his party’s nomination without ever participating in a debate against DeSantis or other GOP candidates.
With Trump dominating the Republican contest, a New York jury found him guilty in May of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. He faces sentencing later this month, though his victory poses serious questions about whether he will ever face punishment.
He has also been found liable in two other New York civil cases: one for inflating his assets and another for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.
Trump is subject to additional criminal charges in an election-interference case in Georgia that has become bogged down. On the federal level, he’s been indicted for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and improperly handling classified material. When he becomes president on Jan. 20, Trump could appoint an attorney general who would erase the federal charges.
As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has vowed to swiftly enact an agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. That includes plans to launch the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, to use the Justice Department to punish his enemies, to dramatically expand the use of tariffs and to again pursue a zero-sum approach to foreign policy that threatens to upend longstanding foreign alliances, including the NATO pact.
When he arrived in Washington 2017, Trump knew little about the levers of federal power. His agenda was stymied by Congress and the courts, as well as senior staff members who took it upon themselves to serve as guardrails.
This time, Trump has said he would surround himself with loyalists who will enact his agenda, no questions asked, and who will arrive with hundreds of draft executive orders, legislative proposals and in-depth policy papers in hand.
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LETS GO!!!
Policy over personality…
Boy could this article have been written anymore jadedly against Trump….
Agree. It sounds like the Democratic National Party continues to write articles under the “AP” banner. Very biased and in many parts untrue.
Every word of that article is factual. Please share what isn’t.
He promised a lot. He has lied a lot. Policy over character? Clearly! We used to be a country that looked toward both. So now we set our standards lower?!
Not a way to build a stronger America, a better society or an example for the World.
Policy over character is an acknowledgement he lacks the latter and his policies will send us into predictable regression……
Because he sucks
Ever wonder why is it when a Republican says something that isn’t true, he lies. But when a Democrat says something that isn’t true, he misspeaks.
America won.
A firm referendum on the entire media and failed Dem party.
The People won the election for POTUS and Congress.
… and the people will again be rewarded with watching the rich get richer and the courts packed with more ideologues, which is all they got from his first term. And, they’ll be stuck with a booming deficit that they will get to pay for with cuts to their Medicare and Social Security.
Going to be fun to watch how exactly prices are going to be lowered when the country chases off the only people willing to work for low wages and consumers start paying all those tariffs, but, I’m sure we will be told it’s the fault of someone else.
I hope to be wrong but I doubt I will be. Elections have consequences.
Talk to ya in 2027 Joe B. We can compare notes then!
Joe B—-“counts packed with ideologues” defined as people I disagree with politically. I guarantee Joe didn’t think RBG, who spent the last few years of her tenure with her staff mailing in the party line, was an “ideologue”
Also a Democrat pretending to be worried about the deficit is hilarious.
Chuck, explain the number of people jammed into the courts who fellow lawyers (the ABA) deemed as unqualified. People who’ve never even taken a deposition being given lifetime appointments and federal pensions because they had the right beliefs.
You watch how big Republicans blow up the deficit, just like they always do. I will buy you a big free box of Long’s donuts if there is less deficit spending on January 19, 2029 than there is on January 20, 2025. Republicans only care about the deficit when there is a Democratic President.
Go USA! Agree on this reporting….Tears on on AP writer’s keyboard???
The people who voted for Trump (truly the biggest liar ever to sit in the Oval Office) don’t have a clue as to what the next two years will bring. Time to put the bumper sticker on my car: “Don’t Blame Me. I Voted For Kamala”
You should…The last 3 years have been a disaster. Nobody has been running this place.
Biden doesn’t have dementia.
Russia stole the 2016 election.
Inflation is a good thing.
How many other lies did Biden and Kamala and the media promote?
Inflation *is* a good thing, you idiot. Deflation only happens when an economy is collapsing!
Obviously you were not affected by the Biden failed administration. So nice of you to only care about you. Most of us care about all Americans.
Trump’s gonna tank the economy. I’ll be looking forward to you trying to spin Trump’s inevitable failures against Democrats.
In 1992, Busch Sr. left office with the economy in a recession. Bill Clinton turned it around. In 2008 Bush Jr. left office with the economy in a recession. Obama turned it around. In 2020, Trump left office with the economy in a recession. Biden turned it around. Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.
+1
+1
Seems the American public holy disagrees with that. But 70% of them saying they’re dissatisfied with the economy it does come back to James Carvel’s it’s the economy stupid. And he’s your guy
Jeffery, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait for those massive tariffs that Trump has promised. And for much of the social safety repealed by Trump’s “efficiency” expert who told voters to brace for economic ‘hardship’ caused by deep spending cuts.” If you think the new Senate GOP majority will dare throttle back any of Trump’s plans, you just don’t get it.
There are three big lies that Republicans have successfully sold:
1) Republicans have stronger economic performance (reality: 90% of recessions since WWII have occurred under Republican leadership)
2) Republicans are in favor of smaller government (reality: the scope and scale of the Federal government has never decreased under Republican leadership, not even Reagan)
3) Republicans are better for the deficit (reality: Four of the top five deficit spenders in American history are Republicans)
AR, you forgot (4) the endless Republican war for most of this century, and the accompanying ballooning national debt.
The only president to balance the Federal budget in my adult lifetime (and I am a senior citizen)…
Bill Clinton.
