Donald Trump returns to power, ushering in new era of uncertainty | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

75% : In a victory speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump declared that he was the leader of "the greatest political movement of all time.
60% : As of early Wednesday, the results showed Trump improving on his 2020 showing in counties all across America with only limited exceptions.
59% : In a sign of the extraordinary circumstances facing him, Trump awaits sentencing tentatively scheduled for later this month, just as he will be ramping up the presidential transition process.
53% : Now, Trump will serve as the 47th president four years after reluctantly leaving office as the 45th, the first politician since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s to lose reelection to the White House and later mount a successful run.
51% : Trump formally declared his candidacy nearly two years ago, just days after the 2022 midterm elections.
49% : "Trump seemingly had to win two races this year.
49% : But she could never fully wrest the mantle of change away from Trump, given her perch as the current president's second-in-command.
44% : Trump had secured the necessary swing states -- including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania -- to guarantee him the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.
44% : Trump also promised to disentangle the country from conflicts abroad, a turn toward isolationism that found a fresh audience with a war raging in Europe between Russia and Ukraine for nearly three years, and with the Middle East on the precipice of a wider conflagration.
42% : Trump has systematically sought to undercut some of the country's foundational principles, eroding trust in an independent press and the judicial system and sowing doubts about free and fair elections.
42% : His election raises questions about the future of NATO and the U.S. backing of Ukraine; Trump has long spoken glowingly about President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
40% : His defiant plans to upend the country's political system held appeal to tens of millions of voters who feared that the American dream was drifting further from reach and who turned to Trump as a battering ram against the ruling establishment and the expert class of elites.
39% : The Democratic Party quickly consolidated behind her as she closed the polling gap with Trump.
29% : Seeking to blunt the political backlash faced by his party since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the landmark decision guaranteeing a federal right to an abortion, Trump adopted a stance of leaving abortion rights to the states.
27% : After nearly a decade as the dominant face of the Republican Party, Trump and his blunt-force approach to politics seemed to lose their shock value.
27% : Trump crushed his Republican rivals into submission.
26% : At the age of 78, Trump has become the oldest man ever elected president, breaking a record held by President Joe Biden, whose mental competence Trump has savaged.
25% : Now, Trump has vowed a radical reshaping of American government, animated by his promises of "retribution" and of rooting out domestic opponents he casts as "the enemy within."
22% : The 2024 election is the second time Trump has defeated a woman trying to break through the nation's highest gender barrier -- the presidency -- after he prevailed over Hillary Clinton eight years ago.
20% : In May, in a criminal case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts for covering up hush-money payments made to a porn star during the 2016 race.
17% : Trump cast her as responsible for many of the country's problems, countering with an array of sloganeering tax cuts: no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, among them.
16% : Trump questioned Harris' racial identity at one point and frequently denigrated her intelligence.
15% : Trump helped inspire an assault on the Capitol in 2021, has threatened to imprison political adversaries and was denounced as a fascist by former aides.
11% : But Trump's enduring appeal helped him navigate a bitter final phase that included his former White House chief of staff saying that Trump met the definition of a "fascist.
6% : Pointing to the mob of Trump supporters who sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, violently trying to prevent the certification of his defeat, Harris' campaign loudly cautioned that Trump in a second term would be "unhinged, unstable and unchecked."

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.