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The stories that matter about money and politics in the race for the White House
So much for Kamala Harris’ vibes, joy, optimism and Hollywood smile. The United States has rejected the sale. Four years ago, a victorious Joe Biden called Donald Trump an “aberrant moment.” Given that Trump has a good chance of winning the popular vote, as well as the US electoral college, history will now surely award that designation to Biden. After all, Trump is among the best-known and most researched nominees in American history. Choosing it once may have been an accident; When he did it twice he came with his eyes wide open. Trump is rightfully the next president of the United States.
The question is why? A big part of the story is that enough Americans want what they want. Triumph is selling: mass deportation of illegal immigrants, the end of globalization, and a middle finger to the liberal elite’s often self-parodying approach to identity, better known as wokeness. All of this overcame any doubts voters had about Trump’s character. The fact that the United States seems likely to elect a convicted felon, who is also accused of trying to overthrow the last election and is an open admirer of autocrats, can be interpreted in two ways. Either voters don’t take the risk Trump poses seriously, or they know exactly what they’re leaving the country in, but they still prefer to keep things the same.
Either way, Trump’s re-election is an existential disaster for Democrats. It is also a historic turning point for America’s allies. Democratic recriminations will be numerous and rapid. Any post-mortem is sure to highlight the fact that a visibly ill Biden waited too long to give up his party’s nomination. Had Biden withdrawn six months earlier, Democrats would have had time to find a better prospect than Harris. Maybe having a real primary race wouldn’t have made any difference. To be fair to Harris, she ran a well-oiled campaign, beating Trump in their only debate and uniting Democrats behind her. But he was mediocre at best when the conversation turned to the economy, a topic he did his best to avoid. The lack of a compelling economic narrative would be a major flaw in any American election. A competitive primary would have found that out.
Having inherited the crown so perfectly, Harris had little time and incentive to correct his deficiencies. However, she still could have invented a “Sister Souljah moment” to show that she was not a Berkeley radical. Bill Clinton’s criticism of the black author of the same name in 1992 showed that he was not an old-fashioned liberal, which helped make him electable. Harris was careful to avoid association with the more outlandish progressive causes during her brief 16-week campaign. But he did not convincingly repudiate his previous support for open borders and defunding the police, for example.
Biden can also be blamed for overinterpreting his 2020 victory. This was a result of Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, not concerns about the health of American democracy. Biden won by promising to end the pandemic and restore normalcy to American politics. However, at some point between his nomination and his inauguration, Biden began to believe he had license to make sweeping changes. His superfluous $1.9 trillion stimulus stoked inflation that was already rising due to supply-side shocks. To be sure, Trump posed a profound threat to the American constitutional order, as he does now on steroids. In Merrick Garland, however, Biden chose an attorney general who was in no rush to hold Trump to account. Historians will be surprised about this.
As with Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, there are many fingerprints on Harris’s defeat. But this time it will be much harder to blame foreign bad actors. Russia’s Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly see enormous advantages in Trump’s re-election, especially in Ukraine. However, it was the Americans who returned Trump to power without obvious help. Either way, the Democratic blame game will be secondary to understanding what comes next. Trump has promised retaliation and he means it.
It’s entirely possible that Republicans will win a trifecta: the presidency, the Senate, which is now a certainty, and the House of Representatives, which is still up for grabs. If Republicans take full control of the Capitol, there will be few checks on Trump’s executive authority. The U.S. Supreme Court already gave Trump the equivalent of a judicial blank check when it ruled in July that he had broad immunity for his actions as president.
The United States has taken a decisive step. It would be reckless to assume that Trump didn’t mean what he said when he promised to go after his enemies. It would also be delusional to think that he will feel in any way constrained by his country’s 50-50 split. Trump has a mandate to reform America in unimaginably disruptive ways. There will be no turning back from the seismic outcome of the 2024 US elections.