Donald Trump has been elected the 47th president of the United States, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. His position will give him massive, disruptive power at home while sending shockwaves around the world.

Trump has been reelected to the White House as a convicted felon who is awaiting sentencing in his hush-money case in New York and still working to stave off prosecution in other state and federal cases.

It’s an extraordinarily unique position for him to be in: Never before has a criminal defendant been elected to the nation’s highest office, just as an ex-president had never been criminally charged until last year, CNN reports.

As some Americans celebrate Trump’s victory and others mourn Kamala Harris’s defeat, US media headlines captured a divided nation. While certain outlets welcomed the return of a familiar leader, framing it as a powerful comeback, others adopt a far more cautious tone, with headlines forecasting challenging times for the country’s democracy.

Trump Storms Back: Stunning return to power after dark and defiant campaign — The New York Times

“His defiant plans to upend the country’s political system held appeal to tens of millions of voters who feared that the American dream was drifting further from reach and who turned to Trump as a battering ram against the ruling establishment and the expert class of elites.

In a deeply divided nation, voters embraced Trump’s pledge to seal the southern border by almost any means, to revive the economy with 19th-century-style tariffs that would restore American manufacturing and to lead a retreat from international entanglements and global conflict.“

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Donald Trump Wins the 2024 Election, Putting Democracy on the Brink - Vanity Fair

“What the next four years will bring, exactly, is sure to be an ever-present source of dread for Democrats, pro-democracy Americans, and those whose rights and livelihoods have been most directly threatened by the MAGA movement. And while the consequences of Trump’s victory can’t immediately be known in full, one thing is certain: They will be far-reaching.”

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Trump Triumphs — The Washington Post

“The Republican defeated Vice President Kamala Harris by promising to curb inflation, crack down on undocumented immigrants and end overseas conflicts. Trump achieved an electoral college majority by maintaining his majorities with men and White voters without college degrees, while also overperforming with historic Democratic constituencies such as Latinos and young voters, according to preliminary exit polls.”

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America Puts Coup-Attempting Convicted Criminal Back Into The White House — HuffPost

“This time, he comes into office with a deeper understanding of the scope of his near-absolute power over the executive branch of the federal government, especially as commander in chief of the armed forces, as well as the knowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court effectively gave him complete immunity from prosecution for his actions as president.”

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America Votes Convicted Felon To Be President— RollingStone

“This implausible victory — coming after a chaotic campaign that saw Democrats change candidates mid-election, and Trump galumph down closing stretch with an increasingly bizarre series of stunts, including dressing up as a garbage man — also has huge stakes for Trump personally.”

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Donald Trump’s Revenge — The New Yorker

“Electing Donald J. Trump once could be dismissed as a fluke, an aberration, a terrible mistake—a consequential one, to be sure, yet still fundamentally an error. But America has now twice elected him as its President. It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be.”

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Trump Retakes Power — CNN

“And Trump’s success means that he has for the second time defied the aspirations of millions of Americans for a female president, since his vanquishing of Harris follows his 2016 defeat of Hillary Clinton, again preventing the shattering of what she called “the highest, hardest glass ceiling” in US politics.”

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Donald Trump has won — and American democracy is now in grave danger — VOX

“Yet as dire as things are, America has reserves it can draw on to withstand the coming assault. Over the course of the country’s long democratic history, it has built up robust systems for checking abuses of power.”

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Trump is Back — Politico

“Trump ultimately succeeded in portraying Harris as an extension of an administration that was widely unpopular with Americans, hurling crass personal attacks at Harris and framing her as even more unqualified for the job than an aging Biden while lacing into her past positions in favour of “Medicare for All,” taxpayer-funded gender transition care for prisoners and detained immigrants, cutting funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and banning fracking.”

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Trump Beat the System — New York Magazine

“Two years ago, when Trump declared his 2024 campaign for president, it was broadly greeted as a has-been’s desperation move. (“Florida Man Makes Announcement,” his hometown tabloid the New York Post headlined its story, stuffing the news at the bottom of an inside page.) After his 2020 loss and the January 6 assault, Trump was discredited in the upper precincts of the Republican Party and isolated down in Palm Beach. Even some of his ownadvisers conceded that Trump’s decision to run was motivated, at least in part, by his desire to politicize — and if possible, escape — the four criminal investigations he faced. He turned the 2024 presidential election into a referendum not just on the country’s direction, but his own freedom, and that double-barreled strategy has now been vindicated.”

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Header Image: Snippets showing headlines used by US media outlets following Donald’s Trump win in the 2024 Elections.