He’s survived two assassination attempts, 34 convictions, two impeachments, scores of accusations of misconduct, and one defeat - but on Monday Donald John Trump will victoriously return as the 47th president of the United States upending the nation’s politics. 

Four years after his supporters instigated by Trump’s claim that the election was stolen riotously invaded the Capitol in a brutal attempt to overturn the results which led to a prosecution since dropped, he will go there to take the oath of office, swearing allegiance to the US Constitution. 

As he wandered in a political wilderness, refusing to accept his 2020 defeat and hounded by court cases,

Trump broadened his base, making inroads into the Democratic Party’s bastion. 

With his unconventional style of campaigning, dispensing with decorum for coarse, jugular attacks, he won the majority of the popular votes and the electoral college in last year’s poll. 

An unlikely alliance

An unlikely alliance of the ultra-rich – symbolised by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man -- and the working class – support of a majority of Teamsters union rank and file – propelled him to victory. 

His message of relief from crushing inflation and ultra-liberal agendas brought in more African American and Latino men, and Asians to his side, along with youth. 

On the wings of his victory, his party also won a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, giving him an edge in legislating. 

He remade the Republican Party in his image, sidelining or pushing out elements opposed to him, and commanding total fealty. 

Businesspeople – like the tech elite, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder turned liberal philanthropist Bill Gates, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai – and others who hosted reservations have made overtures to him. 

Lesser of two evils

Trump’s victory was not entirely of his making, Democrats paved his way with their good intentions. 

President Joe Biden, who defeated him, was overcome by the ravages of aging, but protected by his inner circle of enablers he gave the impression of being in control, only to see the facade crumble during a debate with Trump. 

An unprepared vice president, Kamala Harris, hastily took over and campaigned without a coherent message, except that she wasn’t Trump, whom she portrayed as evil incarnate. 

For many voters, he seemed the lesser of two evils. 

The Democratic Party's agenda highlights that reflect the causes of its college-educated elite, most of them White, failed to resonate with the voters. 

It was also a defeat for the entertainment figures campaigning for her and the mainstream media relentlessly attacking Trump.

Harris outspent him and the conventional wisdom about the power of money didn't work either.

To voters crying about high prices and open borders, Harris and the party’s leading edge offered unlimited abortion rights and the right for transgendered biological males to use girls’ bathrooms. 

She was tightly tethered to Biden’s policies that fueled the inflation and opened the way for millions of migrants to illegally enter the US overwhelming cities and states, especially the Democrat-run ones that had been spared the chaos of open borders, 

The campaign clock worked against her, too. 

The 106 days after Biden named her his successor was too short a time for her to develop her message and project her own persona. 

Now governing challenges

Now having proved the metaphoric substance of his rhetorical claim, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”, and returned as the 47th US president, Trump faces the challenges of governing. 

Even before he takes office, he scored one victory – ceasefire and freeing of hostages – in Gaza, a diplomatic breakthrough aided by his threats. 

The continued operation of TikTok, the Chinese-owned short video social media platform deemed a national security risk by courts and the legislature, was not a Day 1 promise, but it sprang to life again on the eve of his inauguration.

He took credit for it and said he has a viable plan to loosen Beijing's grip. 

The extensive Day 1 agenda that enchanted his voters would be mostly executive orders on paper awaiting the fulfillment of his promises. 

It is a race against time in a society living on a paradigm of instant gratification.

The mass deportations - which will potentially affect hundreds of South Asians - are not logistically or financially possible and have been pared down by his nominees, limiting it to criminal migrants. 

His slogan of “drill baby, drill” for oil and gas will take time to actually happen and bring prices down as he expects. 

The Ukraine War isn’t going to end within the first 24 hours of Trump becoming president. 

The tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports may be declared immediately, but again results, good or bad, will take time to show up.  

Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency is also not going to cut government by trillions without Congressional support. 

He has a window of less than two years to show voters some results before the midterm elections will put his party’s majority into play. 

Grand, dramatic gestures could buy him time. 

On some issues he will have immediate results – like banning transgender use of bathrooms or throwing out the manifestations of wokeness, the ideology of extreme political correctness. 

He may also be able to ultimately end the Ukraine War and work out an arrangement with China’s President Xi Jinping on trade and push contentious security issues to the back.

Trump’s Republican Party is not ideologically cohesive and fissures have opened up between the tech elite and the hardline nativists – as in the dispute over H-1B visas for professionals – and the pragmatists and ideological purists – seen in the fight over lifting the limit on government borrowing. 

Managing rifts to push agenda

Trump will have to manage the rifts to keep the government running and get his agenda through. 

In a longer timeframe, his tariffs and Make in America policies – adopted by Biden in some form from Trump’s first term – could change the US economy. 

For the world and the nation, uncertainty and a degree of chaos and unpredictability will be the new normal for the next four years. 

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in the clutches of an identity crisis to Trump’s advantage. 

Floating rudderless in a leadership vacuum after the electoral defeat at the hands of Trump, whose victory they can’t fathom, the Democrats will be looking to reframe their ideology and their image. 

(The author is Nonresident Fellow, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal. He tweets at X @arulouis )