Donald Trump was in Detroit this weekend, continuing to chip away at a voting bloc that the Democrats have taken for granted for decades: blacks. In doing so, he was also chipping away at the political tombstone that the experts and the haters had assigned to him on January 7, 2021.

On Saturday, Trump’s campaign announced “a ‘Black Americans for Trump’ initiative to coincide with the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, sharing endorsement messages from prominent Black politicians, entertainers, athletes and faith leaders,” Politico reports. “Among those included in Trump’s new Black voter coalition was former Democratic Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who served time in prison for felony fraud and racketeering convictions, and whose sentence Trump commuted before leaving office.”

Time will tell whether the commutation of Kilpatrick’s 28-year sentence was a wise one, given the former mayor’s unquestioned guilt and the racially divisive nature of his politics, but it was supported by the city’s community leaders and by its popular white mayor, Democrat Mike Duggan. Clearly, though, Trump continues to make inroads with black Americans. And if the goal is to reclaim the White House on November 5, then a win in Michigan would guarantee it, so long as Trump also reclaims Arizona and Georgia, both states where his lead is currently outside the margin of error.

Regardless, who’d have believed three years ago that Trump would be where he is today, the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party and a candidate on the verge of returning to the Oval Office after having so ingloriously left it? Certainly not his haters, nor the congressional Republicans who were whispering to reporters that they didn’t want him around anymore. And yet there Trump was Thursday, back on Capitol Hill for the first time since January 6, cajoling antagonistic Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to play nice with House Speaker Mike Johnson and cutting a day-early 78th birthday cake with Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans. As The Washington Times reports, “Former President Donald Trump revved up congressional Republicans and made amends with former opponents in a whirlwind swing through Capitol Hill on Thursday that cemented his position as party leader. Mr. Trump held what lawmakers described as a ‘pep rally’ for House Republicans, followed by a ‘warm’ and ‘upbeat’ meeting with Senate Republicans.”

Democrats and their Leftmedia trucklings are still wrestling with Trump’s political resurrection, mostly because they simply can’t fathom his appeal to so many millions of Americans. As for their guy, the Meander in Chief, Joe Biden continues to embarrass our nation in front of the world and startle its leaders at his physical and mental decline.

The best they can do, then, is to trumpet Trump’s age with headlines calling him the “potential future oldest president,” while at the same time trying to ignore Biden’s ever-advancing decrepitude. Good luck with that. Good luck with trying to equate Trump’s calling former White House physician and current Texas Republican Congressman “Ronny Johnson” instead of Ronny Jackson — as if he’d slipped into apparent catatonia or began mumbling indecipherably or couldn’t find his way off a simple stage.

They’re also putting words into Trump’s mouth, which is nothing new, not from the corrupt lot that accused him of calling our war-fallen “suckers and losers.” The Leftmedia’s latest effort was to poison Trump to the swing state of Wisconsin, where the Republicans will hold their national convention in less than a month. “The Democrats,” said Trump on Truth Social, “are making up stories that I said Milwaukee is a ‘horrible city.’ This is false, a complete lie, just like the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia, Russia, Russia, was a lie, and so much more. It’s called Disinformation, and that’s all they know how to do. I picked Milwaukee, I know it well. … Vote for Trump, Wisconsin, I will not let you down!!!”

Elsewhere, Trump continues to make shrewd political moves and confound his critics. Take the Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate, which look increasingly promising. The GOP has no real Senate vulnerabilities this cycle, so if former Governor Jim Justice can win in West Virginia, where he’s the overwhelming favorite to replace retiring Democrat Joe Manchin, and if former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan can steal the seat of retiring Senator Ben Cardin in deep-blue Maryland, they’ll retake the Senate without even having to worry about Ohio or Montana or Arizona or Nevada or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Michigan.

What’s most interesting here, though, is Trump’s relationship with Hogan, which has been frosty at best. Hogan doesn’t like Trump and never has, and Trump’s ego would, of course, call on him to denounce Hogan’s candidacy, right? Wrong. “I’d like to see him win,” said Trump of Hogan. “I think he has a good chance. I would like to see him win. We’ve got to take the majority. We have to straighten out our country, so I’d like to see him win. He’s somebody that can win.”

Here again, Trump is refusing to live down to his enemies’ expectations. Instead, he’s unveiled a more pragmatic political mindset while putting party ahead of personality. If this is Trump 2.0, the Republicans’ chances in November will be better for it.