On November 6, when Associated Press called Wisconsin, with 277 Electoral College votes, Donald J. Trump, aged 78, formally became the oldest President-elect of the United States of America. With it, JD Vance, the 40-year-old first-term senator from Ohio, also became Vice President-elect ever and an early frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
American ‘liberal’ media and pollsters had predicted the 2024 presidential election to be a knife-edge battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Contrarily, it has proven to be a “Trump 2.0 Tsunami”.
As the races for the last two battleground states — Nevada (6 electoral college votes) and Arizona (11 electoral college votes) — were called on Saturday by the Associated Press, Trump increased his lead to 312 over Harris at 226 in electoral college votes. Further, Trump leads the popular votes count by around 4 million, with 95 percent of the votes counted.
Mirror Test Time
Donald Trump’s win is the biggest for a Republican Party presidential candidate since the victory of George W. Bush in 2004 and in many ways next only to Bush senior in 1988. And, he has achieved such a victory in style:
One, the false liberal media narrative: Truly brutal campaign run by the liberal media created a false narrative in favour of Kamala Harris and a win for Trump is resultantly a complete loss of face for this brand of popular mainstream media and a blot on the face of its columnists who left nothing unturned to demonise Trump and created a narrative and conjured a result they wanted to see.
Two, uncomfortable truth: The victory of Trump is also a tough luck for poll pundits of all hues. They failed to gauge the anger and frustration of an average American voter who embraced Trump irrespective of class, colour, age and gender. Pollsters’ portrayal of a narrow “narrow lead” for Harris at national level popular votes and watertight race for the battleground states was not only far off the mark but poll pundits got their prediction third time wrong — in 2016, they had predicted a landslide for Hillary Clinton while in 2020 their verdict was far bigger margin of victory for Joe Biden than what he eventually managed.
Imagining Trump 2.0
In this concluding part of the two-part series, I delve deeper and examine the scale and depth of Trump’s victory, analyse the pathways to how he reached the summit, and try to imagine what Trump 2.0 will be like for America, the world at large and India. I do deep dive into the likely impact of the Republican Trifecta on the way Trump will govern and examine the key promises he has made and the changing calculus of multilateralism, economy, ongoing wars (in Europe and Middle East), likely trade war and his policies towards climate change.
To put in perspective, the only certainty about Trump 2.0 is the uncertainty it brings. I will return to it a bit later.
I begin with the scale of Trump’s win
Collapse of the Blue Citadel
With Arizona and Nevada being the last two battleground states to be called in favour of Trump, the final Electoral College vote tally reads: Trump 312, Harris 226. Also, instructively, Trump is also set to win around 4 million more popular votes than Harris.
There is more to the triumph of Trump. Here are key messages:
One, Trump has won 31 of 50 states with his biggest victories in Wyoming (72.3 per cent), West Virginia (70.1 per cent), North Dakota (67.5 per cent), Idaho (66.8 per cent) and Oklahoma (66.1 per cent).
Two, it is a clean sweep for Trump in seven battleground states: Pennsylvania (19), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (6). In 2020, Biden had defeated Trump by winning six of the seven swing states, and narrowly losing North Carolina; Biden won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.
Three, from 2016 to 2020, most battleground states moved towards the Democratic presidential candidate. Instructively, that changed in 2024 when every swing state swung toward Trump returning all 93 electoral college votes on offer to him.
Four, with a little more than 95 per cent of the votes counted Republicans have won a bigger share of votes in every state in 2024 compared to 2020; Trump has received more votes in each of the 50 states compared to 2020.
Five, more importantly, on the way to the summit Trump ensured complete collapse of the traditional blue wall — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With the crumbling of the blue wall blew away the narrow pathway of victory for Harris.
Profundity
It is time now to examine the profundity, the depth of Trump’s reach in voters of all hues. Here is what we know about voter calculus of Trump-
One, third-time lucky but wins in style: It took three attempts at hustings for Trump to win the national popular votes in 2024, but he did so in style. His was predicted to be a win with the tiniest of the margin, but went one up on George W Bush who was the last republican 20 years back who won 62,040,610 popular votes and 280 electoral College votes in comparison to his Democrat rival John Kerry who secured 59,028,444 popular votes and 251 electoral votes.
Two, take the men, hold the women: The strategy of the Trump team to maximise the male votes while holding on to the female votes ensured that both men and women gravitated towards Trump like never before.
Though men historically have voted for Republican presidential candidates in every state, in this election they supported Trump by a 13-point margin as against 8 points in 2020. Contrarily, women majorly have traditionally voted for a Democrat candidate and this election was no exception but the margin of support of women to Harris was 7 points narrower than 15-point margin to Biden in 2020.
