Quick note, I just had an article in Newsweek on the VPness of the election. How much did being VP make things harder for Harris and what are JD Vance’s prospects in 2028? Also, in my day job, I contributed to the just released an update to the National Big Data Research and Development Strategic Plan.
Waking up last Wednesday morning and learning that we had elected Donald Trump president again—my first thoughts were not about how his awful policies would hurt people or that he would break American democracy.
My first thought was: I cannot bear listening to that stupid face for another four years.
Yet, millions of Americans are undoubtedly thankful they don’t have to listen to Kamala Harris’ cackle and word salads for the next four years.
As I considered the nasty Putin-worshipping, racist, MAGA trolls who would now be insufferable; I realized that millions saw me and my ilk as Hamas-loving, defund the police advocating, pronouns and gender-change operations obsessives who hated America.
Democrats raised the specter of women who died because they did not have access to essential medical care in states that enacted abortion bans. Republicans highlighted women killed by illegal immigrants.
Our elections create a world of funhouse mirrors. Most of the Trump voters are not creepy incels. Most Harris voters are not cultural Marxist DEI activists. But that’s how we are all portrayed.
We each see the other party through the lens of their most radical members, ignoring reasonable concerns.
Feelings Don’t Care about your Facts
Now in my sixth decade on this earth, if there is a single thing I have learned, it is that you cannot argue with feelings. The Democrats are losing working class support. As a Harris supporter I can sputter on how the Biden administration oversaw massive stimulus packages to revitalize domestic manufacturing and infrastructure while advocating for labor rights. I can shout that according to all the numbers the economy is strong and getting stronger. But people don’t feel that way and persuading them otherwise (especially with a bout of inflation) will drive them into a corner and make those feelings stronger.
This poll highlights the top issues that led people to vote against Harris as being inflation, immigration, and that Harris seemed too focused on far-left culture issues. But here’s the thing, Harris didn’t really talk about far-left culture issues, except for reproductive rights of which the public is broadly supportive. But inflation and immigration made Harris more vulnerable to these charges of being out of touch. It isn’t clear that administration policy or campaign maneuvers would really have made a difference though, incumbents are being tossed out of office all over the world.
Candidates in the Funhouse Mirror
Just as elections are funhouse mirrors of other voters, they are the same for candidates. The general public (probably from watching too much House of Cards) thinks that politicians are corrupt, venal, devious, self-interested, perverts. Some are, and most have certainly gotten up to at least some shady stuff—or made grubby compromises.
If the GOP had given us Nikki Hailey or Marco Rubio or Doug Burgum or what have you, I (and probably most Democrats) would have shrugged. Trump is different, he really is the bizzaro creature. The mirror somehow distorts him to make him seem typical rather than the one-man misinformation engine, a chaos monkey in office, who bursts through all the norms our system relies on. But in a world where all the politicians are awful, he somehow appears run-of-the-mill awful.
January 6 was unprecedented and beyond the pale, a real threat to our democracy.
But voters did not care. Democratic norms are an abstract concept. Inflation is real.
The point here is not a full autopsy of the Democrats’ massive 2024 failure at the ballot box, it is to emphasize that our process gives us weird, distorted views of our politics and that most people make their voting decision, not on a carefully reasoned analysis of the issues, but rather with their gut. A large majority of voting Americans felt the country isn’t headed in the right direction, and a slight majority felt things were bad enough to give Trump another chance. I think they are wrong, but you can’t argue with feelings.
The Future
Trump has a great hand. The economy is growing and inflation has been tamped down, which means interest rates can come down, further fueling growth. Trump’s proposed actions, if fully enacted, would probably wreck this economy. Tariffs will create inflation and stymie domestic manufacturing. Mass deportations, putting aside their monumental cruelty, will also create inflation as labor (the largest single input for most goods and services) becomes more expensive.
But, as Catherine Rampbell points out, if Trump does nothing, he’ll be able to claim credit for a strong economy and JD Vance will be well-placed in 2028 to institutionalize Trumpism. A smart politician might make noise about tariffs to extract some goodies from allies, while making a big show on border security and deportations to buy political space to actually address the problem.
(In another post, I’ll talk about some potential opportunities on the international scene.)
I hope Trump governs well. I’m not wishing ill on my fellow citizens that voted for him and will (I believe) suffer under his policies. Maybe I am completely wrong, tariffs will work brilliantly to spur the U.S. economy. I hope so. Truly. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon won election victories that dwarfed Trump’s and left office broken men. This could have been Reagan’s fate, but the Congressional leadership chose not to pursue impeachment over Iran-Contra. Bush Sr., who won a victory far greater than Trump was tossed from office four years later after a comparatively mild recession. Voters today are particularly fickle. Will Trump play his cards wisely, perhaps. But his instincts are not to leave things alone, allow me to submit as evidence, the USFL.