With the Electoral College officially confirming Joe Biden as president this week, he officially confirmed the loss of President Donald Trump in his bid for a second term, unable to comment political avoidance again as it did in 2016.
After more than six weeks of legal challenges and baseless allegations of “rigged” votes and fierce election conspiracies, the College of Elections this week cast 306 votes for Biden and 232 for Trump. The U.S. Congress is now ready to confirm these findings on January 6, paving the way for the establishment of Biden on January 20.
In the weeks after Election Day, as the leadership hung in the balance, Trump and his supporters once again criticized the election process, making baseless allegations of voter fraud. . And even after the College of Elections confirmed Biden’s influence, Trump and his supporters are still denying President Biden’s truth, with more lawsuits in jeopardy and Trump still igniting flames through his Twitter feed.
Terrible evidence spills over voter fraud. There has never been anything like this in our country!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 15 December 2020
Trump the stranger
From a political victory in 2016 that not even his own friends thought possible, to four years of partisan separation, Trump is now joining history as the only American president to make an effort. lost at a second term, and the first to do so in the 21st century. The 45th president is leaving office as he came in, in a controversial election surrounded by misinformation.
But in an election that wiped out voting records, more than 75 million voters backed another four years of Trump’s regularly broken down leadership.
Supporter wears “Trump 2020” hat as US President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 14, 2020 [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
“The voters wanted a foreigner, they wanted real change, and what more could you ask for in a change of man like Donald Trump?” Said Henry Barbour, a longtime Republican official and Mississippi worker. . “I mean, it turned Washington upside down.” It was far from normal. He did and said things that no other politician could get away with, and he got to accomplish a lot. “
In fact, Trump was against it from the beginning. Manhattan billionaire who became a hero of working-class Southerners. One-time pro-choice Democrat seeking High Court judgments against Roe v. Wade. Evangelical Christian Hero despite his many widely publicized cases, divorce and allegations of sexual misconduct. A man running on draining the bog, but managing his net with lobbyists.
Despite these contradictions, he was able to attract large oaths of strong supporters in constituencies that had historically voted for Democrats. Trump was seen by millions, including those across Rust Belt states – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – who were tired of Washington politics, as someone who was going to fight for their concerns. It was in the midst of a growing awareness among working-class white people, former voters and independents that politicians and the media had other priorities which, in my view, were extreme. or, at the very least, deviate from their beliefs.
US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, October 31, 2020 [Carlos Barria/Reuters]
Unlike the smart, well-prepared politicians of the past, Trump had largely not changed and changed how politicians can use great communication. In his raw Tweets and press conferences and horror rallies, his fans saw someone tell him how he is. But the trust he earned also allowed them to spread unprecedented amounts of misinformation, down to the baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
After taking office in 2016, Trump found himself leading a highly polarized country and settled in with a ruling strategy rather than unity. That approach was successful with his enthusiastic supporters, but about half of the country did not like it at all.
His supporters repudiated their unwilling oaths of “Make America Great Again” by tearing down trade contracts he believed were bad for U.S. workers, building a wall along the U.S. border. -Mexico and tightening immigration restrictions, calling for President Barack Obama’s Remedy Care Act to be repealed. , and applies the “America First” philosophy when dealing with foreign policy.
Trump signs ad at campaign rally in West Chester, Pennsylvania, April 25, 2016 [Dominick Reuter/Reuters]
While controversy and chaos will forever define Trump’s term as president, his impact will never spread anytime soon. It was able to appoint three judges to the U.S. Supreme Court and hundreds of custodial judges to U.S. courts, moving the federal judges to the right for years to come. Trump and his Republican passed a tax cut bill, which was the biggest tax code renewal in decades. And Trump also signed a bipartisan-backed criminal justice reform bill passed by the U.S. Congress.
President of reality TV
Decades in making: The growth of television and culture with the fame of the 1960s, the loss of credibility in government in the 1970s, the capitalism of the 1980s and the public conservatism of the 1990s were a marvel in the making all the platforms on which he built his appeal.
Trump was already well known in the top three, as a well-known businessman, performing for 14 seasons from 2003 to 2015 on the successful U.S. reality television show, The Apprentice. But he added a fourth to his bailiff, especially when he was president of Barack Obama. When Trump appeared frequently on Fox News and his role over the right-wing conspiracy marked Obama’s birth in Kenya, he established it as a game in conservative politics.
Donald Trump, Seeking Entrants for the TV show “The Apprentice”, is interviewed at Universal Studios Hollywood, July 9, 2004 [Ric Francis/AP Photo]
The stardom of the TV show really made it a success in politics, said Western Ontario University media scholar Alison Hearn. Name recognition, a penchant for self-promotion, and a knack for the television spectrum helped him to capture the attention alongside the rather awkward figures he ruled as career politicians.
“He understood that it’s about visibility, and a strong, compelling, amazing performance that people can’t look away from,” Hearn said. “He used reality television to get into the office, and then he turned the office to reality TV, and the country to real TV, you know, the heavy use of glasses, constant conflict, a kind of train wreck experience that you can’t look away from. “
Maybe it was the scratch style that made it too. Nationwide, pockets of voters who had a history of supporting Republicans instead of Biden, ultimately led to the election of former vice-president Hillary Clinton. four years earlier.
“His late tweets, the people shouting out, were his own worst enemy in that regard,” said former Florida representative Dennis Ross, an early Republican supporter of Trump. “It was a loss to Trump because of that.”
What now for Trump?
One of the biggest questions is what Trump will do next and what it means for the Republican Party. Some who are already close to mocking Trump’s 2024 primary run, an incredible political return that would make him the only president to serve non-partisan terms in addition to Grover Cleveland, who did so in the late 1800s.
But even if it’s not Trump himself, political observers are adamant that whatever comes next for the Republican Party involves some aspect of Trump. He was so opposed to the leadership criteria that he changed what it means to be in primary school, and the consequences could be lower in his party, he said. O’Mara.
“I don’t think they’re going to give up.” Republicanism has been good politics in America since Thomas Jefferson, ”said O’Mara. “I don’t think we’re going to say that Trump hasn’t left his mark on history, certainly he has.” But this is a repetition. “
Doug Heye, a long-time Republican supporter and commentator, said Trump’s lasting legacy will be no less about any individual policies, and more about a pugilistic tone. Others will follow, knowing now that his message was related to voters, even though he did so for some time that was ultimately going on.
Even without Trump, he said, “Trumpism is still there.”