Three, Trump all the way for Voters without College Degree: When it came to the working-class voters without college degrees it was Trump all the way. They appear to have voted in favour of Trump by a margin of 14 percentage points, the most for any Republican since 1984 when Ronald Reagan won them by 19 percentage points.
Four, Black Turn Red: Since the time of the 1932 win of Franklin D Roosevelt, black was the most dedicated voting block for Democrats. But not this time. Black voters voted for Trump at a level not seen since George W Bush. Unsurprisingly then, as against 8 per cent black votes in 2016 and 13 per cent in 2020, Trump got 20 per cent black votes in 2024
Five, dramatic shift in Hispanic voters: The most dramatic shift in this election was among Hispanic voters, who according to the Washington Post swung to Trump by 25 points nationally. Harris won a slight majority of these voters nationally, 53 percent to 45 percent but it marked a dramatic decrease over Joe Biden’s 33-point margin in 2020. Among Hispanic men of all ages, Trump saw an 18-percentage-point increase in support.
Five, Asian, South Asians turn right: Though in recent elections Asian-Americans trended left, 2024 seems to be different. The research shows that some populations, specifically Vietnamese Americans and Indian-Americans have voted more for Trump than Harris, despite the Indian-origin lure of Harris. Associated Press reports that in some areas even disillusioned Arab-Americans chose to vote for Trump
Indisputably, the gravitational pull has swung too far away from Democrats and it is the moment of reckoning, a time for reality check. Despite being dubbed unhinged, dangerous, fascist, unstable, outliner and aberration, it is a bold new Trump 2.0 time now.
House Called
I delayed writing this piece, because I wanted to see which way the tight race for control of the lower house, US House of Representative, swings. For Trump to rule like a ‘king’ and pursue his agenda unfettered, the control of the House holds the key because during the past two years of divided government, Biden has had little success in passing legislation and Congress struggled to perform its most basic function of providing the money needed to keep the government open.
When I started writing this piece Associated Press had not called the House but the data provider Decision Desk HQ had already called the House race in favour of the Republican Party, which means it has secured 218 seats and retained the control of the House of Representatives.
As I complete the piece on November 14, Associated Press too has called the US Congress in favour of the Republican Party. As per AP, House Republican victory in Arizona, alongside a win in slow-counting California earlier Wednesday, gave the GOP the 218 House victories that make up the majority.
With hard-fought yet thin majorities, Republican leaders are envisioning a mandate to upend the federal government and swiftly implement Trump’s vision for America.
Trifecta Control
When the House called for the Republican Party, taking the Republican tally to 218 (the slender lead may increase further) it is trifecta tine for the Republican Party After retaining the control of the House of Representatives, the Republican Party shall now have the control of both chambers of the Houses, meaning trifecta control for Donald Trump.
In the parlance of the general election in the US, the trifecta control refers to the control of House, Senate and White House by the same party. After Trump winning 312-226 Electoral College votes, Republicans regaining Senate 53-46 (one race yet to be called) and House of Representatives (218+) it will have a clobbering impact on how Donald Trump governs America in his second term.
Clobbering Impact
Make no mistake, the trifecta control shall have a clobbering impact on how Trump governs in Trump 2.0. Emboldened by trifecta, he will govern undeterred and unchecked like a king if not like a dictator-which he has promised to be for one day-the day one of his Presidency.
Trifecta at the minimum gives unfettered freedom to Trump. It also means iron-grip control amid fewer restraints if any and complete leeway to Trump to appoint his cabinet, confirm judges, decide on spending and tax legislation. Indubitably a Republican trifecta in Washington would ensure that President-elect Donald Trump’s staunchly conservative agenda largely goes into effect.
The only real check will be the likely thin majority of Republicans in the House and the party not having a super majority of 60 in the senate. But it will be still Trump all the way because unlike in 2016, Republicans in Senate and Congress are this time adherents of MAGA-Make America Great Again
Not By Rules
With trifecta already in the Republican bag, and despite the beginning of Trump 2.0 era still 70 days away — he will be formally declared elected on January 6 and will take over as president only on January 20 — Trump has already indicated how he plans to govern: ‘not by rules of the game’.
The Senate Republicans have just voted to pick insider John Thune as their next leader, but Trump is already testing the norms of governance during this presidential transition period, telling the Senate to forgo its advice-and-consent role and simply accept without demur his Cabinet nominees. And the senate leader is likely to comply with the Trump wishes for “Senate in recess appointments”
The above gives early inkling of the way Trump is likely to rule in this second avatar with full disdain to established norms:
Promises Made Promises Kept
In his victory speech Trump has thundered: “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” Here are his key promises-
1. Mass Deportation: Trump has promised the biggest mass deportations of undocumented migrants in US history. He also has promised completing the building of a wall at the border with Mexico that was started during his first presidency
2. Evaporating Inflation: Though the power of the President to directly influence prices is limited, he has promised to “end the inflation” that peaked in the Biden era before subsiding subsequently.
