Comeback (pronounced kuhm-bak)
(1) A
return to a former higher rank, popularity, position, prosperity etc, typically
after an extended period of obscurity, under-performance etc.
(2) In
sporting competition, a team or individual overcoming a substantial
disadvantage in points to win or draw.
(3) Of
products, ideas, practices etc, to again become fashionable.
(4) To
reply after a period of consideration (as in “to come back” to someone).
(5) A
clever or effective retort; a rejoinder; a retort; a riposte (especially if recriminatory).
(6) In
informal use, a basis or cause of complaint.
(7) To
return (in the sense “come back”).
(8) Of
something forgotten, to return to one's memory.
1815–1825:
A noun use of verb phrase “come back”, the construct being come + back. Come was from the Middle English comen & cumen, from the Old English cuman,
from the Proto-West Germanic kweman,
from the Proto-Germanic kwemaną (to
come), from the primitive Indo-European gwémt (to step), from gwem- (to step). Back
was from the Middle English bak, from
the Old English bæc, from the Middle
Low German bak (back), from the Old
Saxon bak, from the Proto-West
Germanic bak, from the Proto-Germanic
baką, possibly from the primitive Indo-European
bheg- (to bend).
The adverb represents an aphetic (in phonetics, linguistics & prosody, of,
relating to, or formed by aphesis (the loss of the initial unstressed vowel of
a word)) form of aback. Similar forms
included the West Frisian bekling (chair
back), the Old High German bah and
the Swedish and Norwegian bak. The use of comeback (for long used also as “come-back”)
in the sense of a verbal (usually oral) retort dates form 1889 and was an
adaptation of the verbal phrase, the implication especially of a “quick or
clever response”. The familiar modern meaning
“recovery, return to former position or condition after retirement or loss” was
a creation of American English, documented since 1908. Comeback is a noun (the use as a verb is a
misspelling of “come back”; the noun plural is comebacks.
In
idiomatic use a “comeback kid” is a person who on more than one occasion had
demonstrated a propensity to overcome tragedy, reversal or failure and rebound
to triumph and victory. It has also been
used of someone who has achieved such a thing only once but in an especially
notable or dramatic way such as Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001)
who recovered from a mediocre performance in the 1992 Iowa Caucus but managed to
secure an unexpected second place in the New Hampshire primary, despite (cynics
would say “because”) reports of his extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers
(b 1950; “Gennifer with a ‘G’”). Variations
include “comeback king”, “comeback queen”, “comeback specialist” etc and those for
whom comebacks seem to be a calling are said to stage “serial comebacks”. When writing of comebacks (usually in sport,
politics or entertainment), it not uncommon for them to be described as a “rebound”,
“resurgence”, “return”, “revival”, “resurrection” or “resuscitation” (or a “redux”
for those wanting something more literary).
In gambling, “comeback money” is that used by an agent of a bookie to
place a large bet on a horse at large odds, thereby causing the odds on that
horse to decline, reducing the bookie's potential losses in the event that the
horse wins.
Comeback sauce is a dipping sauce and salad dressing, most
associated with central Mississippi and while there are variations, the classic
recipes typically are based on mayonnaise and chili sauce. A creamy & tangy Southern condiment, someback
sauce is a Mississippi staple and has spread far beyond the city of Jackson, where
it originated as an example of “fusion cuisine” (in this case Greek + Mississippi
influences). It’s thought the sauce's
name is merely the idea “it tastes so good
diners keep ‘coming back’ for more”. It was first served in Greek-owned restaurants
(some claim the Mayflower Cafe was first) in Mississippi in the mid-twentieth century
and it has much evolved and in addition to the base of mayonnaise and chili
sauce, other popular ingredients include ketchup, spices and Worcestershire hot
sauce.
Noted
comebacks in modern US politics
F Scott
Fitzgerald’s (1896–1940) oft-quoted phrase “there are no second acts in American lives”
appears as a fragment in his posthumously published, unfinished novel The Last Tycoon (1941) but he first
published it in the early 1930s in the essay My Lost City, a kind of love letter to New York. The quote is frequently misunderstood as an
observation that for those Americans who suffer disgrace or destitution, there
is no redemption, no comeback. However,
from politics to pop culture (there is still some slight distinction), there
are many examples of temporarily disreputable Americans resurrecting their
public lives from all but the most ignominious opprobrium. Fitzgerald was a professional writer and his
observation was an allusion to the structure used by playwrights in traditional
three-act theater: (1) problem, (2) complication & (3) solution. He thought the nature of the American mind
was to prefer to skip the second act, going straight from a problem to finding
a solution. His point was well-made and
it’s one of the themes of the narrative which underlies the discussions (which
became arguments and sometimes squabbles) of military and political strategy
between Washington and London during the World War II (1939-1945).
