It’s hard to know where to start when talking about how remarkable 2024 turned out to be for President-elect Donald Trump, so we’ll begin in June because that’s when things really kicked into high gear.
In late June, to be exact, the then-GOP presidential nominee participated in what turned out to be a game-changing presidential debate with President Joe Biden.
Not only did Trump look and sound like he was tanned, rested and ready to lead America in a second term, but Biden — who had publicly pushed for the earlier-than-usual debate — was taken off his game very early on by the former president.
Biden looked so lost and out of it that it sent Democrats, leftist Hollywood elitists and their media allies into a full-blown panic, which culminated in Biden shockingly bowing out of the presidential race nearly a month later.
Roughly two and a half weeks after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Trump was giving a campaign speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, on a sunny July Saturday afternoon when a deranged individual attempted to assassinate him.
It was only by a chance turn of Trump’s head that the bullet missed its target, instead grazing Trump’s right ear and causing it to bleed.
As people of all political stripes would agree, the imagery was some of the most iconic America will ever see. The bullet that hit Trump traveling through the air. A bloodied Trump appearing again behind the lectern and raising his fist defiantly to the crowd, with no words uttered beyond “fight, fight, fight!” as the meaning of that look on his face was crystal clear.
“I’m still here. I’m alive, and I’m not going any damn where,” it said.
It was such an unbelievably powerful moment and one that will stay with us for decades to come.
Amazingly, just two days later, Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin as it was getting underway, with him walking around with a bandage on his ear and the utmost confidence, as though the assassination attempt didn’t faze him.
Though he had a minor setback during the September presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, who Democrats chose to replace Biden in the race, Trump rebounded from that as well, hitting his stride in late September and never looking back as he continued to make his case to the American people, especially those who felt abandoned and/or ignored by the Biden-Harris administration for four years.
On Election Day, Trump defied the odds stacked against him, resoundingly winning not only the Electoral College but also the national popular vote. Included in that were all seven swing states — including Joe Biden’s home state of Pennsylvania, a particularly stunning blow to the Harris campaign, which dropped tens of millions of the more than $1 billion she raised into the Keystone State only to fail in the end.
Along with that, the Senate flipped to Republican control by comfortable margins, and the House remains in GOP hands, all things that should enable Trump to get much of his agenda passed in the new year.
As far as the court cases against him go, as George Washington University law school professor Jonathan Turley noted, Trump appears to be “running the table in these lawfare cases.” Relatedly, Trump recently outright won a defamation case against ABC News in the form of a $15 million settlement, to be donated to the Trump presidential library.
While it’s hard to predict what the future holds for Trump, one thing that remains certain is that his 2024 political comeback is one that he — and many Americans — will never forget.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
