At his Trump Tower in New York City ten years ago, the then-businessman Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, slowly waving at the group that had gathered to hear his comment.  ,
Ivanka Trump, his second daughter, was standing near as her father announced that he was running for president again in the 2016 election period with the phrase” Make America Great Once.”
Almost all the political chattering course laughed off the prank as just piece of Trump’s attention-seeking charm over the past years.  ,
It was instead the end of one of the most revolutionary political actions that revamped American politics.
With his unconventional approach to fighting and controlling, in addition to his mix of cultural conservatism and governmental democracy, in the ten years since now-President Donald Trump descends the golden escalator, he has permanently altered the Republican Party and the country’s politics.  ,
As a 2016 Trump campaign staffer and continuing director, David Urban recalled how “on that day when he came down the stairway, I don’t think many people gave the guy a chance.”
He’s now “like, the most crucial leader in modern history,” Urban claimed in an interview with the Washington Examiner. ” The Donald Trump that came down that escalator is the same Donald Trump today, similar values, same love for America, same love to, you know, help American households and employees. But the people today believe him, correctly? That’s what has changed in America.
Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley agreed that Trump did “go down as one of those rare officials who bent background to his company”.
A few presidents really altered the course of the future, Shirley told the Washington Examiner.” Most presidents are just caretakers of the workplace. ” Judicial leaders often make things worse like both Bushes, Biden, He, Carter, and Nixon. However, a select few people, such as Andrew Jackson, Ronald Reagan, and Teddy Roosevelt, are really capable of leaving the White House because they “made items better.”
Trump faces suspicion after announcing his second presidential campaign ,
Jason Roe, a GOP planner, was sitting in the pan area of the Capitol Hill membership with some lobbyists as Trump was launching his strategy on June 16, 2015.
” We watched Trump come down the escalator on the TVs in the bar, and everyone was generally mocking the entire episode, including the half-empty room and the very clunky press conference he had”, Roe said.  ,
Trump, for much of the ‘ 80s and ‘ 90s, was a frequent tabloid-appearing businessman who waded into reality TV as the host of The Apprentice to reignite his career after declaring bankruptcy multiple times.  ,
It was too implausible for some to see him as the next president of the United States.  ,
” I don’t believe many thought he would win at first”, said Woodrow Johnston, a GOP strategist based in Las Vegas. Trump may not have anticipated that he would win either, I believe.
Johnston told the Washington Examiner that in the 10 years of Trump’s dominance, his two terms and his ability to help the GOP retake the House and Senate had made him the top GOP leader in modern times.
Trump is now the party’s most admired leader, surpassing former president Ronald Reagan, according to Johnston.
Other Trump aides similarly described Trump’s impact as the start of a movement that upended the nation.
Hope Hicks, a former White House communications director who worked for Trump at the start of his first campaign, described the escalator ride as a fitting beginning to the most original, riveting, and unprecedented political phenomenon in American history.
According to Roger Stone, who advised Trump during his first campaign, Trump had long considered a presidential run and knew he would one day enter the White House as the commander in chief.
According to Stone, “many in the media, many of the elites, thought that was just brand burnishing, if you will,” Donald Trump approached running for president in 2000 and again in 2012, and that’s when he said,” a lot of the elites, many in the media, many of the elites, thought that was brand burnishing.” ” Public relations stunts to burnish the Trump brand, which is incorrect. I believe that every time he considered running for president, he took it seriously, primarily because he disliked the direction the country was taking.
Despite the mockery, Trump told members of his inner circle that he would win the presidential race.  ,
” He told me as early as 1988, you know, he says,’ If I run for president, I’ll win,'” Stone added. He repeated the same words in 2000 and again in 2012,” He said the same things.” He does not lack for self-confidence. PS: He turned out to be correct.
Trump embraces the outsider role
No accident was the subject of the announcement made at Trump Tower in New York City.
It was meant to signal his success as a businessman and to lean into the outsider position he had taken up.  ,
” The staging and orchestration of his announcement was entirely his”, said Stone, who was a paid consultant but was unable to attend the announcement. He reportedly did not want elephants. He did not want bunting. He opposed the formation of a Dixieland band. He did not want any of the usual trappings of a politician” . ,
Trump referred to Mexican migrants as “rapists” and criminals at the Trump Tower, which sparked widespread outcry.  ,
A former Trump campaign official for his first campaign said that the media was shocked at the wild, free-wheeling spectacle that strayed far from the prepared remarks that were distributed.
The criticism about what he said about immigrants came hours later, after opponents latched on to it. However, it sparked a cycle of fervent curiosity in the press and the general public.
” The whole thing was just insane in the sense that it had never been seen before. The former campaign official claimed that it was “extremely exciting and unpredictable.” ” It was like supercharged in terms of the intensity around him and the curiosity and the interest, and him maximizing that in every way and playing to his strengths and creating this appetite that was insatiable” . ,
After Sen. Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the GOP released an autopsy report with the general impression that the Republicans could win again by being more welcoming to minority communities and supporting comprehensive immigration reform. However, those terms are safely used today in the GOP political lexicon. Trump’s brash language was just the opposite.
