Autopsy Report: 2024
“Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.”
"Donald Trump didn't change us. He revealed us." Stuart Stevens
“Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.” Robert Graves, I, Claudius
I am writing this on coffee, little sleep and less optimism about the future of America. Please excuse me if I am less focused as I am more than a little rattled. I did not expect the majority of the country to vote for such an unreconstructed, hateful buffoon. But here we are. Donald Trump will add the 47th Presidency of the United States to his mantle in the 45th position.
How could anyone have slept well last night, as Trump didn’t just gain re-election — he won every swing state. It pains me to add that the crystal ball employed by Susie Wiles and Chris Lacivita reflected a reality far clearer than that of David “I’d still rather be us than them” Plouffe. The Harris team, which was supposed to be the zenith of reality-based science, really messed this up with their bad math.
This election falls short of a landslide, but only slightly. Trump won the popular vote; Trump won the US Senate; and Trump has already the fealty of the Supreme Court. White women and Latino men, sorry to say, powered last night’s surprising victory over the first African-American woman Presidential nominee, who also happens to be of Asian descent. And yet, the VPOTUS made a strenuous effort never to be labelled as such. A lot of good that did her, though, as roughly half the country voted preferred the sex criminal.
And — who did we pick? Let’s be perfectly frank here. I have covered Trump for more than two decades. He is a convicted criminal, an opportunistic carnival barker and a misogynistic bigot. He is incapable of genuine laughter or, it would appear, filial love (except, to be sure, for the hot daughter). His language is crude and basic. His fascination with Hitler and his speeches is well-established. Trump is an accomplished liar with over 30,000 of them logged when last he was in office and those values, through osmosis, will shape the behavior of children over the next few years. His personality appears to be wholly untouched by feminine grace. Apparently, all of this thusness was not a deal-breaker to the majority of voters. Never underestimate the power of ethnic identity or the brutish reptile-brain appeal of “macho.” Look at Netanyahu! Every election cycle he find a way to ooze out more testosterone.
The sad thing — well, one of the sad things — is that by the time Trump gets into office, he will inherit an economy with strong vitals. That, and his mandate from the Election, will give him some lead-time and public good will to do real damage. Those infrastructure projects and jobs that Biden fought so hard for will be in full flower also. And Trump will take credit for that as well. Just before he ruins it, of course, if the chart above has anything to tell us. Democrats make; Republicans break.
Because in the modern era, The U.S. economy has performed much better under Democratic Presidents than Republicans. In categories like job growth, unemployment, manufacturing job growth and manufacturing investment, modern Democrat Presidents have just done a better job (see above). “Looking at the last seven presidents, job growth totaled over 50 million under Democratic presidents compared to only 17 million under Republican presidents,” writes New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich of the Joint Economic Committee in October. “Most recently, job growth has totaled nearly 16.2 million under the Biden-Harris administration as the U.S. economy has recovered from the pandemic recession.” So there’s that.
There are so many What Ifs floating about in the ethers about Election Night passed. James Fallows offers up a soupçon of regret to go along with our coffee and our tears:
Yes, sure, there are what-ifs? this time. What if Mitch McConnell, after condemning Trump for the January 6 assault, had mustered courage to match even that of Mitt Romney and the other GOP Senators who voted to convict Trump on his second, Jan 6-related impeachment? McConnell could have assembled his caucus to do so, which would have permanently barred Trump from seeking office ever again. (Counting Romney, seven Republicans voted to convict; it would have taken 17.) What if in this past month George W. Bush had matched the courage of hundreds of his appointees, one of his daughters, and his vice president (and that vice-president’s daughter)?
What if Joe Biden had stepped aside earlier? What if Kamala Harris had chosen a crucial swing-state governor as her running mate?
First of all, I don't blame Vice President Harris for this fine mess we find ourselves in. Trump's popular vote numbers were 71 million, roughly three million less than he received in 2020. Harris got 66 million, which was significantly below the 81 million votes President Biden got in 2020. So there is probably some room for Team Biden to complain, particularly since they were ignored by the campaign, that they could have and would have done better against Trump. But that urge should be resisted mightily.
