Had the election of 2024 been a normal one, it would be easy to explain how Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris, in the climax of the most closely fought election campaign in living memory. His issues beat hers. Immigration, inflation, and gender beat abortion, health care, and the rule of law. But also, since both campaigns were relentlessly negative, Americans wound up preferring the man Harris called a “fascist” to the woman whom Trump said had “the mental faculties of a child.”
Of course, this was not a normal election. Although a final count awaits, Trump appears to have won the popular vote and all seven tightly contested swing states. His comeback may be the most extraordinary in the history of American public life. Most of the news media despise him. In July, at a rally in Butler, Pa., a would-be assassin shot him with a high-powered rifle, an episode that shocked much of the public but made no discernible impression on his critics.
To understand Tuesday’s result we must remember how Trump came to power in the first place. His 2016 candidacy placed on the ballot what was in essence a referendum question: Do you believe the United States is corrupt? The public’s resounding “Yes” turned Trump into the establishment’s worst enemy and shook American politics to its core. Able civil servants boycotted his administration. Trump and his underqualified, underprepared staff blundered, and faced significant obstacles. Impeachment, race riots, “woke” agitation, and finally, in 2020, the worst pandemic in a century. Covid had the political side effect of enabling a highly irregular presidential election, subject to pressures from a partisan judiciary and ad hoc rules changes late in the campaign season. Trump lost. On Jan. 6, 2021, his followers protested, not without reason. But they pushed into the Capitol as votes were being counted for the presidency—about as grave an offense against democratic procedure and democratic norms as could be imagined.