Donald Trump might be the next President of the United States — again.
At this point in the race in 2016, after the third presidential debate failed to move the polls, I was convinced that Trump was likely to lose to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
It was only in the last days of October, with FBI director James Comey re-opening Clinton’s email investigation, and massive crowds waiting for Trump in the cold at every stop, that I began rethinking things.
Trump won by surprise in 2016. If he wins in 2024, it will not be a surprise, but a redemption — the most incredible political comeback in American history.
Trump was supposed to be in prison by now, or dead. It was sheer luck — or divine intervention — that a bullet missed his brain and grazed his ear instead. And the slew of legal challenges — civil and criminal, state and federal — were intended to end his political career in shame.
In mid-2022, with memories of the Capitol riot still fresh, and a new conservative champion emerging in Florida governor Ron DeSantis, it was possible to imagine that Republicans would move beyond Trump on their own.
The results of the midterm elections that year, when DeSantis romped to reelection and Trump’s endorsed candidates largely went down to defeat, it seemed that perhaps Trump’s appeal to conservative voters really might be fading.
But Trump’s nomination had already been secured in the early morning hours of August 8, 2022, when the FBI raided the former president’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach County, Florida. The sight of federal agents, armed to the teeth, brushing past the Secret Service to search for missing documents was shocking.
Even Republicans who might have preferred an alternative to Trump began to rally behind him: this could not stand.
The more indictments and lawsuits Trump’s opponents threw at him, the more he rallied Republican support. Conservatives wondered if the “lawfare” tactic was perhaps a clever trap, designed to ensure that Trump would capture the Republican nomination but lose in the general election.
It was a “win-win” situation for Democrats: Trump could end up in prison, and broke — but if not, he would emerge as the worst presidential candidate ever.
If that was the plan, it backfired, for three reasons.
One is that President Joe Biden really has been a failure. He triggered an inflationary spiral with his “American Rescue Plan” in early 2021. He created the migration crisis by reversing Trump’s effective border policies. Then he destroyed public confidence in his administration with the disastrous Afghanistan pullout. And that was all in the first year. Kamala Harris was a part of it all.
Another reason is that Trump has simply refused to quit. The sight of him standing up, bleeding from his head, raising his fist, and shouting “Fight!” is one of the most iconic images in American history, emulating our national character. But Trump did more than perform heroic gestures. He also humbled himself to ask voters for their support. His stint at McDonald’s this week was not just a one-off: he has been doing things like that the entire campaign.
Yet the biggest reason Democrats’ tactics backfired is that the American people reject them. We recoil at the abuse of power and the perversion of justice.
Democrats should have known that, after using the George Floyd incident to arouse civil unrest in 2020.
The perception of injustice became reality in Trump’s cases.
Win or lose, Trump never should have had a chance. The fact that he has come this far is a redemption — for him, and for the nation as well. We, too, can come back from the brink.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.