My chief thoughts on the past United States presidential election:
There will be buyer's remorse.
Trump is essentially a blowhard, which means to me a coward. In 2016, Trump had the easiest transition any President had since Herbert Hoover. The major crisis of his first term was the COVID pandemic; Trump's reaction was to suggest injecting bleach.
Staring Into the Trumpian Abyss (Jacobin)
An English perspective: The US elections: winners and losers (The Article)
The foreign problems are different. China, Russia's invasion of Ukraine; the low boil of an Israeli/Iran war; the trouble in Sudan; and probably more matters I underestimate or do not know about. China will not cave to Trump any more than it did before 2016, and he has not the credibility Biden had in shoring up our alliances in the Pacific. Trump will sell out Ukraine and lose credibility in Europe and NATO; then will come the crises of Russian tanks looking at Poland, Orban of Hungary thumping the drum for Putin within NATO and the EU, and the weakening of Germany by its far-right parties.
China and Taiwan could be even more disastrous. All those chips there that go into so many things here. Biden saw the problem and acted. Trump does not act, other than to bloviate. China invading Taiwan before America reestablishes its own computer chip industry will be a disaster. Trump allowing China to invade Taiwan before we - and the world - adjust our dependence on Taiwanese chips, puts the world under China's thumb.
If Netanyahu attacks Iranian refinery capability, expect much higher gas prices.
If Netanyahu seeks de facto control of Gaza and Trump will see the same good acquisition of real as he saw in Putin's invasion of Ukraine; which the Arab Americans of Michigan should get the appropriate thanks from Gaza.
If Putin invades Europe or merely subverts American influence to his will, trade and the American jobs that supply that trade will suffer. A recession? A depression? What becomes of all those American jobs making munitions for Ukraine?
If Putin invades Europe, will we see how tough Trump is or his cowardice? I do not think he will commit troops against Russia. We lose credibility as a power. Power is what made America great. If he does commit troops to a war that might have been prevented by supporting Ukraine, what will the relatives of dead soldiers think of their votes for Trump?
From The Washington Post's Trump’s victory cements the triumph of the illiberal West November 8 ):
The Kremlin and its propagandists were also thrilled with the U.S. election result, seeing in Trump’s win a repudiation of the entire Western political project arrayed against Russia. “The victory of the right in the so-called ‘free world’ will be a blow to the left-liberal forces that dominate it,” deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament Konstantin Kosachev wrote on his Telegram channel, mocking a European establishment he said was “rooting” for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We have won,” said Alexander Dugin, an influential Russian ideologue credited with helping articulate the imperialist agenda underscoring Russia’s war in Ukraine and for having supported disinformation efforts against Harris’s campaign. “The world will be never ever like before. Globalists have lost their final combat.”
From the Sydney Morning Herald (11/7): What does Donald Trump’s election mean for the rest of the world?
From Englesberg's Ideas, An agile alliance: how Europe can grasp the initiative on defence (which seems the most hopeful thing I have read today)
Trump wants tariffs and mass deportations. The mass deportations will not happen any more than did his wall. There is no money for the effort. He will send it off to a committee for a plan. He will have it to use in 2026, even though its failure to happen lies with himself. (What happens at the border may be different - more brutality.)
The tariffs worry me more. If they go into effect, there will be a trade war with the world. Look around your house, and consider what you get from other countries - Scotch, cheese, t-shirts, cars, phones - and where they came from. Consider what Americans sell elsewhere that provides jobs here, then what will happen when prices go up over there past what those buyers will do without American goods. You voted for Trump because you thought he could make prices and life just like it was before the pandemic? Well, let's hope he forgets about his favorite word.
From the Sydney Morning Herald (11/7): Trump to test limits of presidential power as Harris concedes but vows to fight
From The Philadelphia Inquirer (11/7), After 248 years, America prepares for life under a king.
