Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea. Today, we’re serving up something special.

We are 13 days away from the presidential election. Anything can happen, particularly with the motivation and willingness of the Democrats and Deep State to win by any means necessary. However, right now, it looks like Donald Trump has the momentum, the energy, and the spirit of the nation behind him, while nothing Kamala Harris is trying seems to be working.

We thought this would be a good time to examine 10 standout moments from the 2024 campaign season. Perhaps there are different moments that resonate with you, that you think are crucial. If so, let us know at [email protected] or on X @streamdotorg. We’d love to put together a list of moments that have stood out to readers, to0.

So in reverse order, here we go.

10. Trump Visits East Palestine, Ohio

While Donald Trump working at McDonald’s a few days ago will stand as one of the most entertaining and memorable events of the 2024 campaign season, it was an appearance that has already been almost lost to history that I believe set the course for the race: Donald Trump visiting East Palestine, Ohio in late February.

At the time, the GOP primaries were just getting underway, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was, according to common wisdom, set to be his running mate. After J6, Trump had been banished from social media and blacklisted by traditional media. When he did say something, he tended to rehash his complaints about the 2020 election. Though his loyal MAGA supporters never lost faith, Trump’s political goose seemed cooked.

But then … A train carrying toxic materials derailed and was deliberately blown up in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing a horrific chemical disaster on the small, struggling Rust Belt town. The people were poisoned and pleading for help. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ignored the place. 

Yet Donald Trump went there to see it firsthand — and lend a hand.

Former President Donald Trump gives remarks at the East Palestine Fire Department station on February 22, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. On February 3, a Norfolk Southern Railways train carrying toxic chemicals derailed causing an environmental disaster. Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate after the area was placed under a state of emergency and temporary evacuation orders. (Photo by Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

Trump showed up for the people of Palestine, supplies in tow, demonstrating his concern, his humanity, and his strength. And his humor — all the aspects of Trump that had been forgotten since the turmoil of 2020, and camouflaged in the years before that by the mean tweets and 100% hostile media.

I knew a change was in the wind when Saturday Night Live spoofed Trump’s visit, but in a positive light, rather than the nastiness that had been a staple of SNL since 2016. With the country in such a mess, could there be nostalgia for Trump?

9. The Incessant Lawfare Leading to the Mug Shot

One of the great miracles of our time is the Democratic machine managing to turn a boastful billionaire former president with a supermodel wife into an underdog. No, actually — make that a folk hero.

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice, in league with Trump-obsessed local prosecutors and Trump-hating billionaires, launched a coordinated, vicious, and unceasing lawfare campaign against Trump, which included a fraud case in which no one was defrauded, a perfectly legal nondisclosure agreement was turned into election felony by some alchemy that legal experts still can’t explain, and a civil verdict on behalf of a woman who falsely accused a slew of men of assorted sexual crimes — then accused Trump of a sexual assault with zero evidence of it, no clear idea when it happened, and showed up on a magazine cover in the outfit she says she was wearing during the attack but which wasn’t even sold until years later.

And a special counsel was appointed who’s only claim to fame up to that point was destroying the career of a rising GOP star with a case so biased and fraught with error that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously to toss out his conviction.

Plus, radical opportunists from Colorado to Maine, in another fit of “to save democracy we have to destroy democracy” moments, tried to remove Trump’s name from the state ballots — an effort the Supreme Court decisively shut down.

This crazy onslaught of charges both federal and local, so clearly designed to stop Trump, instead turned him into a political hero, especially as he kept fighting and plugging away. Each indictment brought an increase in his favor with voters.

Finally, the compromised district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis, managed to force Trump into a mug shot — the most famous mug shot in history. For eight years his enemies had dreamed of seeing a Donald Trump mug shot, but a funny thing happened: The mug shot backfired. The image became iconic. Plastered on T-shirts and pasted into memes. A rapper even got a large tattoo of it inked onto his body.

As time has passed, the lawfare cases against Trump have been gradually falling apart, one by one. But winning was almost beside the point from the outset: The point was to interfere in the election. It failed. We are now two weeks away from it, and nobody cares about those cases.

Even more than that, during this period the same DOJ launched an all-out assault not only on Trump supporters and associates, but apolitical pro-life activists, military heroes who wouldn’t take the COVID jabs, and pretty much anyone who dares go against the globalists’ wishes. They labeled the parents concerned about the filth and DEI wretchedness schools are shoving onto their kids “domestic terrorists”!

Trump’s line became reality: “They’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just standing in their way.”

8. RFK Jr Drops Out of Democratic Party and Joins Trump’s Team

The Biden-Harris administration and the Democratic machine also launched a lawfare effort against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to keep him from seriously challenging Joe Biden for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. The efforts to keep the remaining star from the Kennedy dynasty from effectively battling Biden were so severe that RFK Jr. left the party and launched an independent bid.

But the campaign against him continued so fiercely that it not only drove RFK Jr. straight onto Team Trump, but turned his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, from a Trump-hating California liberal into a MAGA-loving advocate.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena on August 23, 2024 in Glendale, Arizona. Kennedy announced today that he was suspending his presidential campaign and supporting Trump. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

The teaming of Trump and RFK, Jr. powerfully broke the Democrat-Republican dynamic. Trump built a coalition of those who believe in America, believe in its people, and believe in free speech against the dark forces in Washington and beyond — both Democrat and Republican — that wish to control our lives. That team includes former Democratic rising star Tulsi Gabbard, and entrepreneurs Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. Who does Kamala Harris have? Usher, Lizzo, and Liz Cheney. 

Coming Up in Part 2

The effort against Kennedy was part of what has to be one of the most boneheaded decisions in political history: The Democratic National Committee not allowing a real primary against an obviously incapacitated and highly unpopular Joe Biden. This would prove disastrous.

We’ll also have four more standout moments in Part 2 before concluding with the final ones in Part 3 in a few days — but we still want to hear what you think have been the crucial incidents from the 2024 election season. Email us at [email protected].

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.