The Vice President did the best she could in such a short time. And she had the best intentions. She didn't ask or campaign to be put in the game with only four months left on the clock. But she did the best with the time she had, raising big money, killing it on the campaign trail and on the debate stage. Debates don't really matter anymore, it seems. And neither do establishment newspapers. The collective alternative media has more influence now. Such is the nature of the new Trump order. Blame the majority of Americans who consciously voted for Trump, not the Vice President.
Nina Burleigh as always has some searing and smart observations of the carnage, focusing on entitlement and materialism:
Early analysis by the Association Press identified a key Trump voting bloc - males 18 to 29. What’s happened to our boys? Weaned on the wireless controller, isolated in their headsets as post-apocalyptic caped warriors with magical powers, surrounded by female peers who have their shit more together and little or no interest in having sex with them… what could go wrong?
All that is not to say Americans shouldn’t be angry.
We have lived in a politically regressive time since Reagan’s presidency crushed labor and elevated the Greed is Good Gordon Gekkos. Non-college Americans of all ages and younger voters in the formerly blue-collar communities could have been kept out of the Strongman political column (maybe) with national health care, stronger labor support, and decent wages. Our lives could be less hard and isolated with access to national health care and a national minimum wage. And those are things Democrats gave up on. Rather than fighting hard and consistently for political change they opted for leftish cultural manipulation - DEI, gay marriage - and left it to the Orange Man channel the anger. And whether we blame them or the forces of greed and raw power arrayed against them is not something we can do anything about now.
There is a lot of truth to this. Leftish cultural manipulation is very much an extension of campus culture, with its very own own syntax which can be vertigo-inducing to non-college rural voters. Would you rather be on the side of defending plural pronouns in eastern North Carolina or talking wrestling on the Undertaker podcast? That’s why we should have free Community College for everyone. If you pay local taxes, you should have free access to Community College in your town. It will improve the public discourse as well as offer everyone a chance at a better life, emotionally, intellectually and financially. Further — I would add — make there be a requirement to take an advanced Civics course. So we can all agree on the same set of facts, at least.
I have argued vociferously on social media that Harris should have done the Joe Rogan show, just as in 2016 I thought that Hillary Clinton should have done the Howard Stern Show. Clinton, now unburdened by the millstone Presidential ambitions, eventually did the Stern Show and spoke frankly. I do not think doing Rogan — who has some 20 million listeners — would have changed the outcome of this election. But it might have moved the needle, he might not have endorsed Trump, which probably made a difference. Harris ceded that contest altogether (Vance also did an episode six days ago, adding to more free access to Rogan’s listenership). And it would have showed, more than even Brett Baier, that she is neither afraid nor disdainful of macho chatter. Elie Mystal disagrees:
People saying Harris should have done Joe Rogan are missing the point. That wouldn’t have helped her. Liberals need to BUILD THEIR OWN JOE ROGAN. Somebody who can speak to the people he speaks to, without being a guy who wants to kiss ass to billionaires like Elon Musk.
Perhaps. Democratic politician Mark Green once said people listened to the late Rush Limbaugh because the American right is "top down" and they like to get their orders from a Daddy figure. The left, by contrast, is more "grassroots," or down-up. The organization develops organically from activists in a way that could never happen on the opposite end of the political spectrum. If the left were to "build its own Joe Rogan" — which, incidentally, would probably involve a lot of Neanderthal DNA — such an enterprise would also have to develop from the ground up. I am old enough to remember the beautiful failure that was Air America, which was co-founded by Green. While some amazing talent passed through its doors — Chuck D, future US Senator Al Franken, Sam Seder and Marc Maron — it was a commercial, though not critical, failure.
Finally, one lesson I learned from being up close to that glorious mess was that any leftish Joe Rogan cannot come from terrestrial or satellite radio — it has to be from the universe of podcasting, which in many ways is an audio extension of social media. Also, it does not have to be a man of the manosphere — it could be a woman. But it has to be of the new, digital world. And they have to have an original voice that is not just recycled Democrat Party talking points, because that was a lot of what Air America was and why it failed. And the host cannot just exist to be negative — against Republicans — because who can listen to all that for three or four hours a day? It has to be a fully developed, funny, interesting and charismatic personality that also happens to be leftish. Finally, I would add that such a podcaster — male or female — would find a welcome built-in audience in the upcoming Trump World Order.
The old order changeth. The Trump World Order cometh.
Deep, cleansing breaths ….