I don’t blame her, nor would I think of criticizing the many people emphasizing their own mental health over politics at a moment when it’s not even clear what to do next. We are seeing in real time how autocracy happens, by creating hopelessness and despair among the mass of people who once might have fought back. From the obsequious Bezos to the end of resistance from everyday folk, we are seeing the once unthinkable: The start of American autocracy.
The essay also gives advice on surviving the despair of impending autocracy. This led me to a memory from yesterday's group therapy session. The counselor was championing how we would now be free from politics for the next 4 years. It strikes me that we do not understand how politics is not a sporting event that happens every four years like the Olympics. Then there are the people who do not vote because they think neither party is worth their trust. Both kinds of thinking leave me wondering if they do not understand how politics affects their lives every day. They may soon leave differently, but what of those who like the changes autocracy will bring? There will be changes, no autocratic can resist repression of any opposition, real or imagined, since they rule based on the power in their hands instead of the power of the majority will. Any countervailing power is an existential threat.
I saw this today in my newsletter from MirrorIndy:
LGBTQ+ post-election fears: "People are feeling heartbroken and scared and worried about where the country is going, and specifically where our state is going," said Chris Paulsen, CEO of Indiana Youth Group. (WISH)
Indianapolis students with families from Latin America and Haiti are grappling with what the next Trump presidency — and his promise of mass deportation — will mean for them. (Chalkbeat Indiana)
From The Bulwark, Will Trump Break the Biden Boom?
Letting It All Hang Out, Fintan O'Toole and The New York Review of Books
“Disinhibition” is a word that has recently migrated from the lexicon of psychology into that of American politics. It refers to a condition in which people become increasingly unable to regulate the expression of their impulses and urges, and this year it very obviously applied to Trump’s increasingly surreal, vituperative, and lurid rhetoric. But it now must also apply to the institutions of American government: with allies on the Supreme Court and with control over the Senate and (most probably at the time of writing) the House of Representatives, Trump will have no one to regulate his urges.
And perhaps it applies to American society too; this is a disinhibited electorate. It is no longer, on the whole, frightened of its own worst impulses. Up to now it has been possible to take some comfort in Trump’s failure to win the popular vote in either 2016 or 2020, and in the fact that not once during his time in the Oval Office did a majority of Americans approve of the job he was doing. (This was true of no previous president in the era of polling.) It could be said with some justice that he did not really embody America.
But now he does. The comprehensive nature of his victory suggests that alongside the very large core of voters who are thrilled by his misogyny, xenophobia, bullying, and mendacity, there are many more who are at the very least not repelled by his ever more extreme indulgence in those sadistic pleasures. They know what he’s like and don’t much mind.
‘America’s gone mad’: disbelief in Ayrshire, Scotland, near Trump’s golf course (The Guardian).
Meanwhile, Indiana may have gotten more than it bargained for with its new governor; he wants us to be the new Florida? Indiana Gov.-elect Braun lays out transition, first priorities (Axios Indianapolis)
Now, for the various post-mortems that have come my way. I have dated them since I have not cleaned out my email for most of this past week.
From November 6,
The view from the real Left, Jacobin Magazine:
Democratic Party Elites Brought Us This Disaster:
How did last night’s result happen? There’s a flurry of desperate finger-pointing going on among Democratic influencers right now, pinning it all, as usual, on Russia, on their candidate’s race and gender, on her running mate, on the American public’s allegedly low character, and on anything else besides their own failures. The real explanation is much simpler.
For years now, voters have been telling pollsters that they were fed up with the economy, and poll after poll during this campaign registered them saying it was the issue that would most decide their vote, especially among those who were leaning toward Trump. This held across last night’s exit polls. Across all seven battleground states and nationally, survey results were virtually the same: voters viewed the economy as the most important issue in the election; they felt their personal financial situation was worse and they thought so at significantly higher rates than they did in 2020; and huge majorities of those who voted for Trump viewed the economy negatively, considered it the election’s most pressing issue, and voted for the person they thought was going to bring “change.”
