United News of Bangladesh

Around 50 European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, were reassessing their trans-Atlantic relations at a summit Thursday in the hope that Donald Trump's second U.S. presidency will avoid the strife of his first administration. European officials will also be seeking a strong common stance on Russia at the one-day gathering. Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister during Trump's first 2017-2021 presidency, said that “I worked with him very well for four years. He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.”And he insisted that the common challenges posed by Russia in Ukraine affected both sides of the Atlantic. “Russia is delivering the latest technology into North Korea in return for North Korean help with the war against Ukraine. And this is a threat not only to the European part of NATO, but also to the U.S. mainland,” Rutte said coming into the summit.Trump strongly pushed the European NATO allies to spend more on defense during his first presidency, to up and beyond 2% of gross domestic product and to be less reliant on U.S. military cover. That point has totally sunk in.“When he was president, he was the one in NATO who stimulated us to move over the 2%. And now, also thanks to him, NATO, if you take out the numbers of the U.S., is above the 2%.,” Rutte said.Charles Michel, the council president of the 27-nation European Union, agreed that the continent needed to become less reliant on the United States. “We have to be more masters of our destiny," he said. "Not because of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, but because of our children.”During his election campaign, Trump has threatened anything from a trade war with Europe to a withdrawal of NATO commitments and a fundamental shift of support for Ukraine in its war with Russia — all issues that could have groundbreaking consequences for nations across Europe.Trump has said he would end the war in Ukraine, now well into its third year, within days of being reelected. Ukraine and many of its European backers fear that this means a peace on terms favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin and involving the surrender of territory.European allies in NATO hope to convince Trump that if he helps to negotiate any peace, it should be done from a position of strength, for both Ukraine and the United States.Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the summit’s host and an ardent Trump fan, said early Thursday that he already had a phone call with the incoming president overnight, announcing that “We have big plans for the future!”So did hard-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who lauded the “deep and historic strategic partnership that has always tied Rome and Washington.”That partnership came under constant pressure during Trump’s first term, from 2017-2021. Trump’s administration slapped tariffs on EU steel and aluminum in 2018, based on the claim that foreign products, even if produced by American allies, were a threat to U.S. national security. Europeans and other allies retaliated with duties on U.S.-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans, among other items. The impact of the U.S. election result could be felt in Europe for years to come, on issues including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as migration and climate change. Among the leaders, Zelenskyy, who is expected to make another plea for more aid as his country fends off Moscow’s invasion. The timing is laden with significance as Trump has vowed to end the war “within 24 hours” of being elected — something leaders in Kyiv interpret as an impending evaporation of U.S. support following Trump's win. Further compounding an already complicated situation, Germany — Europe’s troubled economic juggernaut — sank into political crisis after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister.  It raises the specter of an election in a few months and yet another standoff between the emboldened hard right and the establishment parties in Europe.Those two combined “adds even more pepper and salt to this situation,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

  Around 50 European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, were reassessing their trans-Atlantic relations at a summit Thursday in the hope that Donald Trump's second U.S. presidency will avoid the strife of his first administration.   European officials will also be seeking a strong common stance on Russia at the one-day gathering.   Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister during Trump's first 2017-2021 presidency, said that “I worked with him very well for four years. He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.” And he insisted that the common challenges posed by Russia in Ukraine affected both sides of the Atlantic.   “Russia is delivering the latest technology into North Korea in return for North Korean help with the war against Ukraine. And this is a threat not only to the European part of NATO, but also to the U.S. mainland,” Rutte said coming into the summit. Trump strongly pushed the European NATO allies to spend more on defense during his first presidency, to up and beyond 2% of gross domestic product and to be less reliant on U.S. military cover. That point has totally sunk in. “When he was president, he was the one in NATO who stimulated us to move over the 2%. And now, also thanks to him, NATO, if you take out the numbers of the U.S., is above the 2%.,” Rutte said. Charles Michel, the council president of the 27-nation European Union, agreed that the continent needed to become less reliant on the United States.   “We have to be more masters of our destiny," he said. "Not because of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, but because of our children.” During his election campaign, Trump has threatened anything from a trade war with Europe to a withdrawal of NATO commitments and a fundamental shift of support for Ukraine in its war with Russia — all issues that could have groundbreaking consequences for nations across Europe. Trump has said he would end the war in Ukraine, now well into its third year, within days of being reelected. Ukraine and many of its European backers fear that this means a peace on terms favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin and involving the surrender of territory. European allies in NATO hope to convince Trump that if he helps to negotiate any peace, it should be done from a position of strength, for both Ukraine and the United States. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the summit’s host and an ardent Trump fan, said early Thursday that he already had a phone call with the incoming president overnight, announcing that “We have big plans for the future!” So did hard-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who lauded the “deep and historic strategic partnership that has always tied Rome and Washington.” That partnership came under constant pressure during Trump’s first term, from 2017-2021.   