For right-wingers unwilling to embrace conspiracy theories and promote the narrative that Trump was robbed, there’s much solace-seeking in the narrative that Trump is some sort of political genius who tapped something “liberal elites” don’t understand.
That’s despite Trump losing the popular vote (for the second time) bigly, by over 4 million votes, and Biden heading for a convincing 300-plus electoral college vote.
The mood was summed up by reactionary Australian op-ed columnist Greg Sheridan, who claimed Trump had won a “moral victory”. “More people voted for Trump than ever voted for Barack Obama, the previous record holder, or for Hillary Clinton last time, or for any other president,” he wrote.
“The result,” Sheridan thought, “is a shocking repudiation of the American liberal establishment.”
You reckon a Democrat losing the popular vote by 4 million and getting soundly beaten in the electoral college would ever be a “moral victory” and a shocking repudiation of conservatism for Greg?
Far from being some sort of instinctual political chess grandmaster, Trump made fundamental, almost amateur errors. His campaign to demonise mail-in voting turns out to have been a disaster, deterring Republican turnout. In Pennsylvania, local Republicans specifically complained in June that Trump was hurting their efforts to maximise turnout. His refusal to take the pandemic seriously removed a huge opportunity to display the sort of leadership that might have attracted independent voters. Despite publicly warning he would litigate the result if he lost, he failed to put together a legal team, leading to the high comedy of the Four Seasons carpark media conference.
Most of all, Trump turned off American women — despite a clumsy last-minute pitch to suburban women to “like him” because he’d been so good for them. Women voted at higher rates than men, and more strongly for Biden than Trump (56% to 48%). The accused rapist and self-admitted sexual harasser failed during his four years to convince white college-educated women to back him again.
But while progressives and centrists pop the champagne to toast the end of Trump — for now — many are also consoling themselves with their own narrative that, as Foreign Affairs put it, “the system worked”. A would-be authoritarian who sought to derail the democratic outcome of an election had lost.
But what if Trump and his campaign team hadn’t been incompetent?
What if his voter suppression campaign and that of his party had been better targeted, not at mail-in ballots but at areas where Republicans have had much more success — purging voter rolls and making voting more difficult in the name of electoral fraud?
For that matter, what if Trump had taken the pandemic seriously and portrayed himself as the caring father of his nation? What if his behaviour wasn’t so repugnant to women?
The US electoral system is theoretically designed to prevent the emergence of a would-be tyrant — feared by the founding fathers to come from the military, not a bankrupt property empire — but with a partisan-stacked Supreme Court there is no check on a populist demagogue with a decent political strategy and the money to implement it.
But is it an accident that Trump was incompetent? He is the apotheosis of the anti-government program that started with Reagan. The endpoint of that trajectory is an inability to govern in any sense other than just occupying the position. Seems to me the incompetence has been structural.
Very true, the culmination of a decades-long “small government” drive is ending up with a government that can’t do much, and not well.
The Republicans, and similar parties elsewhere, are lying about seeking small government. What they want is discredited government that everybody hates and mistrusts. The purpose is to destroy the credibility of any politicians who promise good government – all those who think government is always bad must assume anyone promising to do better is lying. This aim is best achieved by big or very big government that fails the public in every way. The only bit that works properly is diverting tax payers money into private pockets, often by outsourcing essential government functions to incompetent and expensive contractors. This cripples the public service, empties it of expertise, and rewards greedy rent-seeking corporations – but does not shrink government. In the US, UK and AU in the last few years government has grown rapidly, racked up enormous debt, performed worse, destroyed oversight and accountability and shamelessly looted the nation on behalf of its mates.
Small government? Ha ha ha.
SSR – you are spot-on with that analysis, and the shonks, spivs and media narcissists that support our LNP are up to their eyeballs in this largely successful deception.
The IPA in particular should be run out of town or taxed out of existence.
It is a requirement of late stage capitalism that conservatives hold a space in government while their sponsors maximise the profits during the last pillage of resources. Capitalism is based on a belief the planet is endlessly exploitable and growth has no cap. We know that is no longer true. The practical response would be to create rules around that, but capitalism’s drive is to make as much money from what’s left. Governments’ roles are to keep the legislators at arm’s length.
Sad but true Tim – you would have thought that if a decent form of capitalism was going to make a last stand to avoid the inevitable wrecking of its own nest, it would happen here in Australia…but it seems there is no chance.
Labor is not up to the job, and the populace is too dumbed-down to see the future that surely awaits us all.
Somewhat a pyrrhic victory for the Dems. Nearly 50% of the USA population voted for Trump. If there had been no pandemic, I believe he would have romped home.
The USA will still probably degenerate into the sort of country they used to invade in South America, it’ll just take a little longer. It certainly seems to be the end game Mitch McConnell and his band of thugs have in mind.
Yes. There’s no sign the Democrats or anyone else in the USA has a credible strategy to resist the shift to entrenched minority rule. Biden’s election win is a dead cat bounce.
No, “Nearly 50% of the USA population voted for Trump.” – the population is 325+M.
It’s not even half the electorate, 200M.
The turnout is impressive by US standards, ie not very.
However your point is that Trump had 10M more votes than 2016 which is true.
Biden received a shed load more than HRC – previously the record holder of the most Prez votes for any white candidate – and increased her majority of <3M over Trump to around 5M more than even his improved 70M.
Maths matter.
Yes, you are correct, but the point still stands – 50% of those that bothered to vote, preferred Trump, and if you infer that those that didn’t vote were happy with the status quo, it actually DOES imply that probably MORE than 50% of the population were quite happy with Trump.
