DAVID MARCUS: Triumphant Trump at Notre Dame signals America and the West are back

Just over five years ago, the world watched in anguish as Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the most potent symbols of Christendom, was engulfed in flames. Not long after, Donald Trump would lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, launching one of the most unpopular presidencies in modern history.

But, this weekend on the banks of the Seine, this glorious Medieval edifice and tribute to the Blessed Mother, stands in full repair, ready to guide the faithful for another thousand years.

And who is there to honor the occasion? None other than President-elect Donald Trump.

Though the 45th, and soon to be 47th occupant of the Oval Office won’t be sworn in for another five weeks, for all the world it appears not only that Trump has already taken over, but that the issues he was elected to address already seem to be improving.

After months of sturm und drang over Trump’s tariff policy, the threat of a 25 percent levy on foreign goods has already led to some positive signs of compromise from Mexico on the border, and to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appearing at Mar-a-Lago, if not quite to kiss the ring, at least to beg to avoid the tariffs.

Trump will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris this weekend.

In Ukraine, where Biden’s fecklessness and slow drip of weapons has helped to create a meat grinder of a status quo, President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is, for the first time, talking about a peace deal in which Russia keeps some territory and Ukraine reserves the right to join NATO.

This is light at the end of a dark and deadly tunnel.

In the halls of Congress, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s pied pipers of the Department of Government Efficiency, are on a charm offensive, wooing even some Democrats to their cost-cutting cause.

Even the soon-to-be President’s cabinet picks, after predictable freak-outs from the liberal media, are well on track, including Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel, tapped for the Defense Department and FBI respectively, who have thus far survived a tsunami of smears.

As the second Trump presidency zips down the runway preparing for takeoff, somewhere off in a ditch lies the smoldering carcass of Joe Biden’s Hindenburg of a tenure in office.

On Friday, an abjectly humiliated White House Press Secretary Karinne Jean Pierre tried to explain away her and her boss’ blatant lie that he wouldn’t pardon his son Hunter. Apparently, we were told, it wasn’t a lie, he just changed his mind.

Ok, KJP…

Let’s be clear, any press secretary with an ounce of dignity would have resigned after being paraded before the American public to deceive them over and over and over, but there she was, at the podium, being paid by the American people, and still lying.

The Biden administration is reportedly exploring ways that it can use the weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration to sabotage his incoming administration, including preemptive pardons for potential targets of legitimate investigation and pumping out tons of foreign aid.

These last minute efforts to thwart Trump will come to nothing because, for all intents and purposes, Joe Biden is barely still even the president. This week at the White House tree lighting ceremony he looked like the Crypt Keeper, and his flickering administration has all the energy of a morgue.

It was in French Cathedrals during the late 11th Century that Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban II preached in favor of the First Crusade, uniting the West in a way that had never happened before, securing its permanence against foreign threats.

Saturday, before the soaring spires and flying buttresses, Donald Trump takes a place in that history, in that defense of the values that our ancestors brought from Europe to American shores.

Few people expected that Donald Trump would win the election so convincingly, far fewer predicted that such a victory would lead to optimism and unity, and yet, Trump is enjoying the highest favorability of his political career, and it simply feels like things are looking up.

In just five years, the people of France restored their beloved Notre Dame, not with modern twists, but just as it was, as it has always been. Trump only has four years to make his repairs to the cathedral we call the United States. But one thing is clear. He is off to a solid head start.