Trump clinches presidency with remarkable comeback

Convicted felon promises new ‘golden age’ after sweep of key states – as experts fear advent of ‘illiberal democracy’ in US

- ANDREW FEINBERG

Donald Trump won a second term in the White House yesterday, becoming the first convicted criminal to be elected president in the United States and marking an extraordinary comeback for a politician who refused to accept defeat four years ago.

He becomes only the second president elected for nonconsecutive terms – after Grover Cleveland in 1892 – and won the popular vote, allowing him to carry out his radical vision for a far more conservative country with power concentrated in his hands. With a win in Wisconsin, Mr Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency for the Republicans, and swept Pennsylvania and the “blue wall” – the one-time Democratic heartland.

The victory validates his bare-knuckles approach to politics. He attacked his rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal – often misogynistic and racist – terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters – particularly men – in a deeply polarised nation.

The president-elect claimed his win was “a political victory that our country has never seen before”, promising that his second term would “truly be the golden age of America”.