THE GUARDIAN — OPINION: The last time was awful, but now that seems a mere dress rehearsal. From a public health crisis to the end of Nato, the threats are clear
Are you ready for Trump unbound? You may have thought the former and future president was already pretty unrestrained, not least because Donald Trump has never shown anything but brazen disrespect for boundaries or limits of any kind. And you would be right. But, as an earlier entertainer turned president – and Trump combines the two roles – liked to say: You ain’t seen nothing yet.
That’s because the 47th president will enter the Oval Office free of almost all constraints. He will be able to do all that he promised and all that he threatened, with almost nothing and no one to stand in his way.
To understand why, it pays to start with the nature of the win he secured on Tuesday. He did not eke out a narrow victory on points, as he did when he squeaked through the electoral college in 2016. This was a knockout that has Trump on course to bag every one of the battleground states and to be the winner of the popular vote, the first Republican to pull off that feat in 20 years. All of which enables him to claim what he lacked in 2016: an emphatic mandate. » | Jonathan Freedland | Friday, November 8, 2024
