Trumped

Post-election thoughts

Congratulations to the supporters of Donald Trump. Mr. Trump won a convincing victory on Tuesday, one that took far less time to finalize than I would have imagined. The speed of the counting is an indication of how thoroughly the electorate turned against the Democratic incumbents.

Of course, the campaign was the easy part. Now comes the difficulty of managing the country. I stand by my claims that Mr. Trump’s policies are not a good prescription for America, but we’ll all soon find out firsthand.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia

I’m reminded of H.L. Mencken’s famous observation, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

And after electing Trump a second time, knowing full well who he is, America does deserve what it gets. While I can’t say precisely what that will be, I’m pretty sure it won’t be $1 gas.

For now, there will be celebrations on the right. There will be plenty of time for policy debates in the future. With the Dow rising 1,500 points to set yet another record high on Wednesday, no one is ready to hear that Trump may not be an economic genius.

Nevertheless, mark this down for later: On Halloween, the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, “The Next President Inherits a Remarkable Economy.” As Greg Ip explained, “With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7 percent over the past year. It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate.”

Voters didn’t feel Ip’s confidence and optimism, but Mr. Trump will have his work cut out for him in maintaining America’s robust growth. That’s especially true if he launches a new round of trade wars and removes a significant share of the workforce.

Still, angst about the economy helped Trump to garner more support among minority voters despite controversial racial comments. Early CNN exit polls show that Trump won 13 percent of black and 45 percent of Hispanic voters. I’ve been saying that a political realignment is underway, and these numbers should terrify Democrats.

But it isn’t economics that is my primary concern. At this point, it seems likely that Republicans will have total control of the federal government: The Presidency, both houses of Congress (as of this writing, the control of the House is still undecided), and the courts.

Given Mr. Trump’s lawless tendencies and the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, this is an exceptionally dangerous situation. For at least two years, Trump will probably have carte blanche and, especially after this second electoral victory places him on an even higher pedestal, congressional Republicans are unlikely to challenge him or hold him accountable. As I wrote a few weeks ago, this situation is ripe for Republicans to nuke the filibuster as well. I expect Republicans to stand by and cheer for Trump’s expansions of presidential power and potential abuses of power in the name of owning the left.

Any limitations on Trump’s power will have to come from the courts. It remains to be seen whether judicial conservatives will challenge his agenda. It should go without saying that the criminal cases against Trump are all but dead now, and having escaped accountability so many times in the past, he will be emboldened.

I do hope that Trump changes his mind about Ukraine. If for no other reason than that a Russian victory would taint his presidency, Trump may hopefully continue to aid the Ukrainians in their fight for survival. Failing to do so could bring both Europe and Taiwan - and the US by extension - into larger conflicts.

I want to note that Kamala Harris delivered a concession speech on Wednesday as well. A lot of people suggested that Harris would refuse to accept a Trump victory and that Democrats would turn violent. Neither was true, and Harris and the Democrats deserve credit for adhering to the principle of peaceful transfer of power.

That brings up the question of why Harris lost. There will be volumes written on that topic, but I think that Joe Biden gets most of the blame. After running a centrist campaign, Biden listened to progressives on far too many issues that angered voters such as student loan forgiveness, trans politics, and the electric vehicle mandate. The big issues were immigration and the economy though. Biden’s instincts on pushing Congress to reform immigration were legally and constitutionally sound but allowed Republicans to batter him on the border. When he decided to use emergency authority to crack down on illegal border crossers, it was too late. The economy was good, but voters just didn’t feel it and Democrats were not able to get that message across.

Biden’s worst mistake was running for re-election. He stayed in the race far too long even after the disastrous debate. By the time, Biden finally got out, no primary was possible and Harris suffered from both the perception that she had not earned the nomination and the difficulty of mounting an abbreviated campaign. If Biden had stayed in, Tuesday night would have been much worse.

Harris performed reasonably well, especially in her debate against Donald Trump, but her campaign was far from flawless. Still, it’s difficult to give many realistic examples of things that she could have done differently or better to change the outcome. There just wasn’t much time, especially in a year in which events seemed stacked against the incumbent.

If I had to name two of her most damaging moments, it would be the lack of preparation to answer the questions, “What would you do differently?” and “Is America better off than four years ago?” Her inability to answer those questions convincingly underscored the problems with her campaign.

An issue that did not seem to negatively impact Democrats was abortion. Despite the issue’s prominence in evangelical circles, seven out of 10 pro-choice referendums on the ballot on November 5 passed. That number includes at least two in deep red states, Missouri and Montana.

Pro-life voters still seemed to strongly support Trump despite his back-peddling on the issue, but I don’t expect abortion to decline during the next Trump Administration. As I’ve noted before, abortion rates reversed a decades-long decline during the first Trump Administration and have continued to rise after the Dobbs decision. It’s unlikely that Trump will even try to limit abortion given his new state’s choice position on the issue, but it should be apparent that laws alone are not enough to solve America’s abortion problem.

Another difficult question is whether Harris’s gender was an issue, whether “women belong in the kitchen,” as one Hispanic radio host in Pennsylvania said. We do know that there was a gender gap between Trump and Harris voters, but we don’t know whether it was because male voters didn’t trust a woman to lead the country, whether women preferred Harris on abortion, or whether it was due to some other reason. After two successive failures by female nominees, however, I think it’s fair to say that it will be a long time before another woman heads a major party ticket.

So where do we go from here? I hope that I’m wrong and that Trump will prove to be an exemplary leader, but my best guess is that he and the Republicans will quickly and badly overstep. Project 2025 will probably reappear. I don’t think that most Americans will be happy with the direction in which Trump takes the country. Republicans will likely be punished in the 2026 midterm elections and possibly beyond. (A quick look at Senate seats up for election in 2026 shows Republicans defending more seats than Democrats but most are in deep red states.)

For their part, Democrats are going to have to shake loose their radical progressive wing that has alienated so many Americans. The Harris campaign ran towards the center even though Republicans called her the most socialist candidate ever, but it was too little and too late. The knee-jerk reaction will be to double down on progressive policies, but that will only compound the Democrats’ problem.

With Democrats shedding their minority base, they are going to have to build new bases and coalitions as well as strengthen the old. The best way to do that is going to be to continue to run towards the middle as the Republican Party becomes more radical.

Among Republicans, there will be even more of a tendency to deify Trump after this second victory. There will be claims that he is God’s anointed, and I do believe as I wrote recently that God is in control and agree with Benjamin Franklin, “If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His [God’s] notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

But at the same time, God can sometimes let us go places we shouldn’t go because of free will (Romans 1:24-25), and sometimes God’s control means that we are subjected to judgment. As John Calvin pointed out, wicked rulers can be part of God‘s judgment.

I won’t take a position on whether Trump’s re-election is a blessing, rebellion, or judgment - that will probably be revealed in time - but I will say that Trump’s two wins occurred in years that were very favorable for Republicans. Trump’s flaws made the races close and any other Republican candidate would have probably won as well and not carried Trump’s baggage.

For now, the situation is what it is and there is a positive. At least we don’t have to worry about post-election violence and a repeat of January 6.

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