It’s not the year 2016.
The incoming President, Donald Trump, has much fewer challenges to face with this victory than the last time he was declared winner.
There are indeed several potential hazards to consider. “If some of Trump’s more contentious cabinet selections are confirmed, some significant issues could develop once they assume their roles.” (Anyone out there think that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have a trouble-free and uneventful time at the Department of Health and Human Services?) They can only lose two Republican votes in the House. “Events, including Trump’s own unpredictable temperament, have the upper hand.”
We find ourselves in a very different situation now than we were some eight years ago. The election of Trump in 2016 set off such a seismic shock that the political landscape was responding in very intense and instinctive ways. Interpreted as a virus, opposition came from all quarters, activists in the streets, and even the FBI director acting as antibodies against him.
This time around, the response is much less severe. Even with the dire warnings about a grave threat to democracy, former senior advisors to Kamala Harris were discussing ways to do better in future elections during a post-election analysis on the “Pod Save America” podcast. So there really will be another bite at the cherry.
Even if his critics would say that Trump cannot be "normalized," the fact is that he has been a fixture of American politics for the better part of a decade, and is likely to be so for at least four more years (even after his second term ends, he may still be molding the Republican Party).
Love him or hate him, Trump has become a part of the national landscape. He shows up at American-as-football-and-MMA kind of events, gets cheered, loves McDonald’s, and is basically drenched in pop culture.
No such scenes were there after his win in the election this time unlike in 2016, neither were the socalled “faithless electors” attempted to dissuade him from taking the oath.
His victory is unencumbered by any hint of illegitimacy. This time he scored a more decisive victory than in 2016 by winning the popular vote, precluding opponents from arguing that he had won only on account of the archaic and technical nature of the Electoral College.
There’s no imaginary burden hanging over Trump by some investigation that stained the early part of his first term within Russiagate. At least for now, the legal obstacles are diminishing.
There is so far general approval of his transition according to a recent CBS poll, with 59 percent of voters endorsing the process. Whereas it was all resistance from the word go for Trump in 2016, this time he might have some wind at his back.
The leader of the free world at present is Trump; as such, he overshadows the man in the White House who, except for giving a pardon to his son, has most ly receded into the background. Unlike Clinton, Biden will not say that it was Trump who took an election job from him when he retired. The only way it could be embittering for Biden is if it reminds him of all the machinations that kept him from securing a Democratic nomination that he had already sewn up for himself.
This does not mean that Trump will have a free ride for the crucial first two years of his presidency. But the circumstances are more with him now than they were eight years ago.
