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Niall Ferguson: The Resurrection of Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)
Trump’s victory is a blow to political lawfare, critical race theory, woke campuses, legacy media, and Hollywood. It’s a win for a new generation of builders like Elon Musk.
By Niall Ferguson
11.06.24 — U.S. Politics
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It’s tempting for me to say this isn’t a surprise.

Back in May last year, I predicted “Trump’s second act,” telling Spectator readers: “He can still win, in spite of everything.” My point was that the Democrats’ strategy of lawfare against Donald Trump was highly likely to backfire. “If Lula [da Silva] can come back from one-and-a-half-years in jail to win” the Brazilian presidency, I wrote, “Trump may have little to worry about, as there isn’t the slightest chance of his being locked up between now and Election Day next year. Indeed, the perception that Democratic operatives are using the legal system for political ends will likely help him win votes.”

“Joe Biden,” I concluded, “is in serious danger of following Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush into the bin marked ‘one-term presidents.’ ” 

Last week, too, I was ready to predict that Kamala Harris was destined for the bin marked “incumbent vice presidents who lost.”

Nevertheless, I am surprised by the scale of Trump’s win. 

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Niall Ferguson
Sir Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of 16 books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award. He is a columnist with The Free Press. In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle, a New York-based advisory firm, a co-founder of the Latin American fintech company Ualá, and a co-founding trustee of the new University of Austin.
Tags:
The Race
Election 2024
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