Trump the colossus is the comeback king of American politics

We may be in the midst of the greatest political comeback in American history — which follows, by eight years, the greatest political stunt in American history.That stunt was Donald Trump’s first win, in 2016.The comeback — and it will still be a staggering story even if he comes up just short — is his extraordinary performance over the past four years following his defeat in 2020.I am not here going to adjudicate Trump’s sins or errors, though I am so mindful of them that I did not vote for him and wrote in someone else.No, I am here to represent hundreds of millions of slack-jawed people around the world, gaping in wonderment at the fact that Trump got to this place on Election Night 2024.

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Never miss a story.Think of it.

This is a man who was impeached (for a second time) two weeks before leaving office in 2021.In the years that followed that second impeachment, he was pursued by a state attorney general, two local prosecutors and a federal special prosecutor.He was indicted 91 times in three different criminal courts and found liable in two civil courts.

He has been convicted (ludicrously, in my view) of 34 (ludicrous, again) felonies.He has had his home raided by federal agents.He has seen his eponymous business effectively shut down by a Manhattan judge.He has been the subject of relentless and limitless hostile press coverage that dwarfs any negative characterizations of any other human being of our time.And yet here he is, on the cusp of becoming president of the United States for a second go-round.His utter refusal to be bent or broken by his enemies and his critics and his determination to redeem himself by recapturing the office he lost has no parallel that I can think of — not in American history, anyway.And he did i...