Requiem for the Obama Coalition
But the real story lies deeper. It isn’t minorities per se who are defecting. It appears to be especially concentrated among working-class minorities. Kamala Harris still beat Trump in the appeals to minority non-college-educated voters, but exit polls indicate that her lead shrank by 33 percent compared to Joe Biden’s. The Latino vote went from 71 percent Democrat in 2008 to 66 percent in 2016 to 53 percent this cycle. The media focus has of course been on its gendered nature, but the real story is that the rejection of Democrats is basically an economic phenomenon. It’s working-class Latinos who are leading the march into the Republican Party, and if you want to know why, just ask them — they say it’s their economic worries.
For a bunch of Lefties, they seem in tune with reality.
From NBC News: Democratic voters wrestle with Harris' loss to Trump: What went wrong?, and How Trump won — and how Harris lost — the 2024 election.
From The Conversation: America’s glass ceiling remains − here are some of the reasons why a woman may have once again lost the presidency. Since the election, I have been wondering if American men are so manly they are scared of women?
Los Angeles Time published How Trump overcame a shooting and an unexpected rival to win a historic second term
From November 7.
Axios with Why Democrats couldn’t sell a strong economy, in 3 charts
At the heart of that disconnect might be elements that broad economic indicators often struggle to capture: Despite a “strong economy,” many Americans continued to feel the burden of higher prices, struggled to find work, and took on more debt. And the Election Day results suggest they blamed Democrats — specifically President Joe Biden and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris — for those problems.
From The Conversation, How Trump won Pennsylvania − and what the numbers from key counties show about the future of a pivotal swing state
The 2024 Democratic disaster actually started on March 14, 2020 by Chris Cillizza
The path forward for Democrats is to strip identity politics from our language, political staff hiring and candidate recruitment, focus like a laser on economic anxiety, and promote policies that produce economic results in the near term rather than only some far-off hypothetical future that can be too easily derailed by the next administration.
Take advantage of openings like inflation-causing tariffs and the inevitable right-wing effort to scale back the social safety net. And find a new generation of leadership unburdened by decades in Washington that has led to stagnation in office and political attacks for being part of the swamp.
Recruitment of new candidates has never been more urgent, and we should look toward veterans, farmers, teachers, doctors and nurses, union members and those in law enforcement as a starting point for rebuilding our bench. They are the bedrock of the middle class and a place to grow from.
Also, stop with campaign gimmicks like ad-tested appeals that lead to milquetoast results, text-based campaigning that burns out targeted voters, and preaching-to-the-choir outreach that emphasizes base mobilization over true persuasion and big tent politics. Democrats have to return to their roots of speaking to voters on their terms in a human voice, rather than digital bits and bots, or the lectures of a coastal elite that talks down rather than lifts up.
Oh, that last paragraph makes my heart go pitter-patter. Especially, the "milquetoast".
No Honeymoon for Trumpism (The Bulwark)
From yesterday,
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Donald J. Trump (Boston Review)
The old Marxist slogan, then, must now be revised. If the first term was farce, Trump’s reelection points toward a tragedy from which we may never recover. Every critic will offer a different postmortem. Some will—convincingly—cast blame on the elitism and inertia of the Democratic party, which cleaved to its habits of liberal centrism and dismissed the grievances of the working class. Others will blame the Democrats for prioritizing issues of sexual or racial identity over the universalism of economic justice; still others will blame the brute misogyny and racism of the American public. Others will blame those groups who, moved by justified anger over the U.S. support for the devastation of Gaza, cast their lot with fringe candidates such as Jill Stein, motivated by a moralist’s belief that “sending a message” was more important than voting for somebody who might actually have won. All of these critics capture at least some share of the truth; social reality is infinitely complex, and our explanatory instruments always shed only a partial light on what we do. But we would be well advised to consider the most obvious fact: that the tragic ascent of Trump is not an anomaly to democracy but its fatal flaw.
