IT’S NOT A HARD CHOICEwe said. On the one hand she was a candidate who, whatever her particular political predilections, would respect the Constitution and laws of the United States and accept the outcome of the election. On the other hand, he was a candidate refusing to accept defeat in 2024, even if memories of his 2020 coup attempt remain fresh; someone who vows to punish the “enemy within”; and promising that the mass deportations would be “bloody”.

That’s what we meant by online democracy.

But it seems that the anti-democrat was preferred, not just by a plurality, but by a real majority of our fellow citizens. How to process this?

Some cope by pointing out that when a sitting president is as unpopular as Joe Biden, it’s close impossibility for his party to keep the White House. No Democrat may have been able to escape Biden’s clampdown, but it was especially difficult for his vice president. Like Andrew Egger noticedHarris “had to run from Biden to escape the anger of voters at his term. But she had to run to him as her only defense against Republican charges that she was too far left. . .”

As for why Biden was so unpopular, some of us (myself included) have wrongly attributed much of it to his age. But exit polls suggest the economy and the border were also anvils tied to his — and then Kamala Harris’ — ankles. Although the economy can be, as Economist recent reported“the envy of the world,” and while by many measures (employment, investment, productivity, wealth creation) things are doing remarkably well, inflation was the primary indicator for voters, and not just in the United States. Like David Dayen from American Prospect RECORDED2024 saw half the world’s population head to the polls and “with a few notable exceptions, and to the extent that those elections were free and fair, the result was largely the same: virtually every party in office at the time. that inflation has started to heat up around the world has lost.”

Could Harris have done a better job of reducing the inflation problem? In 2012, the economy has not yet fully recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-2009. In his re-election bid, Barack Obama shifted the blame for the poor performance on the back to George W. Bush. The economy was in a ditch, Bill Clinton told the Democratic Convention on Obama’s behalf, and “no president” could have pulled it back completely in four years, but Obama was on the right track.

Perhaps Harris would have been well advised to tell a similar story about inflation—that she peaked to 9.1 percent in June 2022 and has fallen sharply since then to a rate of 2.4 percent in September 2024, which is below the level it was in January 2020. Would it have worked? May be. Again, recessions are not as politically lethal as inflation. They affect only part of the electorate, while inflation affects everyone. And while wages have reached and exceed inflation rate as of February 2023, people tend to believe that their raises were attributed to their own good performance, while inflation is laid entirely at the feet of elected officials.

As for the border, how could Harris separate himself from Biden? Should she have declared that Biden’s approach was a mistake that she would correct once in office? It’s a politically unpalatable proposition — even more so when we remember that he was tasked at the start of the administration with trying to stem the flow of migration to the United States.

Why would border-angry voters choose a reformed dove over an aggressive hawk? He might have had a rule of law argument — that Congress needs to reform asylum law, and until they do, the president doesn’t have the power to address the issue. But when Biden imposed executive orders in June, dramatically reducing border crossings, he botched that case and inadvertently begged the question of why the administration didn’t move sooner. (For the record, the successful demonization of immigrants and immigration is both an outrage and a self-inflicted wound that we will pay dearly for in years to come when lack home health aides, truck drivers, nurses, home builders, farm workers, meat processors, and other taxpayers.)

According to this coping mechanism, voters were in a sour mood (just refer to right way / wrong way POLLS) and did what voters always do: punish the incumbent by voting for the candidate for change. Nothing more to see here.

But for those of us who see a second Trump presidency as a watershed moment in history — a fateful departure from what made us a great nation — there’s more to see here. To watch Trump’s behavior closely is to sense that this election is unlike any other. This outcome is not only suboptimal (like any election where the preferred candidate loses), but also unthinkable. With this vote, Americans are turning their backs on basic decency, the founding acts, and the social contract. This lying moron was seen pantomiming fellatio on the microphone a few days ago. It’s not as if his political chops somehow counterbalance his vulgarity, cruelty and self-absorption. His campaign promises consist of ludicrous proposals to magically balance the budget and eliminate the income tax through tariffs, to round up and deport 11 million or more people, and to resolve foreign conflicts through his alleged power of intimidation (even though he constantly contradicts this). abjur war).

Voters chose to elevate (for the second time) a cartoon character to the highest office in the land. From that perch, he will close the federal cases against himself; forgive the “hostages” or “political prisoners” of January 6, or as he calls them these days; appoint a series of mushrooms, fantasists, and weaklings to run the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Justice, and other agencies; and then proceeded to fire most of the capable and responsible civil servants in government to replace them with the likes of Steve Bannon, Steven Miller, Boris Epshteyn and other loyal goblins.

Trump often casts the United States as a Third World country. Now it will begin to make us one.

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Certainly, many of those who voted for Trump did not vote for what they would get. And yet it is their fault that they did not do their duty to avoid it.

Maybe voters never prioritized democracy, the rule of law or fair play. Maybe they always just voted their pockets. Either way, this is an elite failure of the first order. The opinion leaders have failed significantly in their role. In healthy politics, it is up to entities such as political parties, churches, newspaper editorial boards, radio hosts, business executives, and news analysts to shape public opinion, not to follow it. Our elites have failed to protect us. They found reasons, for their own advancement, to normalize Trump. If not for apologies and explanations; if not for the way it is in places like Wall Street Journal and National Magazine; were it not for the bold capitulation of Wall Street wizards and Silicon Valley prima donnas, if not for the cowardice of 95% of elected Republicans, ordinary voters would not have felt comfortable voting for a clown with a flame thrower.

That clown has no idea how to lower prices. His rates will only send them higher. While he knows how cruel and unjust an effort to deport millions of people will be, he has no idea how damaging it will prove to the economy and national morale. He has no plan to stop the war in Ukraine other than to force Kiev into submission, which will send China and other adversaries an unmistakable signal of weakness. And he has no qualms about sharply increasing our already dangerous levels of national debt.

If he succeeds in imposing tariffs that spark inflation and a trade war; if deportations, layoffs, abuse of the justice system, law enforcement corruption, and the degradation of the health care system are causing America’s quality of life to decline, then what? Will voters do what voters always do and vote for the change candidate next time? Maybe. Or will the elites who greased the skids for Trump’s second election also excuse and explain every failure as the work of the “deep state” or “saboteurs”? We’re about to find out.

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