If 2016 is a cake, Donald Trump is the icing on it.
The Republican had promised to do “Brexit times 10” – and for once, he wasn’t wrong.
This result is nothing short of remarkable, historic, unbelievable. It is, in short, everything.
That Trump even got the Republican nomination was shock enough.
That he actually survived the campaign was viewed by many as remarkable.
To have won the presidency – having never held elected office – is the biggest ever political event in US history.
How did he do it?
It’s too early to really tell, but the early signs seem to suggest that he won with much the same message as the Brexiteers.
He lambasted a political establishment – whatever that is.
He attacked corporations, banks and Wall Street, despite himself being a billionaire property developer.
He, in short, championed the working man, whose life would be so much better if it wasn’t for conspiratorial elites trampling him down.
There is doubtless truth in some – if not all – of the above. Clearly, as with Brexit, it was also an extremely effective campaigning technique.
But Trump must now live up to his rhetoric though.
During the campaign, one of his most pertinent attacks on Clinton was that she had been in politics for 30 years, so why hadn’t she sorted out these problems she apparently cared so much about now?
Yet, Trump – who favours the broadest brush over the smallest nuance – is not one for policy. His campaign was bereft of credible answers to many of the problems facing working people in America.
Maybe he’ll be able to sort it out and prove his critics wrong – he has done before, after all.
But he should learn from Clinton – not to mention the UK’s Leave campaigners.
People voted for him over her because he offered an alternative.
He now has to work out what that alternative is – and quickly.
The future, however, should not take away from the present.
Whatever you think of Trump, he clearly has achieved something tonight that will be long remembered.