Your final point is flawed. It seems to assume that every single Biden supporter voted, but that there are Trump supporters who didn’t. Alternatively, do you live in a realm where it is possible to have more than 100% of something?
That is a ridiculous, insupportable inference you’d like to make there. A reasonable, but not necessarily correct, inference would be that the non-voters would split in the same proportions as those who voted, leaving Trump with less than 50%, as now. Like Bernard above, you seem to want your percentages to add up to more than 100.
I am with Cap’n here, but bjb’s original point is a very good one – without the pandemic, Trump may well have romped in again, and that is frightening in itself.
And Bernard’s main point is also a very good one, the fabled “checks and balances” almost failed, and some psychopath less chronically flawed (and fraud) than Trump may well have been successful in setting up a dictatorship.
The inference is neither ridiculous or insupportable, Captain, but it may not be the case – or it could be the case.
A statistical technique, known as the ‘Monte Carlo’ method (or approach – see Wikipedia) is, typically, employed to solve such questions by simulation.
If Crikey had a decent “sandpit” I could provide a solution. The question has got me thinking.
I agree, but the figure is nearly 50% of those who voted. About 250M people are of voting age, so about 100M didn’t bother to vote. I think if the dems had offered medicare for all and real action on climate change many of those 100M would have voted for Biden, on the other hand many right wing dems would not have, on the other hand they probably would have won the senate. I’ll watch Rising on The Hill tonight to get a more informed analysis.
Two remark for you to consider Bref. The first is that neither Sanders nor Warren lasted five minutes. The voters had their chance. Secondly, Obama encountered significant resistance to the Affordable… from within the Dems. A 2B would be to go there and strike up a conversation at Starbucks across a few States.
As an aside, yanks don’t mind ‘lectureing’ foreigners as to which way is up but they tend not to chat amongst themselves on such topics or, rather, only with friends.
I don’t disagree with you but polls, such as they are, have nevertheless shown very wide and strong support for universal medicare and strong action for the environment. I have also heard repeatedly that large numbers of young and disadvantaged voters simply don’t vote because they know it will literally make no difference for them.
What you are asserting is contrary to my experience and that includes more than a day at Ivy League universities over the last four years.
Nixon set the current system up, more or less, 50 odd years ago. The benefits for those with a decent job are not too foul at all and the taxation benefits for the firm are attractive.
Despite pretentious to the contrary, American society does not give a rats as to what they they regard as the lower orders, which for all practical purposes, are expendable; i.e. could be replaced by immigrants should they all die.
If you ever get to see the place, Bref, you will find, soon enough, Tom. Dick and Harry have no interest in sharing health care costs. As an aside, all yanks are familiar with the Canadian system and a fair number exploit it (via family).
Of all the alleged causes of Trump’s first win and better-than-predicted showing this time – redistricting, voter suppression, working the Latino communities, empathy with the ‘real’ America, fear of a green socialist agenda – the one that stands out is his ‘fake news’ device. From dya one Trump inoculated himself and his supporters against any evidence of failure, dishonesty, hypocrisy and even criminality by branding evry occurrence as fake news. Sinister but brilliant. Every criticism or allegation becomes proof that the world is full of enemies who are trying to undermine ‘me’ as well as deny ‘your’ electoral will. It’s been applied before in plenty of totalitarian regimes – to brand all charges as the work of ‘capitalist running dogs’, ‘zionists’, ‘saboteurs’ etc etc. It is hard to think of such a sustained use of it in any developed democracy. Now that Trump has mainstreamed the device, the great threat is that long after he’s gone it will be there as a weapon for any aspiring populist to pick up and use to make the full monty transition to demagogue or worse.
Yes, to me, that’s narcissistic personality disorder writ large. Narcissists are often not very good managers, for a range of reasons. They usually are poor listeners and often ignore sensible advice. They tend to take credit for the work of others. They can easily misinterpret constructive criticism as a personal attack. So, things rarely run efficiently when they’re around.
Then, because they have an inflated view of themselves, maturely taking responsibility for the expanding disaster, is usually off the table. Instead, they blame others working against them. Or they claim that unforeseen circumstances, made their task impossible. And until those nefarious disruptions, they were doing a fantastic job.
Unfortunately these days, we also have plenty of narcissists in the media, who amplify the paranoid messaging that emanates from narcissists in politics and business.
Yes when Trump does have to some kind of concession, even it’s just having the removal truck back up to the White House, it will be fun to see how he rationalises it. I’m tipping lots of projection but a McCarthurist, terminator “I’ll be back”or a “you are not worthy of me” are both possible.
“You are not worthy of me”, is a big chance, in my opinion. And I reckon that might even come a month or two before the official handover. That is, if wiser heads make it clear to him, that they’re not going to support the pathetic legal challenges, then he might storm off, claiming that he’s being white-anted from within and that they won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore.
70,000,000+ Trumpettes don’t vanish on January 21st. People have a right to b concerned. The demise of the USA may be on pause for four years, but without significant structural change – which they are incapable of due to its unpalatable label – the slide is going to continue.
Ah yes Greg Sheridan, the poor man’s B.A. Santamaria. Someone whom ABC radio Melbourne still lets pose an an international relations expert, posturing alongside real academics and experts in some sort of cringe to Murdoch and the Libs.
interestingly, Sheridan speaks to the same constituency as Trump and the DLP, the undereducated (we love them) churchgoers and very wealthy people.
You are right the defeat of Trump is not the end. The Republicans will have no real interest in healing, the pandemic or otherwise. Rather expect them to redouble their reaction and attempt to limit democratic voice going forward. They may cut their rhetoric a little more carefully, that’s about it.