By Mark Antonio Wright
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
The 2024 election will be discussed from a million
angles. In the days and weeks ahead, the knives will come out in the ranks of
the losers. Post-mortems will be written, and the arguments will be fought out
over what could have been different or which strategies should have
been tried. The data will be analyzed and over-analyzed.
All that will be necessary and very interesting because
the very foundations of the two major-party coalitions have been shaken and the
tectonic plates of American politics have shifted. However, we shouldn’t forget
the singular fact of the 2024 election: Donald Trump has just completed the
most remarkable political comeback in American history.
His achievement is more impressive than Richard Nixon’s
in 1968. It’s more important than Grover Cleveland’s in 1892. I don’t think
there’s any question now that Donald Trump is the most consequential American
political figure of the 21st century so far.
He arrived on the partisan political scene not more than
15 years ago. But in that short time, Trump has decisively closed the Obama era
in American politics, which began with what many on the left thought was a
permanent realignment in 2008. With his reelection in 2024, Trump has defeated
Barack Obama’s successor’s successor and his ideological heir, Kamala Harris. I
think it’s fair to say that Trump has also, in a second try, defeated Joe Biden
by forcing him out of the race last summer. Trump has now — twice! — climbed
the Blue Wall and dismantled the Obama coalition in the crucible of a general
election.
Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will be
the same going forward — even if, no, there is nothing permanent about any of
the so-called “permanent” realignments in our politics.
My hope, of course, is that some good comes out of this
most recent coalitional realignment. Sometimes a good shake-up is necessary.
I’ve been open about my skepticism of the direction of the Republican Party
under Trump, but I do think there is a chance that this reelection could open a
path towards political dynamism and renewal, possibly or even probably in ways
that no one could predict right now.
Donald Trump, after his reelection, certainly deserves a
shot at trying, along with the goodwill of his countrymen.
But all that’s for the future. For now, it’s worth
marveling at Donald Trump’s simply stunning political achievement.
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