Trump’s administration slapped tariffs on EU steel and aluminum in 2018, based on the claim that foreign products, even if produced by American allies, were a threat to U.S. national security. Europeans and other allies retaliated with duties on U.S.-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans, among other items.   The impact of the U.S. election result could be felt in Europe for years to come, on issues including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as migration and climate change.   Among the leaders, Zelenskyy, who is expected to make another plea for more aid as his country fends off Moscow’s invasion. The timing is laden with significance as Trump has vowed to end the war “within 24 hours” of being elected — something leaders in Kyiv interpret as an impending evaporation of U.S. support following Trump's win.   Further compounding an already complicated situation, Germany — Europe’s troubled economic juggernaut — sank into political crisis after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister.   It raises the specter of an election in a few months and yet another standoff between the emboldened hard right and the establishment parties in Europe. Those two combined “adds even more pepper and salt to this situation,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

  CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it's ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.   “It's this relentless nature of the warming that I think is is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus.   Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global warming.   He cited other factors that contribute to exceptionally warm years like last year and this one. They include El Nino — the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — as well as volcanic eruptions that spew water vapor into the air and variations in energy from the sun. But he and other scientists say the long-term increase in temperatures beyond fluctuations like El Nino is a bad sign.   “A very strong El Nino event is a sneak peek into what the new normal will be about a decade from now,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with the nonprofit Berkeley Earth.   News of a likely second year of record heat comes a day after Republican Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and promised to boost oil drilling and production, was reelected to the presidency. It also comes days before the next U.N. climate conference, called COP29, is set to begin in Azerbaijan. Talks are expected to focus on how to generate trillions of dollars to help the world transition to clean energes like wind and solar, and thus avoid continued warming.   Buontempo pointed out that going over the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold of warming for a single year is different than the goal adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement. That goal was meant to try to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times on average, over 20 or 30 years.   A United Nations report this year said that since the mid-1800s on average, the world has already heated up 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) — up from previous estimates of 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) or 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). That's of concern because the U.N. says the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals of the world's nations still aren't nearly ambitious enough to keep the 1.5 degree Celsius target on track.   The target was chosen to try to stave off the worst effects of climate change on humanity, including extreme weather. “The heat waves, storm damage, and droughts that we are experiencing now are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Natalie Mahowald, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.  

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has received a death threat, accompanied by a ransom demand of Rs 50 lakh, in a phone call to Mumbai police. The call, traced to Raipur in Chhattisgarh, came from a man who identified himself as "Hindustani" when questioned. A case has been registered at Bandra Police Station, and authorities are actively investigating the matter. The individual behind the call, identified as Faizan Khan, claimed during police questioning that his phone had been stolen on 2 November. SRK fans reign supreme as ‘Dunki’ hits theatres in Bangladesh The call itself was received on 5 November at around 1:20 pm, where the caller reportedly threatened to harm the "Jawan" star if the ransom was not paid. This is not the first time Shah Rukh Khan has received threats. In October last year, he was similarly targeted, prompting authorities to enhance his security to the Y+ level. This level of protection provides him with six armed personnel around the clock, upgrading from his previous arrangement of two armed security guards. The threat against Shah Rukh Khan follows a recent incident involving another Bollywood icon, Salman Khan. The latter received threats from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, demanding he either pay Rs 5 crore or publicly apologise for his alleged involvement in the killing of a blackbuck. The threat was reportedly issued by Bhikharam Jalaram Bishnoi, a gang member who has since been detained in Karnataka. In a separate event, Salman Khan was warned on 30 October by an anonymous individual who demanded a ransom of Rs 2 crore. In light of these repeated threats, Salman Khan’s security was also bolstered, particularly following the recent assassination of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique on 12 October. Mumbai police remain on high alert as they investigate the latest threats to both Bollywood icons, ensuring that security measures are in place to protect the actors from potential harm. Source: With inputs from news wires   

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday extended congratulations to Donald Trump on his election as president of the United States. Xi urged the two countries to find the right way to get along in the new era, so as to benefit both countries and the wider world. History teaches that China and the United States gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation, said Xi, noting that a stable, sound and sustainable China-U.S. relationship serves the two countries' shared interests and meets the aspiration of the international community. He expressed the hope that the two sides will uphold the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences and expand mutually beneficial cooperation. On the same day, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng extended congratulations to J.D. Vance on his election as vice president of the United States. 

