Conrad Black: Trump turns the tide

The earthshaking election in the United States last week signals a general change of course in the West

The entire political atmosphere in the United States has miraculously changed: the ludicrous lamentations about possible violence have come to nothing, and there have not been any allegations of election irregularities. The new administration has a clear majority, and a seat change has occurred down to sweeping out the criminal-coddling district attorney of Los Angeles and evicting the inept Democratic mayors of San Francisco and Oakland. The ballots are still being counted, but so far, it appears that the Democratic majority in California has shrunk by more than two million in 2024, and, in New York, by almost one million, and the Republican majorities in Texas and Florida have both grown very substantially. More tellingly, although Trump’s vote has increased by almost two million since 2020, the Democratic popular vote has decreased by approximately eight million, which may be partly explained by the extensive use of harvested ballots in 2020. We will never know for sure but I would argue Trump may be the only U.S. president except Franklin D. Roosevelt to have won three consecutive elections.