As of: March 7, 2024, 2:32 p.m
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Anyone who thought that Donald Trump's election as president in 2016 was a blip in history was wrong.
A significant part of America wants this man in the White House - despite everything.
Washington - Donald Trump is back - for real.
The Republican will again be his party's US presidential candidate.
With the capitulation of his last internal competitor in the race, Nikki Haley, the 77-year-old has prematurely secured his party's candidacy for the November election.
Despite all the scandals and against all political logic.
He has a real chance of moving into the White House for a second time.
If he succeeds, the United States and the world can prepare for a Donald Trump unleashed: more confident and ruthless than ever.
Trump 2.0
The Republican has already broken with almost every convention in his first term in office, triggered serious international upheavals and brought the US constitutional system to the brink of collapse.
Since then, he has survived unscathed a multitude of scandals, affairs and legal disasters that would have cost anyone else their political career long ago.
In a new term in office, he should therefore no longer shy away from crossing further boundaries or breaking taboos.
And Trump will no longer have many moderate Republicans at his side who can act as a voice of reason when necessary - but rather will gather radical conservatives around him who will only encourage him to take extreme positions.
One thing you can't accuse Trump of is that he makes a secret about who he is, what he thinks and what he plans to do.
Americans know exactly what they will get if they vote for him.
He has announced, for example, that he will deport migrants from the country on a large scale, clean up the state apparatus and take revenge on his political opponents who wanted to attack him.
He flirts with the fact that he only wants to be a “dictator” on the first day of a second term in office, but in fact the USA could develop autocratic traits under him.
And internationally?
Trump blatantly threatens to turn his back on NATO, end aid to Ukraine and give Russian President Vladimir Putin a free hand in his imperialist mission in the neighborhood.
Donald Trump is back and will be the Republican presidential candidate for the 2024 US election. © Evan Vucci/AP/dpa
Even if Trump loses the election, the USA is threatened with a crisis: after Trump fought the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in every way and refused a peaceful transfer of power, it is not foreseeable that he would accept defeat this time.
With possibly dramatic consequences.
The moment when Trump's fate hung in the balance
A look back.
There was a brief moment when it seemed as if Donald Trump was politically finished forever: When on January 6, 2021, supporters of the then US President overran barriers, beat police officers and violently stormed the parliament building while Trump watched idly.
For a short time it looked as if the Republican had permanently disqualified himself from holding any state office.
The unprecedented attack on US democracy that left several people dead - spurred on by the incumbent president and his blatant attempt to overturn an election result - seemed like the disturbing end point of a political career that is unparalleled.
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After the attack, even loyal companions initially distanced themselves from Trump.
For a moment it looked as if the Republican Party would break away from its frontman and Trump would disappear into political insignificance.
But many Trump supporters stuck firmly to the man, whom they sometimes blindly idolize.
And given his influence over the base, one after another from the party establishment returned to Trump's side.
Some with a clenched fist in their pockets, but driven by fear of revenge from the Trump base, which could cost them their own political mandate.
Today, Trump has his party more under control than ever - as his victory in the primaries shows.
The Republican base gave him one success after another: a triumph that is otherwise only achieved by incumbents who run without real competition.
The untouchable
Trump once joked: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” The statement from early 2016 now resonates in a special way.
Over the past eight years, Trump has proven that nothing, absolutely nothing, can harm him politically.
Not the sexist or racist slogans, not the insults against women, Muslims, migrants, the disabled, veterans, not the lies or the chaos during his time in office.
Trump is the only president in US history to face two impeachment proceedings during his time in the White House.
He survived that too.
He has now been charged in four criminal cases.
The content covers an astonishing range: from the concealment of hush money payments to a porn star to attempted election fraud and conspiracy against the USA.
Never before in US history has an ex-president been charged with a crime.
Trump is accused of crimes in 91 cases.
That's not all.
The ex-president has just been sentenced to pay damages totaling more than $400 million in two civil cases.
Because of dubious business practices and because he attacked, sexually abused and later slandered a woman in a luxury department store in the 1990s.
During the 2016 election campaign, Trump caused a stir with a vulgar statement that he could touch women anywhere, including between their legs.
The Americans still elected him president.
The fact that he has now been held liable in court for sexual abuse does not seem to be an obstacle for many to vote for him again.
All the procedures have not done any harm to the Republican so far.
On the contrary: Trump has made it a key discipline to turn every legal accusation around and to mobilize supporters and collect donations.
He has perfected the role of martyr.
An almost historic return to the White House?
So the man who, as the 45th President of the United States, threatened to withdraw the USA from NATO, wanted to buy Greenland and suggested fighting the coronavirus by injecting bleach into the human body, could once again ascend to the most powerful office in the world.
Trump's chances of actually becoming the 47th President of the USA are not bad.
Polls predict a close race against the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden and have recently seen Trump in a narrow lead most of the time.
In the United States, someone can be president for two terms, whether consecutive or not.
However, there has only been one president in US history who returned to the White House for a second time after an interruption: Grover Cleveland in the 19th century.
If Trump succeeds in returning, he would only have four years there.
However, Trump has proven in his first term that this is enough time to turn the country - and the world - on its head.
dpa