Trump’s second coming

“THIS,” declared Donald Trump in the early hours of November 6, “is a movement like nobody has ever seen.”

On this point at least, America’s new president-elect spoke the truth.

Democracy has prevailed. But that does not stop us from observing the astonishing choice made by the American people. They have not sleepwalked into dictatorship. They have gone in with eyes wide open, believing such rhetoric exaggerated.

Yet, if the populist movement that now returns the former president to the White House is unparalleled, the unprecedented power Mr Trump, described by his closest aides as fascist, will hold is terrifying.

His party has seized the Senate. He won the popular vote.

Because he cannot seek re-election, there is no motivation for him to temper his actions. Outrageous figures like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk circle his incoming cabinet. And he will enjoy absolute immunity, thanks to his conservatives in the US Supreme Court.

Mr Trump is only the second person in America’s 248-year history to return to the presidency non-consecutively. But in a sense, he never left the White House, being the defining figure of US politics for the last decade.

In a mark of how he has warped the landscape, he will be the first felon in the Oval Office. A sentencing hearing due in a few weeks for his conviction promises a constitutional crisis.

It is ironic that the centerpiece of his campaign was the promised mass deportation of immigrants who commit crimes.

However, Mr Trump’s vicious second-term agenda also includes pledges to be a dictator on day one, to use the National Guard against US citizens and to weaponise the justice system.

His supporters say such promises are “jokes.”

Except, the public record shows he has acted on his rhetoric before. In his first term, he pressured Jeff Sessions to probe “crooked” Hillary Clinton.

Mr Trump’s rehabilitation by the American electorate is an expression of an astonishing double standard. Abroad, it decries autocrats. At home, it elects them.

Kamala Harris, who sought to break the Trump spell and become the first female US president, was required to run a flawless campaign, while he was lawless.

Hours after he claimed victory, she telephoned him personally to concede the race, breaking from the precedent he set in 2020.

In a gutsy speech later delivered at Howard University, she put him on notice that, “We will never give up the fight for our democracy.”

“Sometimes the fight takes a while,” she added.

Ms Harris’s light amid the darkness notwithstanding, Mr Trump’s radicalisation of US politics is, with this result, complete.

He will have a profound impact on generations to come, inspiring strongmen the world over. In truth, he is wrong to say his movement is unprecedented.

An admirer of Hitler’s rule, he knows exactly where we have seen this before.