Joe Biden's name wasn't on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris' resounding defeat as his loss too. As Democrats pick up the pieces following President-elect Donald Trump's decisive victory, some of the vice president's backers are expressing frustration that Biden's decision to seek reelection until this summer — despite longstanding voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the U.S.-Mexico border — all but sealed his party's loss of the White House. “The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ unsuccessful run. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.” Biden will leave office after leading the U.S. out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanizing international support for Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion and passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will impact communities for years to come. But having run four years ago against Trump to “restore the soul of the country,” Biden will make way after just one term for his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters. Trump has vowed to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden's priorities. “Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these achievements,” said Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. “But in the shorter term, I don’t know he escapes the legacy of being the president who beat Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later.” The president on Wednesday stayed out of sight for the second straight day, making congratulatory calls to Democratic lawmakers who won downballot races as well as one to Trump, who he invited for a White House meeting that the president-elect accepted. Biden is set to deliver a Rose Garden address Thursday about the election. He issued a statement shortly after Harris delivered her concession speech on Wednesday, praising Harris for running an “historic campaign” under “extraordinary circumstances.” Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognize earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee. But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. Some 77% of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her. Harris managed to spur far greater enthusiasm than Biden was generating from the party's base. But she struggled to distinguish how her administration would differ from Biden's. Appearing on ABC’s “The View” in September, Harris was not able to identify a decision where she would have separated herself from Biden. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said, giving the Trump campaign a sound bite it replayed through Election Day. The strategists advising the Harris campaign said the compressed campaign timetable made it even more difficult for Harris to differentiate herself from the president. Had Biden stepped aside early in the year, they said, it would have given Democrats enough time to hold a primary. Going through the paces of an intraparty contest would have forced Harris or another eventual nominee to more aggressively stake out differences with Biden. The strategists acknowledged that overcoming broad dissatisfaction among the American electorate about rising costs in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and broad concerns about the U.S. immigration system weighed heavy on the minds of voters in key states. Still, they said that Biden had left Democrats in an untenable place. Harris senior adviser David Plouffe in a posting on X called it a “devastating loss." Plouffe didn't assign blame. He noted the Harris campaign “dug out of a deep hole but not enough.” At the vice president's concession speech on Wednesday, some Harris supporters said they wished the vice president had had more time to make her pitch to American voters. “I think that would have made a huge difference," said Jerushatalla Pallay, a Howard University student who attended the speech at the center of her campus. Republicans are poised to control the White House and Senate. Control of the House has yet to be determined. Matt Bennett, executive vice president at the Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said this moment was the most devastating the party has faced in his lifetime. "Harris was dealt a really bad hand. Some of it was Biden’s making and some maybe not," said Bennett, who served as an aide to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration. “Would Democrats fare better if Biden had stepped back earlier? I don't know if we can say for certain, but it's a question we'll be asking ourselves for some time.”  

Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted again Thursday, spewing a column of hot clouds that rose 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) from its peak, three days after a midnight eruption killed nine people and injured dozens of others. There was no immediate report of casualties from the latest eruption. The 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano on Indonesia’s remote island of Flores unleashed clouds of gray hot ash Thursday. The mixture of rock, lava and gas was thrown up to 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) from its crater, Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation said in a statement. The volcano lulled in activity since Monday’s deadly eruption killed nine people and injured 64 others. Monday's eruption affected more than 10,000 people in 10 villages. About 4,400 villagers moved into makeshift emergency shelters after the eruption, which destroyed seven schools, nearly two dozen houses and a convent on the majority-Catholic island. The country’s volcano monitoring agency increased Lewotobi Laki Laki's alert status to the highest level and more than doubled the exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius since then, prohibiting any activity in that area. Authorities warned the thousands of people who fled not to return home, as the government planned to move about 16,000 residents out of the danger zone, said National Disaster Management Agency head Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses a single name. “Permanent relocation is considered as a long-term mitigation measure to anticipate eruption in the future,” Suharyanto told reporters after visiting the devastated areas Thursday. Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of a pair of stratovolcanoes in the East Flores district of East Nusa Tenggara province, known locally as the husband-and-wife mountains. “Laki laki” means man, while its mate is Lewotobi Perempuan, or woman. About 6,500 people were evacuated in January after Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki began erupting, spewing thick clouds and forcing the government to close the island’s Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport. No casualties or major damage were reported, but the airport has remained closed since then due to seismic activity. On Oct. 27, West Sumatra province’s Mount Marapi — one of the country’s most active volcanos — erupted, spewing thick columns of ash at least three times and blanketing nearby villages with debris. No casualties were reported. Lewotobi Laki Laki is one of the 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of 280 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

 The first time China faced Donald Trump in the White House, there was a trade war, a breach of protocol involving Taiwan’s former leader, and a president-to-president bromance that turned sour. As President-elect Trump prepares to start his second term in office, China is bracing for unpredictability in its ties with the United States and renewed tensions over trade, technology and Taiwan. A new tariff war looms Perhaps the biggest consequence for China — if Trump stays true to his campaign promises — is his threat to slap blanket 60% tariffs on all Chinese exports to the U.S. Tariffs like that would be a blow to China’s already unstable economy, which is suffering from high youth unemployment, a lengthy property slump and government debt. A 60% duty on Chinese imports could shave off 2.5 percentage points, or about half, of China’s projected economic growth, according to an analysis published earlier this year by UBS. During Trump's previous term in office, the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products. That brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020 the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improve intellectual property rights and buy an extra $200 billion of American goods. A research group a couple of years later showed China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised. President Joe Biden retained most of those tariffs and added fresh duties this year on imports including steel, solar cells and electric vehicles. Like last time, tariffs could serve as a tool to force Beijing back to the negotiating table, said Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University who focuses on international trade. “Given the weak economic position of China this time, I think there will be more willingness to talk,” he said. “Thus, while the tariff might have some short-term effects on the Chinese economy, the situation might improve once they reach a deal.” Factoring into the trade talks could be Trump’s appeals to Chinese President Xi Jinping to help negotiate a resolution to the Ukraine war, which Trump has boasted he’ll be able to do quickly, without saying how. Trump previously sought Xi's help in dealing with North Korea's rogue leader Kim Jong Un. That dynamic could repeat itself, with Trump weighing trade grievances against seeking China's support in global crises, according to Wang Huiyao, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization. “China is the largest trading partner of both Russia and Ukraine," Wang wrote in a recent commentary. "These close economic ties give China a unique opportunity to play a greater role in peace-making efforts.” Willing to go ‘crazy’ over Taiwan There is one scenario in which Trump has threatened to impose even higher tariffs — 150% to 200% — on Chinese goods: if China invades Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own. The U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as a country, but is its strongest backer and biggest arms provider. Trump angered Beijing in December 2016 by taking a congratulatory call from Taiwan’s then-president Tsai Ing-wen in a breach of diplomatic protocol. No U.S. president had spoken directly to a Taiwanese leader since Washington and Beijing established ties in 1979. Trump's move created anxiety in China-watching circles, but ultimately, he stuck to supporting the status quo in relations between Taipei and Beijing. China expects him to continue to do so, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Relations at Nanjing University. “Will (he) want to turn to support Taiwan independence? It is unlikely,” he said. As for China’s repeated threats to annex Taiwan, Trump told The Wall Street Journal last month that he would not have to use military force to prevent a blockade of Taiwan because Xi “respects me and he knows I’m (expletive) crazy.” On the campaign trail, Trump sometimes talked up his personal connection with Xi, which started exuberantly during his first term but soured over disputes about trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Trump has also said that Taiwan should pay the U.S. for defending it against China, likening the relationship to insurance. Taiwan spends about 2.5% of its GDP on defense, and purchased hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons this year. Trump has purposely maintained a sense of uncertainty in his relationship with China, said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “We are clear about the challenges,” he said. “As for opportunities, we are yet to see them clearly.” Disputes over chips During his first term, Trump began targeting Chinese technology firms over security concerns, focusing on large companies like the telecoms giant Huawei. Biden continued in that direction by placing curbs on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, which are needed to develop strategic industries such as artificial intelligence. But Trump has criticized Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act, a bipartisan bill that earmarked $53 billion to build up domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. Currently, Taiwan produces nearly 90% of the world’s supply of the most advanced chips. The island’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, expanded production in Arizona, partly to respond to the CHIPS Act, and to be prepared to withstand any other protectionist policies in the U.S., said Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center. Trump has promised to do away with the CHIPS Act, though critics say that would undermine his campaign to reindustrialize the U.S. The president-elect has also accused Taiwan of “stealing” the chip industry from the U.S. decades ago. “Rather than providing a silicon shield, Taiwan’s dominance in the chip industry could actually be the source of tension between Taipei and Trump, as Taiwan’s successes in the chip sector may be seen as having only been possible as a result of the United States being taken advantage of,” Goto said.

