I’m posting this in a few places. Hope it makes sense to someone!
I hear my friends on both sides of the political divide in America talking about this election result as an endorsement of Trump and Trumpism by the electorate. The Democrats do so in despair of what it ‘means’ about the American people, and the Republicans do it in satisfaction about the idea that a majority of their fellow citizens are now on their side.
I believe both are wrong for the same reason.
Here’s what I think: lots of people who voted for Trump don’t even LIKE him. I don’t believe there was too much wrong with Kamala Harris or her campaign (except that it was too short). I don’t even think either candidate’s liabilities mattered all that much in the end (and a list of Trump’s could fill a football stadium).
For me, this was all about one, single fact.
The single fact: In most countries that have had an election since Covid, we have seen crazy inflation, and the incumbents in office have been kicked out because of the citizens’ dissatisfaction with it. Period. This has happened in the UK, India, South Korea, South Africa, Poland, Argentina, Botswana, the list goes on.
Blaming Biden for inflation was stupid because it was a global phenomenon. Blaming the Democrats for losing is stupid for the same reason.
The attention human beings pay to politics always comes secondary to the attention they pay to their own lives and their bank accounts. Everybody remembers when prices ballooned a couple of years ago and they couldn’t afford as much. This put some people in a really bad place. The only relationship many normal people have to politics is to blame the ruling party when stuff like that happens to them.
Proof: Polls show most Americans are very dissatisfied with the economy. No party has ever held onto the White House when this has been true. Yet most Americans also disapprove of Trump’s behavior. Many Democrats got elected downballot, and people in most places voted for things like abortion rights by large margins.
Bottom line: This was going to be an extremely hard election for Democrats to win, in this post-pandemic, post-inflation, anti-incumbent world. The best campaign ever (and I think Democrats had a pretty great one!) may not have tipped the scales enough.
But isn’t the economy actually good? YES! That’s the irony. Biden did a great job. The Economist calls the American economy the “envy of the world”. Inflation came down again (and earlier than in many other places). The stock market hit records. Unemployment is low. Some economists have called it a “miracle economy” because they were expecting a recession that didn’t happen.
But three things are also true: (1) There really are people struggling from paycheck to paycheck, they’re tired, and they want to believe that switching to another party may give them a chance; (2) Trump lies about the causes of their problems in a way that preys upon their dissatisfaction and their vulnerability; and (3) People remember when prices were lower, and Trump was in charge at the time… maybe things will be better with him back?
It’s really that simple.
But shouldn’t all the terrible things about Trump have mattered? YES. It’s why he didn’t win in a total landslide, in my view, which did happen in some of the other aforementioned countries (including the UK where I’m from). They DID matter to voters, and we see it in the results; they just didn’t matter enough to keep the scales from tipping. Is that disappointing? It is to me, and I think it matters in other ways (see below). But I also believe I understand the factors at play.
Now look, I’m actually appalled by Trump. I’m the opposite of everything Trump is, ideologically. He’s an isolationist, I’m a globalist. He’s an extremist, I’m a moderate. His movement divides, I want movements that unify. There’s a massive list of problems I have with the man and I believe him to be wrong about most things. That he implies you can’t trust anybody but him is hugely problematic. That he thinks he’s an expert in everything, and doesn’t appreciate the expertise of others. That he doesn’t like accountability of any kind. That he’s cruel, vindictive and values loyalty to himself over his country and all the diverse people within it.
All of these things and many more are dealbreakers for me and I’m disappointed that they weren’t considered such by more people. But it doesn’t change the overall analysis here.
I have a couple of challenges for both sides.
REPUBLICANS: The onus is now on you and your guy. He says he can make the economy so much better than the one he’s inheriting; he’ll have 400 economists to prove wrong on that. He promised to do a whole list of terrible things (which he himself described as ‘nasty’) – you claimed you don’t think he’ll actually follow through on those things – now it’s your job to ensure he doesn’t. You don’t believe in most of those things yourself! So hold him to the account he doesn’t want held to. If you want him to succeed, support his better instincts and actively oppose his worse. Deporting grandma isn’t going to help anybody and you know it. Prove us wrong.
DEMOCRATS: If you don’t understand why a Latino would vote for Trump, or why a woman or a gay person would vote for him; if you don’t understand how a person who voted for abortion to be enshrined in their state constitution would use the SAME BALLOT to elect Trump, you need an update to your working model here. They didn’t vote for him because they like him, or think he’s a good person, or think a black person or a woman shouldn’t be president. None of that. They voted for him because they have a very simple idea: that if they have economic struggles in their lives, the president is to blame. Identity politics should be dead and gone. Democrats need less self-righteousness (it’s a major turnoff) and more self-reflection. Democrats need to engage more with young men, and the Rogans of the world who speak to them, and who aren’t even actually enemies of most Democrat ideas. Maybe we should put the language of race and gender on the back burner and recover the language of CLASS, which is more inclusive of all identities of Americans and covers all of the most marginalized people.
BOTH: Abandon purity, doomscrolling, and taking yourself too seriously. Invest in friendships across divides, nature, and comedy.
One more thing: I’d love to figure out a way to prove to people that the highest quality traditional mainstream news outlets (the New York Times, the BBC, etc) are not only good sources of information but trustworthy, reliable, and ethical. Because the truth is that they are. Trump has undermined them but even without him, people are getting their information from TikTok, YouTube, podcasts and forums, and treating them as equally useful sources of information (albeit without any actual criteria for establishing what to believe). How do people know what’s true in the world and which candidate is ‘right’ when they talk about an issue? How do we educate people about what the journalistic process actually is, how reporters verify facts in the real world, how editors issue retractions when they get it wrong, and how they decide what to publish and what to say about it? I’m a subscriber to the New York Times and I have to tell you, it rarely steers me wrong. I think our world would be better if more people read real news. We need to work on that project.
Okay that’s all. I hope this was worth something to someone. I’m proud of my first vote for president, I think I made the right decision, and I’m worried about Trump but still optimistic about the future of America. If you voted differently than me, we see things very differently, but you’re not my enemy. Trump aside, I actually believe we are all closer on many real issues than one would think.
My DMs are open because I think dialogue is really important! Sorry this was so long, I haven’t written anything in a while!
John