I can no longer count the number of times I’ve counted out Donald Trump.

Every time, what I thought would stagger him made him stronger.

I assumed that he would have to drop out in 2016 after the “Access Hollywood” tape. I thought he would be driven into exile after he egged on the Jan. 6 insurrectionists hunting down Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. I thought his cynical move stacking the Supreme Court with religious fanatics who yanked away women’s reproductive rights would doom his comeback attempt. I thought his deranged, nasty, out-of-control final weeks of campaigning would surely sink him.

But Trump never disappeared in a puff of orange smoke. Every time, he bobbed back up, defying convention and luring voters I thought he had lost, given how he, JD Vance and his rally carny barkers delighted in disparaging so many voting blocs with utter abandon.

We must now fathom the unfathomable: All the misogynistic things, the racist things, the crude things, the undemocratic things he’s said and done don’t negate his appeal to millions of voters. Because he will once again be our president, and he has declared that he has “an unprecedented mandate.”

Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy America.

We have to accept that a lot of Americans want Trump in charge. Even a lot of Republicans who cringe at his words and actions approve of his policies on the economy and the border and his promise to “keep men out of women’s sports.”

Seeking Black and Latino votes at a Bronx barbershop, Trump delivered this message: “They take your kid. There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl, OK, without parental consent.”

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