Neither party was worth voting for. Both parties say one thing when campaigning and do another after elected. I don’t spend much emotional energy on it. Because they are going to do whatever they feel like. Qualifications certainly have gone downhill for president. We had a puppet and a convict who has been impeached twice. So….,
I voted for the lesser of 2 evils. Although I agree with most of the article, I still think America will be better under Trump.
Everything Trump has touched in his life has floundered or ended up worse than it was before he arrived. Why do you think America will be the exception to that historical trend?
All the Dems on this thread are committed to going down in flames. Since character is important to some of you. Let’s talk about the character of your nominee for President. The media protected her. The media lied for her. Had she been a republican, she would have never made it out of California. When she actually ran for President in 2020, she was forced to use the same nominating process everyone else had to go though and was totally rejected by Democrats. She stands for nothing. She’s one of the biggest flip-flopper of all time. She has always been demeaning to her staff. She fakes phone calls to get photo ops…….. All politicians lie and she is as good as anyone. Let’s be real, ask Willie Brown what Kamala is REALLY good at. It’s probably her only true talent. If you don’t know who Willie Brown is or his relationship with Kamala…..Google it. The media never mentions it. Yea, it was an easy choice for me. Your’e only embarrassing yourself with those bumper stickers.
FOX News has you in its grasp.
Brent B, did you Google Willie Brown and his relationship with the VP? Has nothing to do with Fox. MSNBC has probably never mentioned his name over the last 4 years. When Dems don’t like the truth they play the Fox News card.
Exactly! I’m all for a woman president, but not a woman who slept her way up the ladder. Her husband was also very protected.
LMAO “boo hoo muh liberal media”
Sinclair Media Group is the largest media organization in the world. There is no radio news anymore unless it’s right-wing propaganda. Media is right-wing.
Charles, did you Google donald Trump and…everything. The man is a mentally ill idiot who lives only to enrich himself. Even then he still has to file for bankruptcy every now and then. If you had an uncle like him, you would keep him locked up in the basement.
AR: CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, and ABC, the Washington Post and The New York Times are right wing??? Got a good laugh out of that one. BTW, Sinclair is not even close to the largest media organization in the world. Stick to commenting on things you actually have at least an infinitesimally small amount of knowledge of.
This article is complete left wing propaganda. Come on IBJ – Do better.
Cry
Next to the Dems and their total failed policies mostly the ILLEGAL IMIGRATIONS ISSUE, the biggest loser is the so-called mainstream media complex. Look at what is going on at WAPO. Left wing bias will have to be moderated, or they will all be shuttered. Laugh at blogs, social media, and pod casts at your own peril. Oh, also according to this thread the reunification of the parties is a way off.
LOL @ the dims. Poor sky screamers. Hey, on the bright side, it’s a nice day outside so you can open your windows to scream at each other. Your ignorance is astounding.
IBJ did you put up a blue AP article on purpose? Bunch of acehole!
IBJ has been moving further and further to the left. Now, they are part of the media left. Period. IBJ chose to publish this article the day after Trump won. I cannot understand why these people did not enjoy the four years of peace under Trump. The deaths, devastation, and destruction in Ukraine and the Mideast, including Gaza during the Biden/Harris administration, did not impact their thinking. Abortion and electing a woman – passed off as Black – are what mattered to them. Any Republican I know would gladly vote for a Black woman if her principles aligned with theirs.
“passed off as Black” damn you all are viciously racist. We’re going to fight every single one of your pathetic efforts for the next four years. See you at the midterms.
Peace? Tell that to our military in Afghanistan. While Biden’s removal was horribly, horribly done, at least he did what needed to be done. Peace? Charlottesville? Peace? January 6th? No, there wasn’t “Peace” during Biden’s term either. The riots, etc. But don’t ever, ever say there was “Peace” during the previous four years.
Well for some of you idealists there’s always the upcoming run for Mayor that I believe will be pursued by Vop. If the shoe fits, you can assume the Lewinsky position and be anointed by the latest political Messiah. As a matter of fact, Trump invested heavily in the Gary downtown rehab, only to see the casino fail. I know he’s such a racist, why would he invest in a heavily Black populated city? To make money of course. Then again, how many of the Demo millionaires have done anything similar? The Jackson family? Lebron? Michael? He should have funded a candidate to run for office and then once elected have that person funnel all the Federal money back to him like the inner city, identity politicians that you wish to support. in the end, the poverty rate and despair would not change. Just ask Andre how to do this. But wait there’s more, remember Mueller, and his report on the Russian investigation? He struggled mightily to explain his report because his health was compromised…just like Fetterman, Fienstein, and our favorite Boss, Boss (never forget 2020 riots) Hogsett. The new preferred Demo candidate…not the sharpest tool in the box. Lies, you want lies? How about Whitewater, Bush’s wars, Obamas racist division, Hillary’s emails, Bengahzi, Hunter’s laptop, the Russia, Ukraine, and China lies, and the best of all, the reassurance that Joe Biden is so sharp and capable, which Kamala LIED about for 3 years and 6 months. LOL….how about this, go out and see how you can make the World / Indy better and stop burying yourselves in your own propaganda.
The biggest decline in the US poverty rate? Biden’s Child Tax Credit.
Robert, you may want to refresh your memories about Trump’s “downtown rehab” (he did no such thing) and his casino there fail (wow, a real shocker).
https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-spotty-casino-history-in-gary-indiana-2016-9
At least IBJ patron Saint Andre got another 2 years of ghost employment, so there’s that