Comment by cowboylowrez

I agree with what you say here, but think there is more to it than just Trump himself. A complicit media, key backers in congress, and the courts went a long way to sanitizing his reputation over since the events of January 6th.

Beyond right-wing media's unrelenting support for him, plenty of other media outlets had no problem playing up (and probably helping to drive) economic vibes in favor of dry statistics of economic indicators. (Not that the economy has been perfect for everyone, but the post-covid recovery in America broadly seems to have done as well or better than most other countries.) Then you have the NYT running headlines like "Parkinson’s Expert Visited the White House Eight Times in Eight Months". Even if every word in such an article is entirely factual, we're clearly well into the media environment where social media and cable news networks will splash this headline (and largely only the headline) all over the place. It was clearly an editorial decision to have headlines like this dominating coverage for more than a month while Trump was ranting about Hannibal, sharks, and windmills at his rallies.

Of course the Senate and McConnell could have tried his impeachment while he was still in office at a time when it seemed like even his most ardent supporters in the media were trying to figure out how to spin things. Instead, they waited until he was out of office and then said "hey, this isn't our problem any more, let the courts handle it".

Which brings us to the courts. Without key allies like Judge Cannon (delaying and even dismissing his documents retention case) and SCOTUS (first delaying and then jumping in to intentionally tie both of Jack Smith's hands behind his back in the conspiracy case with their immunity ruling), the American public would have had far more public information to base their decision on. Plenty of his base seems to be immune to facts and evidence, but with more of this evidence in the public sphere it is certainly possible that enough swing voters would have rejected the "witch hunt" narrative.

Finally, there is the post-covid effect worldwide of incumbent parties being driven out. So yeah, I definitely think Trump's ability to manifest his reality distortion field played a large role, but he was far from acting alone. Once Trump is no longer relevant maybe we'll see that he alone was capable of wielding these superpowers, but many of these dynamics and existing power players seem poised to outlive him and I fear there is a deep well of savvy opportunists looking to replicate his success.