North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik, shown during a January appearance on the "Meet the Press," has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Four years ago, ahead of the 2020 presidential election, I wrote that “Donald Trump’s ship is sinking and Elise Stefanik is standing on deck, watching as the water begins to tickle her feet.”

Well…

Nostradamus I am not. But in my defense, I wasn’t entirely wrong. Trump did go on to lose that year, despite what he claims, and that defeat did make Stefanik’s decision to go full MAGA seem politically unwise. But her choice paid off in the end.

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President-elect Trump has chosen the North Country congresswoman to be his administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, which is, quite obviously, a plum job. Trump described Stefanik, a town of Saratoga resident, as “strong, tough and smart,” adjectives that even her harshest critics may concede are accurate.

Much has been made of Stefanik’s decision to wrap herself in a Trump flag after seeming to find “the Republican nominee” so distasteful in 2016 that she wouldn’t even speak his name. Stefanik was, after all, a product of the Bush-Cheney wing of the GOP, and Trump’s rise banished those........

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