Disconcerting States #12

Friday 15 November 2024. What Did We Learn From the 2024 US Presidential Election Campaign? A Baker’s Dozen of Suggestions and an Attempted Summary of Ongoing Events.

By John Dean

In sum, dear readers who have stayed with me this far:

No. 1.

We will not fully know what we’ve learned until election results are over. They are far from over. But they have taken their initial shape.

After all, what were the results of the Civil War on the nation? Its engagement in WW2? The Cold War? Results take a while to sink in. Patience is a virtue but time is gold.

But meanwhile…

No. 2.

The 2024 US Presidential Election Campaign was a race, a competition where the best and the fastest wins according to the rules of the game.

This competition, pursuit and tournament factor is of primary importance. Once Harris entered in as the contender against Trump in July 2024, by first week of August 2024 she was formally and officially chosen as Democratic nominee.

At which point she pulled ahead in the race against the almost-assassinated Republican Party nominee. For a brief moment, she looked like a winner.

Harris changed the rules of the game. One moment it was sleepy Joe, the next: fast Harris. The hot-button issues changed from Biden’s beat Trump’s racist, misogynist, nazi, threat-to-democracy thorny issues to Harris’ hopeful, optimistic, fight-for-our-freedom issues.

Her strengths moved away from the creaking, old darkness of feeble Joe Biden to young hope Harris. The new strategy, the new candidate, almost seemed to work. Almost, but not quite.

No. 3.

Day by day Kamala Harris lost her lead in the race. As the competition progressed, it was clear that she never sufficiently distanced herself from the old man’s policies and personality. She was loyal to a fault. She was still too much the Vice President who adhered to the usual Democratic Party, the usual Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

How was she different? More Americans saw her as a so-what’s-new? candidate. In harsher terms under the bright spotlights of the electoral campaign: she was a used car with all the weaknesses gifted to it by the previous owner.

No. 4.

Please note Biden’s “garbage” remark.

Biden awkwardly attempted to address the racist comment delivered at a Trump rally made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to the US island territory of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans as a “floating island of garbage”.

In response, Biden then soon created an uproar — just days before Election Day — with his remarks given on a video call with the nonprofit Voto Latino foundation— when Biden said about Trump (quote): “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

The Democratic Party had just shot itself in the foot.

Very soon after Biden’s “garbage” remark, Trump the charismatic entertainer, the P. T. Barnum of today’s US politics, literally put on a garbage man’s outfit in Greenbay, Wisconsin, and went out in a garbage truck. He rode shotgun with the working class people whom Biden & Company belittled.

Message clear? As a knife to the heart.

Why did the Democrats get it wrong? You don’t get it? You cannot expect people to support you, Kamala and Joe, whom you and your people put down, people who the other side celebrates and hugs.

This was an “October Surprise” of the worst sort for the Democrats. And not new. Years before, in competition with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton called Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables”. You do not widen your voter base by insulting your potential voters.

No. 5.

Before I came to the USA this October-November 2024 time, I hadn’t been in the States for about eighteen months. From the time I bought my first DC metro ticket down to my Coca-Cola, Bounty paper towels and Ritz crackers — wow! — had prices shot up! As Republicans more or less said under Ronald Reagan and repeated under Donald Trump: Was I better off now than I was eighteen months ago? No. Look at the cost of things now under the Biden-Harris administration.

Sure, they cannot be held to account for everything. But they did a lot of the basic accounting. And the Republicans’ are-you-better-off-now call to battle was constantly and effectively repeated — specially if you want to win this race — by Trump and Vance.

As the Democratic party political consultant, and Bill Clinton’s favorite political advisor, James Carville said in 1992 — in the hot race of Bill Clinton versus George Bush, Sr. — the key issue? “It’s the economy, stupid.”

No. 6.

What was rejected? What accepted?

For at-home, down-home Americans, this election was first and foremost about kitchen table realities. That is, issues of concern to the average person that’d be discussed by the ordinary American family around the everyday kitchen table.

In and of itself, I do not have the impression here that traditional US Wilsonian Progressivism or FDR-style Liberalism was rejected by the mass of Americans. The nation is not about to jettison its Social Security, its Medicaid and Medicare systems. Nor is it about to return to mid-twentieth century racism and segregation. Some changes since the 1960s have been too profound, lasting, and good for the nation to get rid of.

But the USA will likely cut European alliance costs in order to pay US bills. Does the iceman cometh in Euro-American relations?

America has to face its aching realities at home first and foremost. Which will likely lead other nations to do this in each their own way. International interests — or “Globalism” as it’s been known — will gradually be replaced by much greater national self-interest, economic, social and cultural ethnocentricity.

“Set thine house in order.” Attend to your own business before getting involved with other people’s problems. There’s sure enough to go around these days for everyone.

No. 7.

The vote for Trump was a vote against the USA’s now traditional Harvard-Yale-Howard-Princeton and so forth elitism of much of US federal government and its leaders.

It was a vote against specialists and the “over-educated”.

