John Feffer
Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election was surprising in a number of ways. He won every swing state as well as the popular vote, which a Republican candidate hadn’t done in two decades. He led his party to a congressional sweep, with the Republicans maintaining control of the House of Representatives and seizing a majority in the Senate. And he benefited from an unexpectedly large shift in votes among Latino and African-American men.
In 2016, when Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin but lost the Electoral College, anti-Trump forces could plausibly argue that most of the country opposed the new president. This time around, a very slim plurality of voters had no problem putting back into the White House a convicted felon who supported efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.
In 2016, Trump himself was surprised by his own victory, and his team was ill-prepared to take power. In 2024, the Trump team is ready to hit the ground running on day one. It has already made some of the most extreme choices in U.S. history for the top positions in U.S. government: serial rule-breaker Matt Gaetz for attorney general, conspiracy theorist Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, right-wing TV host Pete Hegseth to head up the Pentagon, and extremist Stephen Miller to oversee immigration.
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