The comeback king

PETER GEORGE JR

THE ELECTION of president-elect Donald Trump on November 5 was certainly history, but that word alone is not merely enough to capture the gravity of this accomplishment.

What we witnessed on Tuesday was the indubitable and unequivocal ascension of Donald J Trump into a pantheon where very few if any other worldly figure has ever resided.

Fuelled by the courage and defiance he displayed mere seconds after cheating death by literal millimetres, he has gone on to architect what is undoubtedly the greatest comeback in political history and his promised new golden age for America.

My words will likely and predictably be dismissed by the armchair and keyboard critics as the hyperbole of the blind, but I will argue why everyone ought to, at last, accept the greatness that many saw ten years ago.

The immensity of Trump's defiance and grit is inexpressible not only to his allies, but to his staunchest foes. This is evidenced by the unrelenting attacks on him since 2015. Trump has withstood in ten years what many great and storied men never endured in their entire lifetime, culminating in the attempt on his life.

Most illustrative was UFC champion Connor McGregor stating, "A 78-year-old multibillionaire should be on a yacht in the Mediterranean touring golf courses. But he is not. He is in Pennsylvania spitting out bullets. Running for the love of his country." A powerful testimony to the impact of Trump to billions around the world.

Cheering the thought that he was at last vanquished in 2020, the political class in permanent Washington nevertheless went into overdrive with all three branches of government launching what would be the most comprehensive and asymmetrical campaign against a political opponent in recorded history. This included multiple impeachments (including one even after he demitted office), three indictments and a 34-count conviction rife with legal inconsistency.

Even the most ardent autocrats shrugged their shoulders in disbelief with one of their diplomats even quipping glibly, "At least here we simply collect you in the back of a black van, we don't bother with the theatre." Trump took it all in stride and simply soldiered on, going from marathon courtroom session to marathon rally in mere minutes. He is without doubt a once-in-a-generation freak of energy and purpose.

This brings us to today. If in January of 2021 you had suggested that Trump would, in 2024, not only still be around but be stronger and more popular than ever and would retake the White House, Senate, Congress and popular vote in a landslide, you would likely have been deemed certifiable.

He now presides over a US that is largely unified behind him and his vision – and is stronger than ever. He is even spoken about more glowingly by world leaders than the actual sitting president. To be sitting where he is today would have been utterly unthinkable in the wake of the election result of 2020. Simply put, the man is a political Hercules.

Contrastingly, the Democratic Party has spiralled into a mess of infighting and finger-pointing and poor Joe Biden will likely get the blame. Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party have been methodically and unambiguously dismantled, piece by piece, by a vastly superior and deft opponent. Populated by gatekeepers who have been outmatched at every turn, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) is now faced with no alternative and must pull the emergency cord.

I have followed and commented on politics since my eyes were opened to the beauty of its selfless service to others and I can say unreservedly now that Trump is the undisputed best of them all. His natural political prowess – visceral and authentic – makes the revered Bill Clinton and Barack Obama look like novices.

His policies, while reaganesque, were punctuated with the courage and resolve that Ronald Reagan lacked to push them through fully and get meaningful public buy-in. Reagan was about American power, Trump is about American strength; two vastly different dynamics.

Those of us not blinded can see the differences very clearly. Reagan with all of his Hollywood charm and panache sold America to the WTO (World Trade Organization) and the elite class. Trump aimed his restorative guns squarely at her middle class, earning him both wrath and awe, depending on where you sat.

His is a more relatable and vastly effective realpolitik focused on easily comprehensible objectives such as "make America great again," as well as an intense Teddy Roosevelt nationalism focused on American respect and recognition globally. As a recent blogger surmised, "He has to win not to have purpose in his life, but that others can have purpose in theirs."

Trump's ability to see beyond his perceived betrayal in 2020 and maintain the fortitude, resolve, and constitution to finally accept that defeat and then architect a patient plan that had a four-year gestation is frankly mind-boggling. His main fuel was the resolute commitment in his mind that he must and will get his comeuppance. He now finds himself four years hence more popular, more powerful and more beloved, in spite of everything that was thrown at him in those four years. For him to be in this position is nothing short of an astonishing expression of humanism in an almost ethereal form.

This is a journey and a result that you simply cannot script and which can only be accomplished by someone whose competence, motivation, determination and indefatigability is that of a master tactician the likes we have not seen in millennia, if ever.

The margin of error, given that he engaged the entire apparatus of the state and their actors at the highest level, employing every resource available, made this task even more breathtaking. If you cut off a man's tongue you aren't proving him wrong, you are showing the world you fear what he has to say.

Harassed, humiliated, persecuted, censored, charged and almost publicly assassinated, Trump sits today still, not only as the president-elect of the United States, but indubitably the most recognised, potent and towering personality on the face of the Earth and there simply is no second-place challenger. It is a most remarkable achievement.

Having garnered 20 per cent of the vote of black men and 47 per cent of Latino men, as well as winning Florida by a staggering 13 per cent and Arizona by six per cent, Trump has single-handedly and unthinkably orchestrated the greatest bloodless political upheaval in modern history and concomitantly stuck a proverbial fork in the Democratic Party.

The fact that he has accomplished this, while continuously being branded a racist by the mainstream parrots and remaining an immigration hawk, illustrates the sheer depth of his political instincts and his gamble that legal immigrants will see sense through the nonsense. The Democratic Party is in catatonic shock, crumbling from the inside, victims of a political wizard for whom they still have no answer.

Eight years ago I thought Trump was good for America. Four years ago he was important for America. Today, he is critical for the entire planet.

The great radical thinker Charles Bukowski said, "Going to hell and coming back again is among the greatest satisfactions known to man." In that regard Trump is no doubt now satisfied, but his calling may be far greater than we mortals can comprehend.

I wish him Godspeed.