 A 12-year-old boy was among five people who died in the fiery crash of a small business jet near a suburban Phoenix airport, authorities said Wednesday. Preliminary information indicated the six-seater HondaJet HA-420 aircraft was headed to Provo, Utah, when it aborted takeoff at the Falcon Field airport in Mesa on Tuesday afternoon. The plane crashed through the airport's metal fence before colliding with a vehicle that was traveling on a road west of the airport, according to authorities. Aviation International News said data shows the HondaJet accelerated to more than 153 mph on a 5,100-foot runway before taxiing about 1,300 feet from the end of the runway. The jet then slowed to about 118 mph by the runway’s end. Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for Flightradar24 that shows air traffic in real time, said the HondaJet was traveling 78.25 mph at its last recorded position before the crash. It was not immediately clear why the plane was not able to take off. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation with help from the Federal Aviation Administration and Mesa authorities. Four of the five passengers aboard the jet died at the scene, Mesa police said Wednesday. The unidentified pilot was hospitalized with serious burn injuries. Those aboard the plane included 12-year-old Graham Kimball and his 44-year-old father, Drew Kimball. The two other victims were Rustin Randall, 48, and Spencer Lindahl, 43, who were both listed as managers of Ice Man Holdings LLC, a company based in Mesa. The driver of the vehicle also died at the scene. Authorities were withholding the person's name pending positive identification.

American presidential elections are a moment when the nation holds up a mirror to look at itself. They are a reflection of values and dreams, of grievances and scores to be settled. The results say much about a country’s character, future and core beliefs. On Tuesday, America looked into that mirror and more voters saw former president Donald Trump, delivering him a far-reaching victory in the most contested states. He won for many reasons. One of them was that a formidable number of Americans, from different angles, said the state of democracy was a prime concern. The candidate they chose had campaigned through a lens of darkness, calling the country “garbage” and his opponent “stupid,” a “communist” and “the b-word.” The mirror reflected not only a restive nation's discontent but childless cat ladies, false stories of pets devoured by Haitian immigrant neighbors, a sustained emphasis on calling things “weird,” and a sudden bout of Democratic “joy" now crushed. The campaign will be remembered both for profound developments, like the two assassination attempts on Trump, and his curious chatter about golfer Arnold Palmer's genitalia. Even as Trump prevailed, most voters said they were very or somewhat concerned that electing Trump would bring the U.S. closer to being an authoritarian country, where a single leader has unchecked power, according to the AP VoteCast survey. Still, 1 in 10 of those voters backed him anyway. Nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters said they wanted complete upheaval in how the country is run. In Trump’s telling, the economy was in shambles, even when almost every measure said otherwise, and the border was an open sore leeching murderous migrants, when the actual number of crossings had dropped precipitously. All this came wrapped in his signature language of catastrophism. His win, only the second time in U.S. history that a candidate won the presidency in non-consecutive terms, demonstrated Trump's keen ear for what stirs emotions, especially the sense of millions of voters of being left out — whether because someone else cheated or got special treatment or otherwise fell to the ravages of the enemy within. That's whom Americans decisively chose. The centuries-old democracy delivered power to the presidential candidate who gave voters fair warning he might take core elements of that democracy apart. After already having tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power when he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mused that he would be justified if he decided to pursue “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” This, in contrast to the oath of office he took, and will again, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” as best he can. One rough and decidedly imperfect measure of whether Trump might mean what he says is how many times he says it. His direct threat to try to end or suspend the Constitution was largely a one-off. But the 2024 campaign was thick with his vows, rally after rally, interview after interview, that if realized would upend democracy’s basic practices, protections and institutions as Americans have known them. And now, he says after his win, “I will govern by a simple motto: promises made, promises kept.” Through the campaign, to lusty cheers, Trump promised to use presidential power over the justice system to go after his personal political adversaries. He then raised the stakes further by threatening to enlist military force against such domestic foes — “the enemy from within.” Doing so would shatter any semblance of Justice Department independence and turn soldiers against citizens in ways not seen in modern times. He’s promised to track down and deport immigrants in massive numbers, raising the prospect of using