American titan: inside Donald Trump’s remarkable political comeback

Donald Trump’s bid to take back the White House has been triumphant. It is a decisive victory and even Trump’s bitterest enemies should recognise him for what he is: an American titan, the most extraordinary politician of our time. He has just pulled off arguably the biggest comeback in US history – a feat greater even than Richard Nixon’s Lazarus-like return in 1968.

To understand the scale of his victory, recall how weakly he began. On 15 November 2022, when Trump launched his now-triumphant bid to regain the presidency, he did not seem himself. His formal campaign announcement, delivered in the ballroom of his club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, lacked the zing of his famous entry into the 2016 race, when he floated down the escalator of Trump Tower in New York.

The Trump of 2022 had countless legal problems and he’d been widely blamed for the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the mid-term elections. Republican donors and the right-wing media were lining up behind Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the coming man. Back then Trump looked disgruntled. ‘I don’t like to think of myself as a politician,’ he said. ‘But I guess that’s what I am. I hate that thought.’ Critics called his performance ‘low-energy’– turning one of his favourite insults against him.

But the Donald was only ever down, not out. ‘Trump fatigue’, as people called it, turned out to be a mirage and the Trump of 2024 is jubilant, albeit exhausted, having accomplished his extraordinary re-election mission. ‘I’ll never be doing a rally again, can you believe it,’ he said in his victory speech, sounding truly sad. But, he added, ‘success is going to bring us together’. Whatever else you think of him, it would be hard not to admit that Trump has grit.