Which our system was supposed to prevent through the Electoral College not being tied to the popular vote. Except the Framers of the Constitution did not anticipate parties or gerrymandering - let alone social media, or oligarchs. See Now the Electoral College votes for president – 4 essential reads from The Conversation.
Despairing Dems Say Biden and Harris Played It Too Safe (The Bulwark). Well, it was an unprecedented situation for Harris, but when will Democrats remember FDR and LBJ? Come out swinging and talk to the people?
I find Chuck Todd a sensible person; this is from him and NBC News, Chuck Todd: This Democratic defeat — and the rise of Trump 2.0 — was a decade in the making is worth reading for a different perspective.
Personally, I do believe the single biggest problems for the Democrats were Biden’s age and his inability to both do the job and sell what he was doing. The previous two Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Obama, had unpopular starts like Biden, but they were both young enough and energetic enough to sell their ideas (and their re-elections) as ones that would lead to better outcomes. Clinton and Obama successfully turned the question of “are you better off now than you were four years ago” to “will you be better off in four years under our policies versus theirs.”
But there’s one other moment that’s worth singling out, one that totally misled the Democratic Party (and many of its partisan media allies) about the public’s appetite for Trump or even Trumpism: the 2022 midterms.
Also, today, from my Axios Indy newsletter:
Indiana's shifting political winds, in 3 graphics. I find this interesting, but I have been too long away from Indiana to even propose any answers for the shift, other than Democrats, including Indiana Democrats, do not sell their ideas in the right way to the people. Yes, it could be said that the people are not buying Democrat ideas. However, I do not see that Republicans had much in the way of ideas beyond there is a whole of Americans they do not like, and they will lower inflation even more than Joe Biden.
From Axios today, Hindsight 2024: Pelosi questions Biden's handling of Harris endorsement. I think Pelosi is a smart operator, but she should let Biden do a James K. Polk(the most successful one-term president up to Biden) and run someone else. I do think that Harris proved herself capable as a president - she handled a chaotic situation. Some have said she was a mediocre candidate; I think she proved herself competent but not brilliant.
From The Independent today comes my closing with their article, ‘If that dude’s mama gets deported, that’s on him’: Democrats’ reaction to Trump-voting Latinos is a problem. Yes, it is a problem, but the article further touches on the larger problem.
Again, I understand this impulse. A lot of it does not make sense. But this approach is the exact reason why Democrats got into this mess with Latinos in the first place. Instead of treating Latino voters as whole humans with real needs and desires beyond just immigration, the Democratic Party has patronized them consistently and now faces the disastrous consequences.
The larger problem is not treating voters as human beings. What the Republicans like to call the woke mob are those activists coming out of sociology and demographics and social work who try to fit human beings into categories matching the cause of their activism. Yes, there are oppressed people in this country. There is moral worth in trying to bring justice to the oppressed. There is also the possibility of self-righteousness to the point of elevating the oppressed into objects of moral superiority. No longer are the oppressed people but objects. Worse, they divide human beings from one another. There needs to be a way of compensating for past injustices without leaving wide swathes of this country's population feeling they are being treated unjustly. If transsexuality bothers so many, perhaps they need to consider the costs gender confusion imposes - such as teenage suicides - I do not see the proper response is to condemn the offended as oppressors. The proper response is to treat the offended as ignorant and educate them; make trans people relatable as human beings. No, it will not change all minds. All is not the goal, only the majority. The same point applies to Hispanics, African Americans, the white male working class, or any other demographic group the politicians are trying to reach. People want to know they have economic stability. No, they want to know they will have manageable stability throughout all aspects of their lives. Democrats failed to explain to everyone how they had stabilized the economy, how they would not destabilize the future, in language people, everyday people with no education, could understand. I have seen and then I have heard people saying Harris did not answer any questions. Until now, I misunderstood their response. It was not specific questions, but the one question of what would happen to their lives that went unanswered. If we are to overcome the threat of autocracy, we need to get down to street level and listen; then we need to educate; and then we to build back better.
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