That is, you’ve got a disproportionate number of Ivy League or wealthy individuals who hold political office, whose policies favor corporate interests over the general public.

I know elitism also sounds like the Republicans. But this is the way many people understood Harris (Howard University), Obama (Harvard University), Hillary Clinton (Yale).

Hence their vote for Trump — who had a decent college degree, but was known primarily as the guy who slugged his way through the New York City real estate business and has the razzmatazz of a successful TV celebrity — their vote for Trump was an expression of anti-Establishment anger.

In a word, it’s America’s very own version of antidisestablishmentarianism.

No. 8.

I’ll confess. Much as I personally loved the astute, sympathetic and hawk-eyed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her brand of traditional US political Liberalism — in retrospect we really screwed up.

US Liberals should have been more accommodating to the Conservatives, shown more savvy in order to build a coalition and not this deepening dualism.

Why is there this consistent US polarity of North versus South, Black versus White, Male versus Female, East Cost versus West Coast? Contrast and separation by two are not a US monopoly. For sure. But the country is quite good at it.

How about thinking in threes, or fours or more. How about more than two possibilities? More than Pepsi and Coke? Americans still champion multiculturalism and pluralism. I don’t think that’s gone the way of all flesh. But how about more political diversity?

If they’re so democratic, why didn’t US Liberals find a way? Build better bridges? A fight for ideals does not always have to lead a nation to civil war. Couldn’t the democrats have been more unbiased? Better at the compromise game? At least make the glass half full and not half empty?

No. 9.

Good news is that America did not suffer another January 6, 2021, Capitol Attack — the “Insurrection”. So far the election process and the transition itself — however much one may disagree with DJT’s new executive appointments — worked smoothly.

Albeit to the advantage of the Trump Republicans. They were brilliant playing the bureaucratic electioneering game this time inside the boundaries of traditional rules. There was great fear of a Gore-Bush Election 2000 hanging-chads debacle. But that did not happen.

No. 10.

Will the Republic’s “guardrails” now hold? This is to reference back to Lynne Cheney’s post-election results remarks about how America’s citizens, courts, media and elected officials will now serve as the “guardrails of democracy” — following Trump resounding victory in his race to win a second term.

Likely the US Constitutional order will be challenged to a degree not seen since the New Deal of the Great Depression years. Does Trump have the political leadership skills to pull off the radical changes he trumpeted? Is he really a macher, a good fixer who really gets things done well for the good of all?

Will his host of extraordinary appointees — ranging from Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general to Pete Hegseth (Fox News host and military veteran) as his pick for defense secretary, and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to head a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with one-time presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy — will they be able to make this new American Dream of equality for all and America greater again than its ever been real?

No. 11.

In this election, considering the voters themselves, what’s the tabulation, who supported what?

The split was Democratic Party versus republican Party voters. The contrast being: people who worry about health care and Supreme Court appointments (the Dems) versus people who worry about the economy, immigration, and violent crime (the Repubs).

Sidebar — Dear reader, do not dismiss the opioid-fentanyl crisis here. Though reported US drug use among adolescents continued to hold below pre-pandemic levels in 2023; nearly 70% of stimulants that involved overdose deaths in 2022 also involved fentanyl. Which is a potent synthetic opioid drug used as an analgesic, for pain relief, and an anesthetic. And too easily illegally available. Hence the opioid-fentanyl crisis here. Hence heightened immigration fears.

Plus the Democratic Party voters versus the Republican Party voters contrast meant: urban voters versus rural voters. A majority of Black and Latino voters turned out for Vice President Kamala Harris this election. But President-elect Donald Trump made significant inroads with both groups. About twenty percent of black voter chose Trump.

Ok. I know it’s not all this simple. There’s a lot more under this rich surface. But it’s basic.

This contrast is where one starts to compare rich land masses that need to be dug into, analyzed, and dealt with much better than they have been. We know this contrast is there.

Folks, I just returned from travels in hardcore southern Virginia. Stonewall Jackson country, Lexington, Virginia. And along the rural backroads on lawn after lawn, I saw a never-ending blizzard of Trump-Vance signs. They‘ve been loyal to a fault.

No. 12.

Do the results of this election mean autocracy for America? That is, government by a single person having unlimited power, despotism, demagogue, King DJT? The Oval Office becomes the Throne Room?

Many of the academic experts warn “Yes”. Many of the Trump voters say that’s not the point. He’s not a tyrant. Sure he’s got a big mouth and even bigger swagger. So what? We hired a big old good worker who can clean up the mess. Go get ‘em, Donald!

No. 13.

At the end of the day, Harris lead on abortion and race issues, Trump on economy and immigration. Concern with his issues tipped the scales his way. Now he’ll try to do it his way.

But neither group of supporters expect either candidate to bring America closer together nor lessen the influence of money in US politics.

Mind the gap.

To date the nation’s political mood is dark but hopeful. Let’s hope America’s guardrails work. Lord knows, they’ll be tested.

Thank you. Goodbye. Good night and good luck.