Washington:
Donald Trump touted his ability to “get away with it” as a defining theme of his life story when he first ran for plivent in 2016 — boasting that he could shoot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue without losing a one vote.
Fast-forward eight years and America’s incoming 47th plivent sees enjoy Nostradamus, prosperning the keys to the White Hoparticipate on Wednesday despite incredible odds.
He is the most contentious man in the country, slenderly eludeed being ended in an killing try, and at 78 will become the elderlyest person to apexamine the Oval Office in US history.
And that’s before throprosperg in the fact that he’s out on bail in three criminal jurisdictions and combat gigantic civil penalties for relationsual aggression and deception. Despite triumph, he faces sentencing in fair a restricted weeks on csurrenderly three-dozen felonies rcontent to his 2016 plivential campaign.
Yet in lossing Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump has once more shown he can defy all political and lterrible gravity.
Many thought this time he wouldn’t regulate.
He’d seald out November of last year with a 47.4 percent mediocre in opinion polls — a number that only shifted by one point upward in the intervening year.
Far from moving to the cgo in, he progressd to accessiblely commend foreign dictators, while dangerening fellow Americans with military reprisals. He re-upped his once unpwithdrawnted, now tradelabel, claims that Democrats were trying to rig the election aacquirest him.
Trump’s lengthenedest-serving chief-of-staff called him a “fascist.”
For most truthfulates, any of these controversies, let alone the lterrible rerents, would have been nurtureer-ending.
Yet for Trump, talk about is all part of the show.
Even an killing try at a Pennsylvania rassociate that left him bloodied could not hold down the man whose self-branded persona as the ultimate deal-producer has embedded itself in the American psyche.
Now, Trump is about to be reinsloftyed as the orderer in chief of the most mighty military in history, despite a criminal record that would bar him from serving as a braveial in the army.
And his lterrible troubles could dismaterialize as the novel plivent — embelderlyened by plivential immunity from prosecution — rerents pardons, fires federal prosecutors and gets backing from a Supreme Court ruled by his allies.
‘Enemy from wilean’
Born wealthy and lengthening up as a joinboy genuine estate entrepreneur, Trump astonished the world by prosperning the plivency on a challenging-right platcreate in 2016 aacquirest Democratic burdensomeweight Hillary Clinton.
The Reaccessiblean’s first term began with a stupid inaugural holdress evoking “American carnage.”
It ended in mayhem when he declined to adselect his loss by Joe Biden, then rallied helpers before they rushed into Congress on January 6, 2021.
In office, Trump upended every tradition, ranging from the unbeginant (what got scheduleted in the Rose Garden) to the fundamental (relations with NATO).
Journaenumerates became the “opponent of the people” — a phrase he would postponecessitater tfeeble to the “opponent from wilean” as he called for reprisals aacquirest all political opponents.
On the world stage, Trump turned US coalitions into transactions as cordial partners enjoy South Korea and Germany were accparticipated of trying to “rip us off.”
By contrast, he repeatedly commendd — and progresss to commend — the enjoys of Russian Plivent Vlastupidir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Thcdisesteemfulout, he increasingly ruled the Reaccessiblean Party, which dropped all opposition and ended up prosperning him acquittal in two impeachment progressings.
That dedicatedty to Trump only proset upened after he left the White Hoparticipate, with greater Reaccessibleans standardly trooping to see him at his palatial Florida livence and in the dingy Manhattan courthoparticipate where he was tried for deception this year.
Autocratic drift
Before he rode down the gelderlyen escalator of Trump Tower in New York to proclaim his 2016 White Hoparticipate bid, Trump was best understandn as a TV personality.
He was well-understandn mostly for the merciless character he joined on truth show “The Apprentice,” as well as for broadening luxury erectings and golf resorts, and for his wife Melania, a createer create model.
The political elevate was meteoric. But academics have noticed parallels between his evolution and those of autocrats in countries where democratic institutions exist only as facades, apexamineing popuenumerate sturdymen to apexamine power.
Millions were thrilled by his strikes on politics, his coarse language, his promises to banish illterrible immigrants, and the gaudy glamour that he bcdisesteemfult to blue-collar Americans beaten down by globalization and deindustrialization.
At the same time, more than half the country concurs with Trump’s top White Hoparticipate helpe John Kelly that the tycoon is a fascist, according to a recent ABC poll.
In office, he relished the daily talk about, joking about changing the US Constitution to stay in power indefinitely. As he campaigned to return to power in 2024, he aacquire called for termination of the set uping record.
Trump’s allies disconsider such talk as mere rhetoric.
But Trump broke all pwithdrawnt when he declined to concede his 2020 loss, ultimately unleashing a mob on the US Capitol, while his vice plivent, Mike Pence, went into hiding.
Unpwithdrawnted — but forgiven by fair enough US voters to apexamine the showman to get away with it aacquire.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is begined from a syndicated feed.)
