On January 7, 2021, Donald Trump’s road back to the White House seemed long, if not totally unnavigable. His lies about his loss two months prior had culminated in a riot at the Capitol that threatened not only the lives of his own vice president and the entirety of Congress, but his country’s most sacred tradition: The peaceful transfer of power.
But fewer than four years later, Trump’s path was so clear that he coasted to a more commanding victory than he had in 2016. Here are the five moments that made Trump president again:
FEBRUARY 13, 2021: THE ACQUITTAL
Fifty-seven senators voted to convict Trump on the charge of incitement of insurrection on February 13, 2021. That was ten senators short of the 67 that would have been needed to convict him and and bar him from office moving forward.
Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol was unambiguous. Yes, he had instructed the crowd that would go on to perpetrate it to march “peacefully and patriotically” toward the legislative branch. But that fact was hardly exonerative given the explosive claims he had filled their heads with. A conspiracy to steal an election would be a reason to stop those guilty of doing so by any means necessary. It can hardly be a surprise that those who believed that there was one did so.
Moreover, Trump failed to take decisive action to stop the attack, even continuing to egg the mob on as it closed in its targets. None of that was enough, however, to convince the requisite number of Republican senators to overcome their fear of political — and potentially physical — reprisals, so however unlikely Trump’s comeback remained, it was not legally forbidden.
AUGUST 26, 2021: THE ABBEY GATE ATTACK
After President Joe Biden made the decision to pull out of Afghanistan completely and announced it to the world, the situation in the war-torn country deteriorated rapidly. Taliban forces made significant gains in the months preceding the American evacuation effort, even taking the capital city of Kabul before all of the Americans — and almost any of their allies — had made it out.
The chaos that followed culminated in a suicide bombing at outside of the Kabul airport that the U.S. was running its evacuation out of. Thirteen American service members died, and even still, Biden ended up leaving some Americans — and thousands of allies — behind.
It’s hard to remember now, but Biden was actually popular right up until the Afghanistan debacle. On July 31, his approval rating was eight points higher than his disapproval rating. By the beginning of September, he was underwater — and he never managed to come up for air again. Afghanistan and Abbey Gate may not have been what most Americans were basing their vote on when they went to the polls this week, but it was the turning point when Americans decided that the Biden administration was staffed by incompetents — starting at the top.
APRIL 4, 2023: THE BRAGG INDICTMENT
The first of four criminal indictments against Trump was handed down by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the spring of 2023. It was a staggering act of legal overreach that backfired in a big way.
Bragg ran for his office by telling voters that he was best suited to investigate and bring charges against Trump. And when he did bring charges against Trump — only after pushing “his prosecutors to scour the penal code of a workable theory” of a case against the former president and landing on one that was “novel and untested” — it was for “falsification of business records.” Prior to Bragg’s blatant abuse of his power for political ends, Trump’s standing in the Republican Party was an open question. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was beating him in some national and state-level polls as Republican voters (correctly) blamed Trump for their underperformance in the 2022 midterms.
But in retrospect, it’s clear that the Trump’s hold on the GOP nomination was secure the moment that Alvin Bragg’s ambitions decided to make a martyr of him.
JUNE 27, 2024: THE BIDEN DEBATE
The wheels came off the Biden campaign when its principal met Trump for a debate earlier this summer. Already down in the polls, the president turned in the single worst performance in American history.
His inability to form sentences, much less articulate his vision for the country, not only underscored Americans’ feeling that Biden was a failed commander-in-chief, but that he was no longer compos mentis. His gait was stilted, his speech pattern was incomprehensible, and the look on his face betrayed panicked confusion. “Trump may be a liar,” Americans must have thought as they watched the man Democrats insisted was just fine give his family good reason to take away his keys, “but so is this guy and all of the people who vouched for him.”
Biden may have dropped out of the race about a month later, but he had already destroyed his party and successor’s credibility. Remember that Vice President Kamala Harris not only repeatedly lied to the American people about Biden’s condition, but went so far as to smear those who told the truth. Trump may have already been the favorite prior to the debate, but it made him the prohibitive one.
OCTOBER 8, 2024: THE HARRIS IMPLOSION
After taking the baton from Biden, Harris gained significant ground on Trump. The 45th president was poised to utterly destroy the 46th at the ballot box. While the polls ultimately underestimated Trump (again), Harris at least appeared to turn the race into a toss-up, especially after her strong performance at their one and only debate. But she undid almost all of her own progress when, during a friendly interview on The View, she made a devastating mistake.
Asked about what she might have done differently than Biden had she been the president for the last three-plus years, Harris replied “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” It was an astonishing, if honest, answer. She wouldn’t have done “a thing” differently from the historically unpopular president who had facilitated Trump’s unlikely comeback?
That was that, then. Americans were ready for a change, and Harris kept telling them that she represented one on the stump. But the hollowness of that promise was laid bare when, in a moment of weakness, she admitted that she couldn’t identify a single substantive difference between herself and her boss.
The rest is history.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
