Donald Trump did a lot to dirty himself up before the November 2024 presidential election.  In 2020, after losing the election, he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to find him around 12,000 votes to help his effort to over-turn the election.  Then he sat around in the White House watching television broadcasts of some of his supporters attacking the Capitol building and he didn’t do anything about it for a long time.[1]  He defamed E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual abuse.  He stormed off to Mar-a-Lago with a big stash of classified documents, then resisted returning them to their rightful owner. 

            Not content with Trump shooting himself in the foot (or head) with these acts, the Democrats piled on.  Having run for office on a promise to sue or prosecute (or turn him into a hissing and a byword in the village) Donald Trump, Attorney General of the State of New York Laetitia James sued him for fraud.  She won her case.  Having run for office on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump, New York County district attorney Alvin Bragg prosecuted him for filing false business records, then turned these misdemeanors into felonies by claiming that they were done in support of another criminal act.[2]  Then Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump with election interference.  Then U.S. Department of Justice Special Prosecutor Jack Smith charged Trump in a federal election interference case and the government documents case.[3]  All these efforts may have been counter-productive. 

            Once again, during his campaign Trump dirtied himself up.  He lied about violent illegal immigrants taking over towns; he seemed to promise to put the anti-vaxxer and animal prankster Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in charge of public health, he called the Democrats “the enemy within,” and engaged in various vulgarities and menaces. 

            The “Fascist Trump” and “Authoritarian Trump” had been a common accusation before and during Trump’s first term.  During the Joe Biden-phase of the 2024 campaign, it became a staple once again.  Later, in the Kamala Harris-phase of the campaign, she turned to a more optimistic message about all the good things that would come from a Democratic victory.  In the last sprint toward election day, with this message not opening much of a lead in the polls, Harris turned back to the “It Can Happen Here” theme.  All sorts of eminent people who had served in the first Trump administration now testified to his “Authoritarian” and “Fascist” tendencies.  

            None of this moved the needle.  At least it didn’t move the needle against Trump.  On 5 November 2024, voters gave him a decisive victory.  Trump won the popular vote 75,142,617 versus 71,881,183 for Harris.  In percentage terms, Trump won 50.3 percent of the vote; Harris won 48.1 percent.  In the Electoral College, these numbers translated into 312 votes for Trump and 226 votes for Harris.[4]  So, yes, Decisive, but not a Landslide. 

[1] There’s a lot to be learned about all this and more from The Report of the January 6^th Committee.  On-line: Read the Jan. 6 committee report in full : NPR  In print: The January 6th Report: Findings from the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol: The January 6 Select Committee, Schiff, Adam: 9780593597279: Amazon.com: Books 

[2] I wonder if either one of these convictions will hold up, in part or in full, if they ever get to an appeals court. 

[3] All three got gummed up from a combination of Trump’s legitimate “Delay, Delay, Delay” strategy and missteps by prosecutors that do not seem to me to bear on the essential validity of the prosecutions.  OTOH, I’m no lawyer. 

[4] In 2020 Joe Biden won the popular vote 81,283,501 to Trump’s 74,223,975.