In the second week of January, three years ago, Donald Trump was widely seen as a spent force. On Jan. 13, 2021, the Republican was impeached by a bipartisan majority in the House, which charged the outgoing president with “incitement of insurrection” on the heels of the Jan. 6 attack.
Two days earlier, his party’s then-leader in the chamber, Kevin McCarthy, privately told members of his conference, “I’ve had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.” The same week, his party’s Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, publicly condemned Trump for feeding “lies” to an angry mob. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like,” he added.
Around the same time, members of Trump’s own White House Cabinet raised the prospect of forcing him from office by way of the 25th Amendment.
Much of the political world came to believe that there would be no political recovery for the failed and defeated president. He’d gone too far. His days were over. It was time for the GOP to make its adjustment to a post-Trump world.
In the second week of January, three years later, Trump won the Iowa caucuses by roughly 30 points. NBC News reported overnight:
Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucuses, NBC News projects, cementing his firm status as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump, who is aiming to be the first former president since Grover Cleveland in the 1890s to return to office after losing re-election to a second consecutive term, scored a record-breaking showing Monday in the first contest of 2024.
Headed into the first nominating contest of the 2024 cycle, there was little doubt as to who would prevail. There were questions, however, about the scope of the former president’s inevitable victory.
Those questions received…
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