Trump was set to be inaugurated as the 47th president in an unlikely comeback

WASHINGTON — Two centuries of political experience suggest that Donald Trump should sit behind the lectern Monday and watch someone else be sworn in instead of taking the oath himself.

He left the White House after leading an unsuccessful bid to retain power despite his defeat in the 2020 election. He was later indicted four times and convicted on 34 counts in a New York criminal case involving hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election.

When he announced three years ago that he would run for president again, a normally friendly newspaper, the New York Post, dismissed his latest foray with cheeky headline, “Florida Man Makes Announcement”; the story ran on page 26.

That was then.

Trump, 78, will complete his improbable comeback at noon, becoming the first former president to lose re-election and return to power four years later since Glover Cleveland in 1893.

That he is getting a second term – and a second chance – is testament to his unique blend of political instinct and tenacity, combined with the nation’s deep polarization. His loyal base never gave up on him, even when other Republican politicians had seen enough.

By tapping into voters’ frustration with high prices, Trump convinced them that he — the billionaire celebrity with the private jet and palatial homes — was the one candidate who would not forget them when he regained power.

He swept all seven swing states and won the popular vote on top of that. Driving his candidacy were the same traits that many Democrats found so offensive: his willingness to flout convention, shatter norms and shake up a federal bureaucracy that seemed detached from the everyday concerns of Americans.

Millions of voters wanted someone who wouldn’t play nice, and in the often belligerent, foul-mouthed Trump, they saw their apolitical champion.

“Trump remained popular because the Republican base still wants to see a pugilist in that role,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “All odds would have pointed to the Republican Party cutting ties with Trump. But his ability to rally the base — and keep his finger on the pulse of where the most committed Republicans were — carried him to a second term.”

Luck also played a role. Because he turned his head to look at a chart at just the right moment, an assassin’s bullet bled his ear instead of piercing his skull during a campaign rally last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump faced weak opposition in both the 2016 and ’24 races. An aging and frail President Joe Biden abruptly abandoned his campaign in July, leaving his chosen successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, just four months to establish a viable candidacy.

“Trump may be the luckiest politician in my lifetime,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “The guy is just incredibly lucky!”

Trump will enter office with ample political capital to spend as he pleases. His party controls both the House and the Senate, albeit by small margins. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., owes his position to Trump. So do many Republican lawmakers who received Trump’s coveted endorsement.

For their part, Democrats are in despair and confusion with Biden’s approval rating languishing in the 30s and his historical legacy tarnished by his party’s stinging defeat.

“We became a party that is out of touch — that listens and speaks to elites,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist. “Until we actually start listening to working and middle-class Americans about their problems — and focus on bread-and-butter issues and start talking in a normal way about those problems — we’re going to face continued political pushback.”

With Biden bowing out, Trump filled the power vacuum in the interregnum that followed the Nov. 5 election, making statements from his seaside resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

He said he wanted the US to acquire Greenland.

And Canada.

And the Panama Canal.

Hitting the caps lock key on his social media platform, he warned there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” if the hostages held by Hamas were not released. He dispatched his Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, to help broker the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was announced last week.

Watching from foreign capitals, world leaders were left unable to decipher what Trump really meant and planned to do. Were his threats real or just bluster? The question, first asked nine years ago, was renewed with an urgent question: Should Trump be taken seriously, literally, or both? A Canadian official suspected Trump’s call to make Canada the 51st state was a joke — and a bad one.

“We see this as positioning,” the official said in an interview. “Trump the president-elect is a businessman and a negotiator, and a lot of the threats have been related to things around the border that he wants to see changed.”

“We will not become a 51st state. It is a nonstarter,” the official continued. “In the beginning, this was seen as a joke. We don’t really see it as funny anymore. The joke has passed its expiration date.”

The hardest part begins at noon, when the 45th president becomes the 47th. Trump set the bar high for himself, promising a ton of changes from Day 1.

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker on Saturday, Trump said he planned to sign a “record-setting” number of executive actions when he takes office.

He has promised to deport massive numbers of immigrants living in the United States illegally. He said he would bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine within “24 hours” of his inauguration, if not sooner.

When Welker asked him last month if he still planned to end birthright citizenship on his first day in office, Trump said, “Absolutely.”

None of this will be easy. Trump’s foreign policy team has not yet presented a peace proposal to Ukraine’s leadership, sources close to Ukraine’s government told NBC News.

Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment and cannot be revoked by law or executive order, legal experts say.

“Of course, it is not legally permissible to end birthright citizenship, either by executive order or by an act of Congress,” said Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard University. “Only a constitutional amendment that changes the language of the 14th Amendment can make the fundamental change in our national legal and political system.”

Ultimately, Trump’s most consequential political challenge may be to lower prices. Cumulative inflation under Biden, it peaked at 20%, compared to less than 8% in Trump’s first term — one of the reasons a hopeful electorate put him back in charge.

If Trump can’t give Americans some relief at the gas pump and the grocery store, he could face a setback in the 2026 midterm elections.

Resetting expectations, Trump said Time magazine in an interview a few weeks after his victory: “I want to bring them (grocery prices) down. It’s hard to get things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard.”

The 2026 midterms will prove to be a reckoning for Trump. Democrats hope the election will mark the start of their revival. If they regain control of the House and Senate, they will be able to thwart Trump’s judicial nominations and legislative agenda. Further, they would enjoy subpoena powers, enabling them to launch investigations into Trump’s dealings. Worried about that prospect, the Republican National Committee is already thinking ahead to the looming election.

“If we let the Democrats take back control of the House and the Senate, everything changes,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told members at the party’s winter meeting on Friday. “The radical left will waste no time in putting the brakes on President Trump’s agenda. They will revive the worst excesses of lawlessness that we have dealt with in the last eight years.”

“We would see headlines about impeachment cases and political stunts by useless Democrats,” Whatley added. “We can’t let that happen again.”

Whatever happens, Trump has already carved a unique space in the long arc of America’s experiment in self-government. Had he lost in November, his first term might have been seen as a one-off, a reaction to the cautious centrism symbolized by his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

His return showed that Trumpism was a real and powerful movement. Whether it will last when Trump finally leaves the stage is another question.

“Let’s face it. Donald Trump is sui generis,” Ayres said. “There’s nobody out there like him. No one with his mix of bravado, charisma, political instincts and entertainment value on the horizon in either party. It is hard to imagine Trumpism without Donald Trump.”

Nor is it difficult for Trump to imagine. At a campaign stop in Michigan toward the end of the race, he speculated about who might succeed him in 2028.

“In four years, someone will come down and that person will be hot as a gun,” he said. “And you know what? They’re going to draw about 300 people.”