Photo source: donaldjtrump.com
Washington: The image of the mega Houston event of July 2019 is still afresh when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cheered President Donald Trump with the punchline, “Abki baar Trump sarkar (This time Trump government)“. President Trump, who was contesting for his second term, was standing next to Modi in front of a strong Indian diaspora. Trump lost to Joe Biden then, but today, he returned with a vengeance.
At the Houston event, where Modi hailed Trump as a leader who left a “deep and lasting impact everywhere”, Trump described Modi as “America’s greatest, most loyal friend”.
In the Presidential election today, he decimated Kamala Harris, who ironically has her roots in India. Americans voted him back into the nation’s highest office four years after he fomented a riot at the Capitol to try to block his removal from power.
Prime Minister Modi, in a statement after Trump’s victory today, termed the latter’s win “historic” and said he looked forward to renewing the collaboration to further strengthen the India-US Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership. “Together, let’s work for the betterment of our people and to promote global peace, stability and prosperity,” Modi stated on X.
Donald Trump’s victory should augur well for India as he openly declared himself “a good friend of Narendra Modi.” Surveys said Indian-American citizens had solidly backed Trump. It is now expected that India’s fight against extremist forces will get solid backing from Trump. His victory already cast a positive impact on the Indian stock market as Indian stock market indices surged over 1%. The buying momentum was led by the Information Technology (IT) stocks and the Bombay Stock Exchange IT index surged 4.04% amidst heavy buying today. India now looks forward to friendly economic policies from the US that could also benefit Indian energy, auto and metal sectors.
With today’s win, Trump, 78, becomes the 47th President of the United States. The main planks on which he won were his promises to check immigration on the southern border and to repair the damaged economy. He ran on an agenda of tax cuts, foreign policy changes, mass deportations, across-the-board tariffs, oil drilling, regulatory rollbacks, and more. He is also likely to violate democratic traditions to accomplish his goals.
Trump won a clear victory capturing 277 Electoral College votes in the 2024 election over Vice President Kamala Harris (224). Most of the battleground states turned Red and stood by him.
For Harris, the writing was on the wall and way back on October 29, 2024, she noted that her donations had actually slowed over the last few days. She also referred to most polls, and conceded then that Trump’s odds of winning had improved,
With this victory that makes him return to the White House for the second term, Trump also defeated a stack of criminal cases against him. Four years ago he was impeached for his role in a violent attack on the Congress. He was also convicted of a felony in New York five months ago.
Just three months ago, Trump had even survived an assassination attempt.
By making him victorious, the US voters today stuck to history by rejecting a woman nominee to power. He will also be the first Republican to win the national popular vote in 20 years. Another strong stamp of Trump’s victory came in the races for the Senate. Republicans regained control by recapturing seats in West Virginia and Ohio. Races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin remain close. It is unclear which party will control the House.
Trump’s transition team has already kept 300 proposals ready for his signature. Analysts said it remains unclear how far he will go, but he is in a stronger position now than he was eight years ago.
A beaming Trump said after overnight celebrations at his sprawling Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida: “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing. This will forever be remembered as the day the American people regained control of their country.” He promised to immediately close the border and “help our country heal” and “fix everything.”
However, his election is likely to again place the country’s democracy under enormous stress. For the last decade, he has demonstrated that he operates without any guardrails and has scant regard for the checks and balances that have defined the American government since the dawn of the republic.
Now, with his victory, the US faces momentous changes certain to cut across political and cultural lines. Republicans demonstrated strength all over the map and up and down the ballot. They seized control of the Senate and could retain the House. Winning both would give Trump a tremendous source of legislative power to muscle his way through.
It was during Trump’s first term, that the nation witnessed a form of governance that showed no interest in the details of policy. But under the government he assembles, major issues like abortion rights, taxation, immigration and foreign policy will be pushed hard to the right, from not only legislation and executive orders but also the inevitable appointment of Trump-friendly judges and, potentially, more Supreme Court justices.
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Trump has already sought to undermine the independence of the justice system. During his first term, he demanded personal loyalty from officials across the executive branch and fired those who resisted his demands. Now he returns to the White House with the knowledge of how the system restricted his impulses and with a roster of officials more willing to help him circumvent long-standing norms.
The last time he took office, a culture of resistance emerged from corners that included Democrats, the federal government’s civil servants and even some of his own appointees. This time, he is unlikely to elevate people willing to speak against him. His circle of influential allies now includes men like Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the vice president-elect; the tech billionaire Elon Musk; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy theorist who has long cast doubt on the established science of vaccines.
Trump will be a president who has already whipped up political violence and who promised to use the United States military against his domestic opponents, a prospect that may chill public resistance to his boundary-breaking ambitions.
The relative stability on domestic and international affairs during the last four years is about to be gone, replaced by a volatile president who often operates without regard to national precedent.
– global bihari bureau