military or military-style assets for that as well. Spurred by his fury and denialism over his 2020 defeat, Trump’s supporters in some state governments have already engineered changes in how votes are cast, counted and affirmed, an effort centered on the false notion that the last election was rigged against him. On Tuesday, Trump won an election in the time of a Democratic administration. The effort to revise election procedures will now be fought out by states in his time. Yet another pillar of the system is also in his sights — the non-political civil service and its political masters, whom Trump together calls the deep state. He means the generals who didn’t always heed him last time, but this time shall. He means the Justice Department people who refused to indulge his desperate effort to cook up votes he didn’t get in 2020. He means the bureaucrats who dragged their heels on parts of his first-term agenda and whom Trump now wants purged. Trump wants to make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections. That could weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by draining parts of the workforce and permit his administration to staff offices with more malleable employees than last time. But if some or all of these tenets of modern democracy are to fall, it will be through the most democratic of means. Voters chose him — and by extension, this — not Democrat Kamala Harris, the vice president. And by early measures, it was a clean election, just like 2020. Eric Dezenhall is a scandal-management expert who has followed Trump's business and political career and correctly predicted his wins in 2016 and now. He also foresaw that the criminal cases against Trump would help, not hurt, him. Sussing out what Trump truly intends to do and what might be bluster is not always easy, he said. “There are certain things that he says because they cross his brain at a certain moment,” Dezenhall said. “I don't put stock in that. I put stock in themes, and there is a theme of vengeance.” So it remains to be seen whether America will get two special days Trump has promised. Upon taking office again, he said, he’ll be a “dictator,” but only for a day. And he’s promised to let police stage “one really violent day” to crack down on crime with impunity, a remark his campaign said he didn’t really mean, just as his people said he wasn’t serious about subverting the U.S. Constitution. The voters also gave Trump's Republicans clear control of the Senate, and therefore majority say in whether to confirm the loyalists Trump will nominate for top jobs in government. Trump controls his party in ways he didn't in his first term, when major figures in his administration repeatedly frustrated his most outlier ambitions. “The fact that a once proud people chose, twice, to demean itself with a leader like Donald Trump will be one of history’s great cautionary tales,” said Cal Jillson, a constitutional and presidential scholar at Southern Methodist University whose new book, “Race, Ethnicity, and American Decline,” anticipated some of the existential issues of the election. “Donald Trump’s actions will be as divisive, ill-considered, and mean-spirited in his second term as in his first,” he said. “He will undercut Ukraine, NATO, and the U.N. abroad and the rule of law, individual rights, and our senses of national cohesion and purpose at home.” From the political left, any threats to democracy were not on the mind of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont when he offered a blistering critique of the Democratic campaign. “It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working people would find that the working class has abandoned them," he said in a statement. “Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing?” He concluded: “Probably not.” For his part, Trump says he is intent on restoring democracy, not tearing it down. There was nothing democratic, he and his allies assert, in seeing military leaders defy the elected commander in chief, whether the issue was troop deployments or his wish for a splashy military parade. Or in seeing Democratic presidents establish immigration policy and vast student loan relief though executive action, bypassing Congress. But that case is built from the ground up on the lie of a stolen 2020 election, his machinations to stall the certification of that vote and his mob’s bloody attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He comes to office intending to pardon some of the people convicted for that riot and perhaps clear himself of criminal cases against him. Guardrails remain. One is the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority loosened the leash on presidential behavior in its ruling expanding their immunity from prosecution. The court has not been fully tested on how far it will go to accommodate Trump’s actions and agenda. And which party will control the House is not yet known. The Republican’s victory came from a public so put off by America’s trajectory that it welcomed his brash and disruptive approach. Among voters under 30, just under half went for Trump, an improvement from his 2020 performance, according to the AP VoteCast survey of more than 120,000 voters. About three-quarters of young voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction, and roughly one-third said they wanted total upheaval in how the country is run. By Trump's words, at least, that's what they'll get.