There is nothing inevitable – or permanent – about Trumpism 2.0

Donald Trump, characteristically immodest in his moment of victory, declared his win to be an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”. To no one’s surprise, that claim is not strictly accurate – because many of his predecessors won far higher shares of the popular vote, more of the electoral college, and bigger majorities in Congress, or all three.

However, President-elect Trump certainly outperformed both expectations and his record. He has never before won the popular vote – both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden did that in the previous contests – and his mandate is a clear one. He won decisively, which is one small comfort from the election process – there will be no agonising recounts or vexatious litigation.

Mr Trump has, give or take a few decimal points, flipped the outcome of the 2020 election, and taken all of the swing states that were supposed to be such tight contests. The Republican Party is, more than it has ever been in its existence, a personality cult – and so Mr Trump is also, regrettably, right to call the triumph of his Maga movement a historic moment.

Come January, he will be in control of the executive branch, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, which will make legislation easier to pass and his more controversial appointments to the administration and the judiciary more likely to be ratified by the legislature. These will include nominees for such bodies as the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve, with far-reaching consequences.

Mr Trump can also rely on the Supreme Court to take a conservative view of the constitution, as was witnessed in the overthrow of the Roe v Wade ruling. Indeed, as a sort of advance welcoming present, Mr Trump’s three nominees to the Supreme Court have already granted him immunity from prosecution in the conduct of his official executive duties. In short, as Mr Trump himself might say privately, he can do whatever the hell he wants. The traditional guard rails are weakened. That is a chilling prospect.

The newly restored president also declared that he wanted to “heal” America. If only. Sadly, the lesson of his election win is that violent rhetoric, racist “jokes”, personal abuse and random extremism are the secret of his success – an inconvenient truth for all concerned.

The American people chose Mr Trump – and, while they may well have had their reservations and only did so hoping for the best, this time they knew what they were voting for.

It is Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats – who, unlike Labour ministers, is free to ignore diplomatic protocol and to speak his mind – who summed up for many the dismal reality of a second Trump presidency: “This is a dark, dark day for people around the globe. The world’s largest economy and most powerful military will be led by a dangerous, destructive demagogue. The next president of the United States is a man who actively undermines the rule of law, human rights, international trade, climate action and global security.”

So it is likely to prove. Mr Trump will, almost immediately, abandon Ukraine to appease Vladimir Putin, and give Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand in the Middle East – quite possibly including an escalation of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the conflict with Iran, with horrific consequences.

Protectionism is a central part of the Trump agenda, and an economic war with China looks likely, and with that a global trade recession. Mr Trump has quit the Paris climate accords before, and is sure to do so again, even in the face of ruinous freak weather events in America itself. He will not restore women’s reproductive rights, and will let JD Vance, Robert F Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk loose on the health of both the American people and the federal government. Millions of US migrant residents with American families face deportation.

If his party loses the 2028 election, no one can feel confident that he will assist in the peaceful transfer of power. Yet there is nothing inevitable or permanent about Trumpism, or this “realignment” of American electoral politics. The Trump campaign succeeded in its strategy of motivating the base and attracting new voters – notably Latinos, Asian-Americans, and those less-well-off traditional Democrats who feel left behind and beleaguered by inflation.

He abjured calls to “reach out” to centrist Republicans and Democrats, and ran an “insurgent” theme, as he had in 2016 but could not as the incumbent in 2020. It was a distasteful but rational strategy for an irrational candidate. There were more “hidden” Maga supporters than was assumed, it seems.

The economy and migration proved more potent weapons than either abortion or the (very real) threat to democracy posed by Mr Trump that the current vice-president emphasised. However, it would be facile and quite wrong for the Democrats to draw the easy conclusion that it was Kamala Harris and her campaign that lost the election.

She did turn things around after she took over from Joe Biden, even in the 107 days she had to do so; Mr Biden would have lost even more humiliatingly, had he somehow clung on. Arguably, had he gracefully announced his decision to retire a year ago, then Vice-president Harris, or some other nominee, might have run Mr Trump closer, at least.

But that’s speculation. What is fact is that the Biden-Harris administration, despite a strong record on jobs, investment and growth, suffered extremely poor ratings, and far too many Americans across every state felt that the country was on the wrong track. Any Democrat would have found that a powerful headwind.

Mr Trump’s victory, convincing though it proved, was not a landslide in any case. The Democrats still have a base to build from. Their duty now is to offer strong, reasoned opposition to Mr Trump, and to rebuild. They were not short of organisation or funds, but they have been poor at presentation and winning the arguments. In past electoral cycles – such as those that followed the losses in 1988 and in 2004, when all seemed lost – a period of rethinking brought forward fresh, winning political stars, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who changed the political weather.

Just as it was wrong – and, it turns out, a fateful error – to write Mr Trump and his party off after 6 January 2021, it would be foolish for the Democrats to assume that Maga is here to stay. The more likely result is that Mr Trump’s policies will make Americans poorer and the world a more dangerous place.

In a little less than four years from now, a Democrat might well ask Americans if they are better off after four years of Maga rule, and, on that basis, win the White House back. It ain’t over.