Fans of "The Lord of the Rings" will remember the scene where King Theoden, with his refuge of Helm’s Deep poised to fall to the marauding orcs and their “reckless hate,” wonders: How did it come to this? Following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, many Americans are asking the same question.
How did a convicted felon, who sought to overturn a presidential election that he decisively lost just four years ago, win the votes of more than 72 million Americans? That sort of thing might happen in countries without strong democratic traditions — in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez was imprisoned after a failed coup attempt in 1992, only to be elected president six years later — but it is not supposed to happen in the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy.
Trump is not just a criminal. He is also a charlatan, who has proved time and again that he knows almost nothing about policy and an aspiring dictator who has pledged to carry out mass deportations and vowed to prosecute his “enemies.” Yet he has won not only the Electoral College, but also the popular vote — a feat he did not achieve in 2016 or 2020.
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