A Darker, More Dangerous Future
I was very wrong about the election. I hope I'm wrong about the future under Trump.
I have never been so wrong about anything. I thought I had carefully weighed all the election factors and arrived at an objective assessment of why Kamala Harris would win comfortably. The only thing I got right was that all seven swing states would swing together. I just got the direction wrong.
Instead of listing now why I and so many others were wrong, let me refer you to four people I think are analyzing this devastating loss better than I can.
First, Sen. Bernie Sanders. I was proud to work on his national security team during his presidential campaign in 2016. He told reporters this week:
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.”
Ben Rhodes, whom I am proud to call a friend, amplifies this today in a must read oped in The New York Times:
“Democrats understandably have a hard time fathoming why Americans would put our democracy at risk, but we miss the reality that our democracy is part of what angers them. Many voters have come to associate democracy with globalization, corruption, financial capitalism, migration, forever wars and elites (like me) who talk about it as an end in itself rather than a means to redressing inequality, reining in capitalist systems that are rigged, responding to global conflict and fostering a sense of shared national identity.”
Finally, my colleague David Rothkopf undertook a painful examination of how he could be so wrong about the election he thought Harris would win easily. Certainly, racism and misogyny played a role, he says. Certainly, there were things the campaign could have done better (and these are the obsession of the Washington consultants who are furiously second-guessing every Harris campaign move). But it is deeper than that:
“It is clear to me that I simply do not understand the motivations of at least half of the American electorate. I just don’t full grasp their desire for strength or their grievances or their anger at the political establishment in Washington or the world as it looks through the lens of their media sources.”
Sen. Sanders and Ben Rhodes get at these motivations. MSNBC Newsletter Ryan Teague Beckwith notes that if Biden had not been blocked by Sen. Joe Manchin from passing major programs that would have helped the working class in his original Build Back Better bill, Harris would have had a fighting chance. Their administration would have delivered tangible, immediate improvements in the lives of working people.
“The list includes most of the social safety net expansion that Biden campaigned on: universal preschool; help with child care and elder care costs; dental, vision and hearing coverage under Medicare; 12 weeks of paid family leave; more affordable housing; free community college tuition; health insurance for lower-income families; and the extension of a temporary child tax credit that was shown to have lifted 3 million children out of poverty.”
I am firmly with those who believe the Democratic Party and the progressive movement have emphasized identity politics over the needs of the working class.
I also know that while we work to correct that bias, we have to address the dire consequences of Trump’s victory. The editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists asked me to contribute a short summary of these risks. I joined a half dozen others today in outlining the dangers. I wrote:
“Americans have elected the first openly fascist president in US history. He will use his unchecked power to accumulate great wealth; policy will be a secondary consideration. Trump’s presidency will set back global responses to the climate crisis (a crisis he denies); weaken and perhaps collapse the US alliance system as allies find themselves standing alone against a rising authoritarian tide; fatally wound Ukraine’s defense against Russian imperialism; and give Israel’s government a blank check to pursue its wars. Social programs will be slashed while military budgets could soar. Defenses against pandemics will weaken.
“The most serious—though not the most immediate—consequence of giving unchecked power to an unstable, unhinged man is that Trump will have the unfettered ability to launch nuclear weapons whenever he wants, for whatever reason. Americans may forever regret their failure to reform this outdated system of nuclear command and control when there was still a chance.”
I sincerely hope that I am as wrong about the future risks as I was about Harris’s election prospects. Unfortunately, I think this prediction will prove more accurate.
Joe- I wasn't 'sure', not even optimistic. I poll-watched for a couple of months, then got the feeling that they were all garbage. I went to bed early and did not open a single news source or Tuesday...and I haven't opened one since.
The profound pain and realization that a majority of my neighbors made this choice is exceedingly hard for me to accept. My glass is always half full and I believe in the innate goodness of most people. To think that my neighbors (I live in Phoenix) would accept a mass deportation of our neighbors is very, very hard for me to reconcile.
The 'immigration' issue is a canard; crime is not rampant here, and there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants here. They are hard working, decent people, seeking a better life, like all of my grandparents did. Of course, there are exceptions but we've lived her for nearly 25 years and not once have we been accosted or victimized by any criminal activity, let alone crime committed by undocumented aliens. To the contrary...we have families who have worked for us. We know their children. They are the rule, not the exception.
I feel dispossessed. The country that I thought I lived in had differences of opinion. I didn't think that those differences ran this deep. We've both seen some hard fought elections over the years...and felt the pain of losing. But even those losses were not as consequential as this one. The President elect has told us clearly that he will remake this nation...and I am fearful that he will.
The pieces that you added miss one very important result: The remaking of courts. He and his allies have managed to mold the Supreme Court into a rubber stamp for his policies. I'm appalled at the blatant politicization of the Court and disregard for conflicts of interest that is now extant. Thankfully, the 3 liberal Justices are young enough to last 4 years. But the lower federal courts, the first line of check and balance are next up. The Federalist Society will be first on the scene to erode any line of defense at the District and Circuit Court levels. The Senate will confirm them en masse.
I'm not given to hyperbole nor do I get depressed easily. I am truly depressed, not so much for me, but for my kids and grandkids...and everyone else's.
Tom
Now that Trumps is back and more unfettered the half of the country that didnt vote for him needs to be ever vilgilent and oppose his attempts to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law. I believe one of the first issues that will need to be fought tooth and nail is his promise to sign an executive order to remove birthright citizenship of children born to undocume ted immigrants. This runs counter to the 14th amendment and subsequent court cases. This will certainly end up at the Supreme Court. How they rule will be a strong indication of whether or not norms will hold. Associated with this may be a move to convene a constitutional convention to amend the Constitution. That terrifies me as with the current direction of the country all sorts of threats to civil liberties may ensue.