Its the most underrated but perhaps the most potent element in politics: luck.
Trump was born to riches. He skated through college, transformed millions into billions, won celebrity in reality television, gave elective politics a try. He won an election no one not even the candidate himself thought was within his grasp against a pioneering woman who had been a senator and secretary of state a combination that in the 19th century was a sure bet for the White House.
Then, this year, he drew the card of running for a second presidential term against a rival who, though an incumbent, had problems proving he had the physical stamina and mental acuity for a bruising campaign, let alone for four more years in the toughest job on the face of the Earth. (Lets wait a bit to see how potent that Trump luck looks after Election Day, but right now it looks fairly powerful.)
And of course, Trump had the luck of turning the other cheek a gesture not ordinarily in his portfolio as a bullet headed his way.
Now have a look at some of the past unlucky characters in Trumps new line of business.
Herbert Hoover had a resume without peer: successful engineer, savior of starving European masses, longtime Cabinet member. He bombed as president, and even though (here come the revisionists!) he might not deserve the opprobrium he has as Father of the Great Depression, hes considered a presidential failure.
His presidential cousin, eight times removed, was Carter. He was an Annapolis grad, a successful governor, a remarkable political campaigner. No one ever got so far by carrying his own suitcase and contorting his face into a smiley cookie.
As president, he was Americas unluckiest man. Inflation raged, and so did the Iranian militants who took 52 American diplomats hostage. Then Carter had the bad luck of running against a former governor of California with a smooth Grand Marnier style. Reagan sent Carter into early retirement and into the global role he was born to play: advocate of human rights and guarantor of elections around the world. Yet still he is a symbol of bad luck.
Of course, people make their own luck, good or bad. Carters bad luck was reinforced by his self-image as an uber-rectitude figure sent to Washington to cleanse the body politic and eliminate the loopholes in the tax code.
The first President Bush got blamed for an economy he set on the road to recovery. Defeating Iraq and presiding with dignity and grace over the fall of communism wasnt enough to salvage him politically. He joined John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft and Gerald Ford as good men with bad luck and only one term.
Trumps supporters believe the 45th president made his good luck. But he got a good start from birth America once prided itself on good starts, a kind of national myth mixed with national hope and then, after years of mischief, marriages and misbegotten investments, he achieved his lifelong goal: to be the most important person in the world. What he did with that status will be debated for generations, but try this test: Is it possible to go through an entire meal outside your home without the word Trump being uttered by someone?
I thought not.
There was, of course, a time when it looked as if Trumps luck had run out.
Defeat by Biden at the polls. A cockamamie accusation that the election was fixed. Five dozen court cases that delivered defeat after mortifying defeat. A January speech that prompted a riot at the Capitol that will be forever part of his legacy, no matter how many tall tales are told about it, no matter how much historical revisionism is deployed, no matter how many second-term Trump pardons and reprieves are given if there is a second Trump term. Some discolorations and smudges defy even the 22-ounce Resolve trigger-spray bottle of stain remover employed with disturbing regularity in our household. The stain of Jan. 6, 2021, is one of them.
And yet for Trump, luck is a boomerang.
His luck was on full display in a 40-hour period beginning in Butler, Pennsylvania, on a recent Saturday.
He was the target of an assassins bullet. He survived, and instantly was transformed, if public images are to be believed, from convicted felon to miraculous survivor and national symbol of fortune and fortitude. His critics reviled him no less, to be sure, and deplored the way he turned misfortune into advantage. But even from some of them, there was the sense that nothing could keep the old yeller and congenital liar down. They hated that, but recognized it, too.
Then came the ruling from Judge Aileen Cannon throwing out the hidden national-security documents case on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smiths appointment violated the Constitution. Appeals are certain. But appeals are the lifeblood of Trump. He makes them, and his opponents appeals shield him from prosecution before Election Day. As Frank Sinatra sang in another time: Luck be a lady tonight.
Now that Trump has the most famous ear since Vincent van Gogh, the question is whether his luck continues. That is wrapped up in the matter of Bidens luck.
If the president is lucky, he wont stumble on the stairs of Air Force One, wont search for words in public moments, wont have that glassy-eyed look he displayed in the June 27 debate. (As a stutterer myself, Ill grant him unlimited false starts of the tongue. Theyre infuriating and frustrating to both speaker and listener. But Biden might adapt the riposte Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien employed in 1993 after a rival advertisement mocked his partial facial paralysis. This is the face God gave me, he said.)
It is Americas good luck that, as Otto von Bismarck once said, God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America. As this campaign drones on, let us pray that that remains the case. It will require a large measure of luck.
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