How dramatically and fundamentally Trump reshaped America
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his is not a mere thought exercise. It’s the key to understanding the current state of politics. Because Trump is that ultrarare thing: a US president who is truly era-defining, who shapes the times as much as he’s a victim of them. Such is the force field of his political presence that he exerts influence both in office and out.
For ten years, he’s been the fulcrum of US politics: the leader to whose tune all others have danced, the initiator to whom all others react. He’s reshaped what it means to be a Republican and driven Democrats to a decade-long tizzy, their every calculus reduced to how to dislodge the Donald.
Even when that era of total dominance ends, the 45th and 47th president will go down in history as Trump the Transformer — the man who single-handedly triggered realignments across politics, the economy and foreign policy.
Given their mutual loathing, Donald Trump and Barack Obama make an unlikely pair. But they belong together — two leaders who triggered a realignment in their own parties. Had it not been for Obama taking the Democrats sharply to the left, transforming them into a party far more concerned with identity politics than the fate of the white working class, it’s questionable whether Trumpism would have risen at all. The GOP would likely have continued to wallow in legacy-Reaganism, giving birth to movements like the budget-balancing Tea Party. But when Trump took his (much-mythologized) ride down the Trump Tower elevator, he triggered a political realignment of his own.
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