3. Sweeping Tax Cuts: As a part of his economic agenda has also promised sweeping tax cuts, extending his overhaul from 2017. There are his promises to make tips tax-free, abolish tax on social security payments and shave corporation tax.
4. Sweeping Tariffs: His economic agenda also includes sweeping tariffs on most imports and cutting the trade deficits. Many economists have already warned that his move to drastically increase tariffs will harm Americans as it will push prices of goods consumed by ordinary people.
5. Sacking Jack Smith: Trump will be the first President who will return to the White House with a criminal conviction, having been found guilty in New York of falsifying business records. One of his promises are to sack veteran special counsel Jack Smith within “two seconds” of taking over as President Jack Smith has indicted Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and over his alleged mishandling of classified documents
6. Pardoning January 6 Insurrection Convicts: Trump has vowed to free most of those convicted for the attack on the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, to thwart the victory of Joe Biden. And reasons of Trump are clear: most convicted have been wrongly imprisoned
7. Abortion Flip Flop: Much to the chagrin of many of his supporters, Trump has said during the presidential debate with Kamala Harris that he would not sign into law a national abortion ban. Notwithstanding the above, Trump has so far failed to articulate a clear stand of his own on abortions and instead reiterated with regularity that states should be free to decide their own laws on abortion.
8. Only Two Genders: Trump has made his position vehemently clear. There are only two genders — “male” and “female”. That means there is no scope for “transgender” in the Trump 2.0 era. Period. Going further, Trump also has threatened criminal proceedings against doctors or withdrawal of federal financial support to hospitals involved in sex change operations on minors.
9. No War Game: Trump has consistently blamed Biden for humiliation to America in Afghanistan and for his roles in wars in Europe and Middle East that have resulted in billions of dollars spent by America to prop up Ukraine. He would like to see the US staying away from foreign conflicts in general. He has also vowed to end the Ukraine-Russia war in a day, even before he takes over as president.
10.Climate Conundrum: During his first term Trump ensured that America withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, and he successfully rolled back hundreds of environment regulations. He has vowed to return to his belligerent past, move away from the clean energy, cut environmental regulations and help the domestic car manufacturers
On Hold
Trump’s first term was harrowing for multilateralism. He is open about his disdain for the relevance of the United Nations in today’s world. And he has been categorical about the European NATO allies being drain on America.
Notwithstanding heaps of support coming to Trump from European leaders, there is nervousness all around. There is deep concern in the heart of the heart of the allies who for certain have deep concerns that Trump doesn’t care what his allies think.
Get Along
In 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping took more than two weeks to congratulate Biden. This time around he has been quick to congratulate President-elect Trump, though the congratulatory message has been far more subdued than what it was in 2016.
Within a day of Trump clinching the presidency, on November 7, President Xi urged both nations to find the “right way to get along”, as looming US tariffs threatened to return them to the days of a trade war years ago. Wary of the looming high tariff in Trump 2.0, Xi has rooted for stable, sound and sustainable China-US relations and added that the international community would expect the two powers to “respect each other (and) co-exist peacefully”. Contrarily, Trump has already picked “China Hawk” Mike Waltz for the role of the National Security Advisor.
A New War
Trump is wary of wars. But he loves another type of war: trade war. Trump is a man who hails tariffs as “the greatest thing ever invented”. He will follow a twin-track approach: use tariffs to negotiate with friendly countries and to lean on bad actors and at the worst it may prove to be what The Economist notes “world’s worst trade wars since the 1930s”.
And if Trump follows through on his campaign promises, he will impose across the board a 60 per cent tariff on China, will be taxing Mexican cars at up to 500 per cent, and about a flat tariff on other imports of 10-20 per cent.
For every tariff that Trump unleashes there will be a counter tariff. It is an uncertain world out there
Trump and Bharat
Trump’s first term for India was distinctly better than what four years of Biden’s rule has proved to be. In the new world order, where India has already emerged as the most populous democracy in the world and soon will be world’s third largest economy, Bharat is a natural ally to America for economic, strategic and geopolitical reasons, including as a bulwark against expansionary China.
But there is a flipside as well. Trump’s transactional approach of give and take, his trade policies clashing with the Make in India agenda, his immigration policy impacting Indian diaspora, and his style of public messaging are pinpricks Bharat will have to learn to live with.
There are, however, many positives from Trump 2.0 which America and Bharat must thrive on.
The author is a multi-disciplinary thought leader with Action Bias and an India based impact consultant. He is a keen watcher of changing national and international scenario. He works as President Advisory Services of Consulting Company BARSYL. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.