But it paid off with the GOP support base.  ,
He was unique, he said. He was unique. Jason Simmons, the chairman of the North Carolina GOP, who was a vocal supporter of Trump in 2016 and who also served as the Tarheel State director for the Trump campaign, “was somebody who offered something that really wasn’t being captured by any other politician.”  ,
Trump was a flashing red signal that change had arrived for the American political class, in contrast to the GOP primary field.  ,
The rest of the field was very much immersed in traditional party politics, and President Trump provided something that you had not previously seen. And I don’t know if you’re going to see it going forward”, Simmons said.  ,
Trump dominates the 2016 GOP field ,
Trump defeated 16 of the top Republican candidates in the 2016 cycle, stoking the pressure on lawmakers with decades of political experience, including Jeb Bush, the brother of Trump’s previous vice president.  ,
A top Trump aide who has worked in his administration and on his campaigns,” It was very obvious there was an appetite for an outsider to enter the primary.” ” There was a real appetite, especially after 2012, right, because 2012 came right after the tea party movement, and it was like the outsider movement versus the establishment movement”.
Republicans were looking for an outsider candidate who could challenge the” Washington elite” after Romney lost the election to Barack Obama.
Americans were still dealing with the aftereffects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, China’s entering the World Trade Organization in late 2001, and the automobile bailouts after the 2008 recession, which helped” to set the perfect storm for Trump”, said Roe, who worked on then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Hogan Gidley, a former Trump official in his capacity as the party’s principal deputy press secretary, cited Trump as setting the example of how the GOP can attack Democrats.  ,
He said it’s OK to fight back, Republicans. The time of the lovable loser, the self-deprecating Mitt Romneys of the world, is over”, Gidley said. Donald Trump did not murder politics, he claimed. He was the coroner. He arrived and declared,” This is dead. We’re doing it a different way.’ He is frequently accused of destroying the political order. No. He just became aware that it was already dead and said it was.
Tapping into the GOP energy for a no-holds-barred fighter, Trump mixed a form of populism that propelled him over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton into the White House.  ,
The fighter imagery would also captivate the GOP after Trump survived his first assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year. Trump stood up and yelled” Fight, fight, fight” to his crowd of supporters after being struck in the ear with a bullet.
The images from the rally of Trump pumping his fist in the air “were so powerfully stunning because they enabled people to see him the same way those that have loved and supported him since the early days of the triumphant 2016 campaign have: as a fearless warrior”, Hicks said.
Trump’s two terms are compared ,
Trump’s first administration was defined by disruption, not only with policy, making announcements via Twitter, but also with personnel, firing and hiring aides, again, by social media.  ,
Regarding policy, Trump didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare and didn’t build 1, 000 miles of border wall and have Mexico pay for it, and critics would say he mismanaged the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that went on to kill over a million Americans and wreak havoc on the U. S. economy.
In the wake of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation and his first impeachment by the House over pressure he put on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to find dirt on former president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, he did introduce sweeping tax reform, appointed three Supreme Court justices, and encouraged Arab states to normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords.  ,
After months of the president and his aides undermining the results of the 2020 election against Biden, Trump’s first term later came to an end in violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The riot resulted in his second impeachment vote in the House before then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY ) decided against holding a trial in the Senate, predicting the president’s grasp on the Republican Party would weaken in Jan. 6’s aftermath.  ,
Trump also faced four separate criminal cases after leaving office, resulting in a felony conviction over a hush money scheme during the 2016 election.  ,
Yet Trump staged what could be the greatest political comeback in history, dominating the 2024 Republican primary against Gov. In the end, Ron DeSantis (R-FL ) and former U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley defeated former vice president Kamala Harris in the general election despite four indictments, two attempted assassination attempts, and Democrats switching Biden for Harris 100-or-fewer days before the polls closed.
” This guy’s the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet”, Roe said about Trump’s ability to overcome career-ending scandals.  ,
Trump’s second administration has so far been underscored by the president’s expanded use of executive powers, pardoning Jan. 6 offenders, organizing mass deportations, imposing sweeping tariffs, and upending the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency, with and without Elon Musk.
Trump’s adviser said that “he’s having fun” is the biggest difference between his first and second terms.  ,
He was new to Washington in his first term and relyed on a lot of people for hiring advice or recommendations, the assistant said. ” Now he knows what levers to pull, what buttons to push when it comes to governing, so he has a real command and grasp of what he needs to do and how to do it” . ,
Who will ascend the MAGA throne?
Regardless of quips about him running again in 2028 and repeated cries at rallies of “four more years”, Trump, 79, has been mum concerning the prospect of his legacy, declining, for example, to anoint Vice President JD Vance as his political heir.
” That’s far too early to say,” he said. But you know, I do have a vice president… and JD’s doing a fantastic job”, Trump told NBC News last month.
The president continued,” I don’t want to get involved in that. I think he’s a fantastic, brilliant guy. Rubio [ Marco] is fantastic. There’s a lot of them that are great. We have a lot of good people working for this party.
A former Trump campaign official contended that MAGA “is here to stay” beyond Trump “because now that people have seen it, they can’t  , unsee , it”.
Urban noted that it will be difficult to replicate the president’s distinctive electoral coalition.
” The hard part is, how do you convince all those different, totally disparate groups that you’re their champion”? he stated. ” Donald Trump did that, right? I believe that is what makes him special. I think that’s going to be a challenge for whoever runs next is going to be, how do you weave that group together”?
FULL LIST OF ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS THAT TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT
For Stone, Trump’s escalator ride was akin to an American revolution and changed the GOP “forever”.
Whoever we nominate after Trump will be the one who most effectively carries the Trump banner, according to Stone.