The concept of the comeback is well understood and the zeitgeisters at The Cut (an online publication of New York magazine) noted the phenomenon, in September 2024 posting a piece which looked at Lindsay Lohan’s latest comeback and reviewed those of the last ten-odd years.
What Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; president elect
since 5 Nov 2024) did in regaining the presidency in the 2024 presidential
election was perhaps the most remarkable comeback in modern US political
history and as notable as any that has happened anywhere. When one considers the prelude to the 2024
triumph, (Trump (1) lost the popular vote in 2016, (2) lost the popular vote
and the electoral college (and thus the presidency) in 2020 and (3) suffered
between 2021-2024 a myriad of legal problems including civil judgements in
which he was found liable for hundreds of millions in damages and even a felony
conviction, a historic first for a US president), his comeback seems more
remarkable still. It’s something even
the Trump haters (of which there seem to be a few) must acknowledge, even if it’s
not a thing of which they dare speak.
The
analysis of the voting patterns in 2024 have revealed some interesting findings
but talk of a “political realignment”
(such as the shift of the South from the Democrats to the Republicans in the
wake of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s) may be premature because
there seems still not to be an understanding of just how bizarrely unique a
political figure Mr Trump is. His effect
on the political dynamic is undeniable but it may be that it’s something unique
to his very existence and that when he departs (God forbid), the construct
called MAGA Republicanism, while it may live on as a label, ceases to exert its
pull. These personal creations do seem
to behave like that, Gaullism (from Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of
France 1959-1969) in France and Peronism (from Juan Perón (1895–1974; President
of Argentina 1946-1955 & 1973-1974) in Argentina both surviving as labels
but those who have in recent decades appropriated them haven’t always pursued
policies of which the two men would have approved; nor have they always aligned
with the definitions political scientists have constructed.
It was a strange election campaign. Trump actually talked much about specifics, there were a lot of policies and many specific details: what he was going to do and to whom. Kamala Harris (b 1964; US vice president since 2021) however appeared to have only three items on the campaign clipboard: (1) I am not Donald Trump, (2) I am not Joe Biden and (3) abortion on demand. Had the Trump brand been as toxic as her team seemed to believe the her tactic of basing every appearance around platitudes, slogans and clichés endlessly recited (obediently to be repeated by the crowd), that might have won the election (it’s been done before) but clearly, Trump had more appeal for enough of those in the demographics the Democrats had pencilled in as “ours”. Quickly, the analysts “scoped down” on the voting patterns and discovered (1) there were women for whom abortion was not the central issue (although it is clear women also took advantage of differential voting where possible, voting to making abortion available in their state wheen the option was on the ballot while also voting for Trump), (2) a significant proportion of Latino voters appeared to be motivated by self-interest rather than ethnic solidarity (which the Democrats seemed to assume they’d made compulsory) and (3) the black male vote for the Democrats was lower that was achieved by Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) in 2008 & 2012. That last statistic intrigued some who drew what may have been a long bow in speculating that while black men don’t like being told what to do by a white man, at least they’ve had several centuries to get used to it whereas the thought of being told what to do by a black woman is just unthinkable. It was an opportunistic conclusion to draw from an electoral behaviour which happened only at the margins but it was that sort of election.
Interest now shifts to the second Trump administration and whether it will be Trump 1.1 (ie more of the same which was experienced in the first term) or Trump 2.0 (something different). Many analysts are suggesting it will be combination of both and structurally, the possibilities available to Mr Trump if the Republicans hold working majorities in both chambers of congress are more inviting. Mr Trump will have learned lessons from his first term and at least some mistakes (not a word he's believed often to have used of himself) presumably won't be repeated and it's no secret a whole industry of lobbyists, specialists and obsessives have been for four years at work crafting documents detailing how they think things should be done so he won't lack for advice. There is much talk about the "shift to conservatism" in the US (and elsewhere) but a second Trump administration promises to be one of the more radical seen since the 1960s.
Four dead white men, left to right: Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Thomas Dewey, meeting to discuss the Republican platform for the 1966 mid-term elections, Washington DC, 1 June 1965. It was a meeting of some significance because this period was the high point of the Democratic Party's control of all branches of government.
