According to various accounts of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, the businessman never really expected to win. Making it to the White House against the uber-establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, was a surprise.
In the last days of Trump’s 2024 comeback, as I joined the campaign trail, it was difficult to tell what his people were thinking. Touring around the seven swing states, Trump would go through the motions of his rally routine – ambling on to the tune of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, waving to the faithful, indulging in variations of his lines about “Crooked Joe Biden”, “Crazy Nancy Pelosi”, “Low IQ Kamala” and the “fake news”.
In the final days of his campaign, as he travelled across America, Donald Trump sometimes seemed bored. Credit: AP
Maybe it was fatigue and boredom – he did his 90-minute routine up to three times a day – but it sometimes seemed half-hearted by the end. The arenas were often 30 per cent empty, the energy was lacking. And loose digressions from Trump and his surrogates dominated headlines in the United States, giving the whole thing a whiff of “wheels falling off”.
Yet, Trump and his campaigners always espoused confidence. He told cheering followers “we’re winning by a lot” – and he was right. The published polls didn’t show it at the time. Maybe Team Trump knew something the rest of us didn’t.
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Or maybe it was just bluster. With Trump, it can be impossible to tell where reality ends and the “story” starts. That’s one thing we need to collectively remind ourselves of as we prepare for a second Trump administration.
Election night in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump now lives, was a surreal experience. American elections are such grand undertakings on a scale so completely different to anything in Australia. When Peter Dutton votes next year, he’ll probably be trailed by a handful of cameras and pictured eating a democracy sausage. When Trump arrived to cast his ballot, it was in a police-escorted motorcade that shut down half the island.
From the other side of the world, it’s easy to typecast Trump voters as rural Republicans with straw hats and southern accents. But when you attend rally after rally, from Phoenix to Charlotte to New York, you see that anyone can be MAGA. Women, men, college students, retirees, blacks, Latinos – Trump outperformed expectations across many states and many segments.
Australians might still wonder how so many Americans can overlook the former president’s lies, crimes, threats, narcissism, his record and the frightening testimony of his many former aides. The answer is: easily. They’re used to it by now. This was the third Trump election; it’s difficult to be shocked any more. For many, it’s part of the charm, a central element to the show.