It looks like I better stay out of the prediction business!
I know that many of you, dear readers, are nearly overwhelmed with anger, anxiety, bewilderment, grief and fear. I get it and share some of that, but I’m not quite there. I would describe myself as “disappointed, but not surprised.”
Check that — surprised a bit. Surprised at the margin and speed of Trump’s victory. For the first time he has actually won a majority of the popular vote. And it appears that he won all seven swing states. Didn’t see that coming.
So how to explain Trump’s victory? Well, and I know this will bother some of you: the Dem’s blew it. Biden stayed in too long, ruling out a primary that would have 1) tested and toughened Harris or 2) likely given the Dem’s a stronger candidate, say a Whitmer or Shapiro.
I was buoyed by Harris’ strong acceptance speech at the DNC, and I thought her performance in the one debate very good, but after that the air seemed to go out of the balloon. She was really only offering more of the same to an electorate that wasn’t happy with what it had been getting. Blame the electorate (as the Dems are inclined to do), but after telling us for years that job #1 was “Stop Trump” or see democracy end, the Democrats did not give us a candidate who could do it. It felt to me a lot like 2016. Instead of their best candidate, we got next in line.
Beyond that, I suspect two aspects of Democratic strategy backfired. All the court cases against Trump only added to his image as a fighter against the establishment and hardened the loyalty of his base, maybe even enlarging it. The (Democratic) prosecutor in Georgia had the best case, and proceeded to shoot herself, and us, in the foot.
Then, Harris seemed to decide to run mainly or only on being “against Trump, the fascist.” Worked in 2020, but it wasn’t enough in the face of inflation, a border that was largely open for 3 and 1/2 years, and the kind of crime I referred to in a recent post as “social disorder.”
Is Trump a nasty and selfish human being and a political demagogue? Yep. But I think people who find the man morally appalling and focus on that alone are missing deeper forces at work. These cause, or allow, people to overlook or be indifferent to his amorality and to the character question (which Democrats themselves proved adept at doing overlooking in 1995-96).
My point? Don’t obsess on Trump, tempting as that is. Instead, look at the deeper currents running far below the history’s surface. A slightly different way to put this, framing everything in politics in moralistic terms isn’t especially productive.
So what are those “deeper forces”? I go back to the 2016 election and a talk given by the historian Robert Merry who argued — and this was before the vote took place — that the 2016 election signaled the end of the Post Cold War Consensus (PCWC). Another word for that consensus is “globalization.” Merry framed this as a point/ counterpoint. He gave this talk post-Brexit, but before the 2016 election. Here’s his point/ counterpoint:
1) PCWC: We live in a unipolar world, with America at the center as the “indispensible nation,” with an imperative and mandate to dominate events, spread Western-style democracy, and pursue humanitarian missions around the world.
Counterpoint: The post-Cold War foreign policy has been a disaster, particularly in the Middle East, and America needs to get out of the business of nation-building, particularly when it is accompanied with regime change. America needs to be a major power in the world but can’t dominate the world.
2) PCWC: The nation state is in decline, to be replaced increasingly by multinational superstates, such as the EU, the UN and Hillary’s hemispheric common market, with “open trade and open borders.”
Counterpoint: Nationalism is a hallowed sentiment, embraced by most Americans throughout most of the country’s history, and there is no structural reason why we must abandon our nationalist sentiments.
3) PCWC: National unity is in erosion, which may be lamentable but an acceptable price to pay for meeting the demands of constituent identity groups based mostly on ethnicity and gender affiliations.
Counterpoint: Identity group politics is not only eroding national cohesion but is posing a threat to free speech on college campuses throughout the nation, and this will spread inevitably if it isn’t checked.
4) PCWC: Borders have lost their significance in the age of globalization and as nationalist sentiments recede. Clearly delineated and enforced borders are increasingly and properly a thing of the past. Mass immigration is essentially beneficial to our country.
Counterpoint: Borders matter. A country without borders soon ceases to be a country. Mass immigration will transform the national identity, and this deserves more debate than it is getting.
5) PCWC: Free trade is an imperative in the new post-Cold War era (globalization). It spurs and lubricates global commerce and is the key to global prosperity.
Counterpoint: Free trade, as practiced in the post-Cold War era, is killing us by hollowing out the American industrial base and, with it, the American middle class, particularly the working class.
6) PCWC: Despite the advent of Islamist radicalism, fueled primarily by intense anti-Western sentiment, that is no reason to believe that large numbers of Muslims can’t be smoothly assimilated into Western societies without detriment to those societies.
Counterpoint: Islamist radicalism is a real threat, and any effort to counter that threat should include at least a consideration of immigration policies as part of the solution. Islamist radicalism emanates from some core elements of Islam, and therefore will always be a challenge to the West.
What large swaths of blue America, the Democratic Party, and the elite failed to see (literally), were the people in America put at risk by the PCWC. That order worked really well for lots of people, mainly those in the new tech and knowledge economy. Not so well for many, often unseen, people for whom it was a disaster not just economically, but culturally.
If the elite did happen to notice such people, they termed them “racists, homophobes, xenophobes, and misogynists,” a.k.a. “the deplorables.” 2024 is their revenge.
Looking ahead to four more years — Lord have mercy — of the deplorable, droning of the narcissist Donald, I see a bleak scenario and a brighter one:
Bleak. I worry most about two things in Trump’s second go-round. As demagogues do, he has let humanity’s baser spirits loose. I worry about our society growing even more vicious and violent especially toward the most vulnerable. Second, I worry about him and his cronies undermining the Constitution and rule of law. Could be a very dark four years (or more).
Brighter scenario. Ezra Klein had a fascinating podcast a week before the election with another historian (love those guys) named Gary Gerstle. In that pod they noted — hold on — a surprising amount of consensus emerging between the two parties. (You have listen to it to believe it.) Might we be seeing the harbinger of a new, a next, political order, one that would address the failings of neo-liberalism and globalism?
To see the latter, consider Trump for what he is, a performer. To some gross, to others entertaining. But it’s not the performer, rather as Shakespeare said, “the show’s the thing.” The larger historical drama is the thing.
