Last week, Republicans were back under the Republican Party's convention limelight in Milwaukee. This time they looked as determined to send Donald J. Trump to the White House in November as they were in 2016.
Eight years ago, Trump looked like a bolt out of the blue that, though threatening the serenity of American political sky, would prove a passing nuisance.
Then Trump didn't fit the mold shaped over almost two centuries of American nationhood. He was the first businessman to enter the inner circle of aspirants to the presidency.
Unlike the previous 44 presidents, he had no record of public service, civilian or military, and had never held any public office. Nor was he a graduate of the Ivy League elite universities, nor a winner of many chic scholarships.
By all accounts, Trump's four-year tenure was a breathtaking if not nerve-wracking rollercoaster which, to everyone's surprise, led to none of the disasters predicted by professional doomsters. The economy did well as unemployment dropped and inflation remained under control. When leaving the White House after four years, Trump was the only US president in over a century not to have involved the US in a war.
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