Until
Trump did what he did, the greatest political comeback in the US was probably
that achieved in 1968 by Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974). After two terms as VPOTUS (Vice President of
the United States) to Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961),
Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US
president 1961-1963), the margin described at the time as “an electoral eyelash”. Although it was made clear to Nixon JFK’s
victory had probably been made possible by old Joe Kennedy (1888–1969 and JFK’s
father) using his money to arrange some blatant vote rigging, Nixon declined to
pursue his right to mount a legal challenge, arguing the institution of the office
was too important to taint with scandal and telling aides: “Nobody steals the
presidency of the United States”, a very different attitude that that
taken in 2020 by Mr Trump Politically,
the loss in 1960 may not have been fatal but what did seem to write finis was
his loss in 1962 in the Californian gubernatorial contest, an event which would
now be forgotten had not Nixon, the day after, held what he called his “last press
conference”. California was
then a solidly Republican state and Nixon’s loss was a surprise to most and a
shock to some, most conspicuously the defeated candidate who, at the Beverly
Hilton Hotel, delivered a quarter-hour tongue-lashing to the assembled press
pack, accusing them, not without justification, of having hated him since first
he came to prominence in 1948 and having since assiduously and unfairly worked
against him. He concluded: “I leave you
gentlemen now. And you will now write
it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you, I want you to know—just
think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press
conference.” Nixon sat out
the 1964 presidential election, appearing at the Republican National Convention
only as “a
simple soldier in the ranks” to nominate Barry Goldwater (1909–1998)
who he described as “Mr Conservative” and the 1964 convention was
the only one between 1952-1972 from which Nixon didn’t emerge as the party’s
nominee for POTUS (President of the United States) or VPOTUS. Goldwater lost the 1964 election to Lyndon
Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) in one of the biggest
landslides ever but Goldwater managed to engineer his own, somewhat abstract,
comeback, later arguing the victory of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president
1981-1989) was really him winning, sixteen years on. Barry invented the “proto-virtual comeback”.
Harry Truman, St. Louis Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri, 3 November 1948. United States. In Florida, 76 years later, Donald Trump would wear the same smile.
Harry Truman’s (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953) comeback victory in the 1948 presidential election was one of those events remember for one photograph: that of a smirking Truman holding aloft the 3 November 1948 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, the front page’s banner headline reading: “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”. Really, the Tribune was unlucky because for reasons both technical and related to labor relations, the Wednesday edition had “gone to bed” and been printed earlier that the historic practice, the staff relying on the early returns which they interpreted as guaranteeing a solid Republican victory, not only Thomas Dewey (1902–1971) taking the White House but also both houses of congress; as things turned out, the Democrats secured all three. For Truman, the 1948 victory was a remarkable comeback because he’d inherited the presidency only because Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) had died on the eve of victory in World War II (1939-1945) and, compared with his illustrious predecessor, he seemed plain and uncharismatic, his reputation not helped as post-war economic struggles, labor strikes, and internal divisions within the Democratic Party soon took the gloss of the celebrations which had greeted the end of four years of war. By 1948, almost universally he was expected to lose the 1948 election.
What Truman did was return to what seemed to most a kind of “pre-modern” campaign strategy in which he embarked on what came to be known as the “Whistle Stop Tour”, traveling around the nation by train, speaking in person to the voters rather than having them receive his words on the airways or in the newspapers. Although now remembered more as part of the political lexicon, the term “whistle stop” was originally US railroad jargon and terminology and referred to small towns or rural stations where trains would only stop “on signal” and usually only if there was something or someone to pick-up or deliver (or if the conductor had, in advance, been notified). Such stops often had little infrastructure (sometimes only the most rudimentary “platform”) and as the trains slowed down, the driver would blow the “whistle” to announce their arrival. Although now rarely undertaken by train, the term “whistle-stop tour” remains widely used to describe campaigns that involve making multiple brief appearances in many locations. Truman’s trip proved a great success, often delivering his speeches from the back of the railcar, his team having travelled ahead to ensure he always had an audience and in the pre internet age, he had the advantage also of being able to recycle the same text, often changing only the odd reference to “localize” the context. His straightforward, relatable and fiery style was quite a change from the elegant, patrician FDR but it resonated with the voters who warmed to his populist message of fighting the “…do-nothing [Republican] Congress." Against all expectations (possibly even his own), Truman enjoyed a comeback victory in what was a major upset, proving a persistent campaign with the right message can succeed even the most daunting odds.
