President Donald Trump has triumphed against all the odds. The Democrats tried every legal route to ban him from the ballot. He survived two attempts to kill him. He put up with endless character assassinations from a Democrat campaign that accentuated the negative and told the public that the man was unelectable.
The public wanted an election that concentrated on the things that mattered to them. They wished to hear how a government could close the borders to so many illegal new arrivals. They wanted to know how inflation could be tamed and prices made more affordable. They wanted to hear about how their job prospects and real incomes would improve. They wanted an end to Washington’s remote bossiness telling them how to lead their lives by people who played by different rules for themselves.
As a result, they voted for Trump. Some delighted in the man’s resilience and his ability to defy the political elite. They saw him as a natural champion for the oppressed, ignored and often assailed.
Others voted for him whilst not liking some of his more extreme phrases and past actions. They told themselves that this was an election for an effective political leader, not a search for a saint or a clean-living pastor. Many had happy memories of his time in office before covid hit . Inflation had stayed low, the stock market had boomed, and growth had been good. The US created more jobs.
The Democrats underestimated how unpopular they had become with high inflation, the migration surge, dear and scarce housing, and the green lectures about the need to change the way they live. Voters gave the Republicans a convincing mandate, with 51 per cent of the popular vote and five million more supporters than Kamala Harris. Trump remained positive throughout, pointing to a better future.
Meanwhile, the German government has just imploded. The Free Democrats who want a more Trumpian policy to inject some life into the ailing German economy were thrown out of the coalition government.
The minority government that remains is led by the Social Democrats, now on just 16 per cent in the polls, and supported by the Greens on 12 per cent. The Opposition is pushing for an early election. The SPD Chancellor Scholz wants to delay a vote of confidence until January and go for a spring poll.
Trump rode to power on four key issues that too many European leaders take for granted, writes Sir John Redwood
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The failing government in Germany has been worse than the Biden Administration, plunging Germany into recession and reinforcing the collapse of the all-important motor industry with extreme green policies that favour Chinese battery cars over domestic offerings.
VW has had to announce mass sackings and the closure of three plants, The right-of-centre Christian Democrats lead the polls at 33 per cent, but they will fall short of a majority all the time the right-wing anti-migrant AFD party stays on18 per cent and the anti-migrant new left-wing party BSW on eight per cent.
They should look at what has happened in the USA. Any incumbent government that presided over high inflation after Covid lockdowns and allowed mass migration which put housing and public services under pressure is likely to be swept from office at the next election.
Chancellor Scholz breaking up his own coalition has likely hastened his own demise as Chancellor. It is difficult to see how his party can recover and more than double its poll vote to give it a chance to even be the largest minority party in the next Parliament.
The public is fed up with political elites who jet around the world telling each other how important it is to end cheap oil and gas energy, make people buy expensive battery cars or go by bus, whilst lumbering people on low incomes with high inflation and threats to their jobs.
People think charity begins at home and think that stretched housing and public services should go first to all the voters and taxpayers already settled in their country. They do not welcome millions of new migrants, particularly if they have come by illegal routes with no sure identification or personal history.
Any governing party that does not tackle these issues will go the way of the US Democrats.