Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler, Novemer 10, 2024

Democrat Party candidate Kamala Harris called for an election that would “Turn the Page” on the past decade of division and discord.

The vice president won that challenge; American voters overwhelmingly turned the page on the Kamala Harris candidacy and ended it with a decisive victory sending Donald Trump, her Republican challenger, back to the White House in the greatest political comeback in American history.

Kamala’s crushing electoral defeat came as a political thunderclap on a clear day.

Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message posed American voters with a simple question ‘Are you better off today than you were four years ago?’ / Video Image

Ironically, Harris campaigned to cure the current woes facing America; Inflation, controlling massive illegal immigration, and fixing a floundering economy, all of which she presided over.

What Kamala forgot was that she was ironically campaigning against her own Biden/Harris Administration of which she served as Vice President for 3-and-a-half years! The obvious question hung like a Damocles sword; Given the obvious challenges she presented, why did she not try to fix them?

If the recently concluded American presidential election campaign were a political thriller, the producers would say the story was simply too far-fetched; Bizarre plot twists, legal hijinks to try to jail the opposition candidate, two assassination attempts, all set to a permanent drumbeat of competing accusations.

Most Americans, and I suspect a large part of the world, were happy to see the two-year political marathon end.

People had had enough. Biden originally had a constituency and brand, but his obvious cognitive decline forced him to step aside for his lackluster vice president Kamala Harris, who soon became saddled with growing global chaos, high inflation and border insecurity. Harris emerged as the standard bearer for a stagnant status quo which people increasingly rejected.

Despite the Harris campaign’s massive billion-dollar political war chest; She outspent Trump by $400 million, the Democrat Party’s financial edge proved a dull sword.

Kamala Harris went from the soundtrack of Summer Joy and turning the Page for America, into a crude and darkly comical trope that Trump was a Nazi, a fascist, posing a “threat to democracy.”

The demonization of Donald Trump, combined with the incessant law-fare and persistent legal challenges to his candidacy, actually energized his voter base who saw the U.S. political system morphing into something akin to an election in Pakistan or Tunisia.

Personal attacks by both sides abounded like the autumn leaves blowing with the wind. But the low point came when Joe Biden just a week before election day branded Trump supporters (about 75 million of his fellow Americans) as garbage. This tone deaf and stupid remark activated undecided voters, who may not have been comfortable with Trump’s personality, but then energized the Republican base!

Democrat New York State Governor Kathy Hochul labeled New Yorkers who voted for Republicans as “anti-American.”

Had Harris focused on policy specifics, rather than just saying “I have a Plan” but lacking any details, cost her dearly. So did her lack of serious interviews even with a largely fawning leftist media.

The political planets had aligned for a massive Trump victory, both in the electoral college and the equally important popular vote as significant swings of Hispanics and Black/American voters towards Trump cemented his landslide.

The Harris vote underperformed Biden’s 2020 bid in most areas. Not only did Donald Trump win the storied swing states North Carolina, Georgia and Blue Wall (places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) but with larger margins. As importantly Trump’s vote tally made significant inroads, but not winning, in classic Democrat stronghold states like New York.

Trump won the election with his GOP base and a widened multiracial working-class coalition.

Most political pundits were surprised over the magnitude and depth of the Trump win which also saw the Republicans carry Congress, both the Senate and the House. The final tally of 312 Electoral College votes and a popular vote advantage of 51/48 percent put the Republicans in sweet territory not seen since the Ronald Reagan landslides in the 1980’s. The outcome represented a clear and importantly definitive result.

It signaled a repudiation of the woke ideological intolerance, striving for a secure U.S. border, and tackling the undertow of inflation and economic woes.

Foreign leaders were quick to congratulate Trump; Britain’s Kier Stormer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Hungary’s Victor Orban, India’s Modi and South Korea’s Yoon. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky proclaimed that Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy may be able to bring a “just peace” to war torn Ukraine.

Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message posed American voters with a simple question “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]

  Anti-establishment Donald Trump simply offered to ‘Turn the Page’ on a failed system, WorldTribune.com

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