Her inauguration will signal a historic watershed in American history, and will also mark the end of nearly a decade during which
Donald Trump was a central figure in American politics. He will become an ugly footnote in U.S. history, a name that students will find relegated to “worst presidents” lists and books and articles about corruption.
For students of politics, his rise will be linked to a backlash against irreversible trends in American demographics that will ensure that within just a few years, the majority in the country will look more like Harris than Trump.
She is the future. He is the past. And on Election Day, American voters will embrace that change.
This will all be made possible because, when the final votes are counted in next week’s election, Harris will have outperformed the vast majority of polls and won by a more substantial majority than most commentators expected. Trump will howl and contest the vote. But in the end his conspiracy theories and unfounded legal challenges and intrigues will again be unsuccessful as they were in 2020 and 2021.