Post-Election Reflections
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
This column is comprised of a set of notes/observations on the disaster that has happened to our beloved country and the world as well. Yes, just considering what: a) Trump and the Trumpers will do to increase the rate of global warming, e.g., 1) Trump will once again withdraw from the Paris Accords, and will open up that Alaska Wildlife reserve to oil drilling, among other initiatives, increasing the rate of global warming); b) having an Evangelical, the preacher Mike Huckabee, who presumably believes in the "Rapture," as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel [some significant proportion of Evangelicals do believe in the Rapture; whether Huckabee himself does or not is an open question] will do to U.S./ Israel/Palestine matters is an open question, and c) Trump will likely, in one way or another, let Putin take a big enough chunk of Ukraine so that he, Putin, can feel that he is making the world safe for plutocracy. And so, with the Trump win, many of the world's inhabitants, human and other, are at great risk for their future.
The Democrats didn't lose it: the Trumpublicans won it. But, as much as Trump (along with certain Democratic cry-babies) would like to pretend that he has one, in terms of the popular vote, there is no "mandate" here. And in fact, with votes from slow-counting states like California still coming in, if Trump didn't get 50% of the popular vote (which is possible), he surely didn't get much above that number. Of course, he did win a substantial margin in that legacy-of-slavery known as the "Electoral College." Just a further note: at this time, unlike they likely did in 2016, it was not the votes of Jill Stein in the "contested" states that gave him his victory. Trump won there all by himself.
There has been much speculation on just how Trump won, ranging from "inflation" (imagined, but certainly not real [see below]), to the mishandling of COVID (a mis-handling of COVID that, as it happened, occurred almost entirely in his watch in 2020), to "Harris just didn't run a good campaign." Well if, given its VERY late start, she didn't, just how could she have done it better? (As it happened, a ccording to the Chris Hayes Report, The Biden Israel Policy which was supposed to be such a major negative for some potential Democratic voters, didn't make that much of a difference.) And, as I have noted numerous times, as awful as Israeli-policy-towards-the-Palestinians is (a topic on which I have written critically-of-Israel for a number of years), nobody ever came up with an alternative policy for the Democratic Party other than support for the Israeli Nationalists, heavily dependent as it is on "pro-Israel" Jewish votes and money.
No, Trump actually won on what I call "The Four Hates," Sexism, Racism, Misogyny, and Xenophobia (as I will explain further below), the related killing-of-the-Biden/Congressional-Republicans-border-control-act, and by having Trump stay away from certain main issues, such as: Israel, health care, transportation, global warming. In fact, for Trump, two strategies for use in the campaign: (a) he is "History's Greatest Con Man," and (b) three of his list of con-artist themes --- "they're out to get me," "playing-the-victim-I'm-innocent," and "they are out to get you;" worked to perfection.
And so:
Listen to what the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin had to say about Trump/Vance, on women's issues in particular and women's place in the U.S. in particular. (By the way, although Jeff Bezos is a man of no principle [except of the monetary kind] a goodly proportion of the Post's columnists certainly do have). From her column on July 29, 2024:
"If you wanted to design a presidential ticket most likely to offend women voters, you would pick as the presidential nominee an adjudicated rapist, someone caught bragging about sexually assaulting women and who comes with a history of demeaning and insulting women. You would make it someone who mused about punishing women for having an abortion and who boasts about taking away women's bodily integrity.
"Then, for vice president, you would find someone who has implied women should stay in abusive relationships (he denies that's what he meant but listen for yourself), wants to ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest, favors a "federal response" to prevent women from traveling to states where abortion is legal, accuses single women("childless cat ladies") of lacking a stake in America's future, votes against protection for in vitro fertilization and wants higher taxes for childless people. (He later said he had not meant to offend cats.)"
It is fascinating to me that despite the facts that Ms. Rubin laid out, millions of women voted for Trump anyway. Why so? Well, primarily for the reasons that I set forth below about why and how Trump won the election. (And, here's a heads-up. He did not win because of his environmental policies, or his "Israel" policies, or that the Democrats got to choose [or rather not choose] their candidate late in the game. However, that the Democratic candidate was a Black/South-Asian woman certainly melded right into the centerpieces of his campaign (mentioned above, and elaborated upon below).
But still on The Washington Post, here's a letter that a good and long-time friend of mine, Ms. Ellen Diamond (name used with permission) of Port Jefferson, N.Y., sent to that newspaper
"Jeff Bezos's comment in his Oct. 29 op-ed, 'The hard truth: Americans don't trust the news media,' that presidential endorsements 'create a perception of bias' is, to my thinking, incorrect. On the contrary, such endorsements demonstrate thoughtful deliberation and evaluation of candidates. These result in a well-considered choice based on thorough understanding of each contender's strengths and weaknesses.
"By declining to do this, The Post has failed in its responsibility as an important source of news and commentary."
Further, one major thing that folks read newspapers for is to get the opinions of the individual columnists, as well as the Editorial Boards as a whole, on various issues like, let's say, the role of dictatorship in a Constitutional Democracy, the propriety of having a convicted felon (and not just one conviction) running for President, the importance of climate controls for the future of our nation (of which increasing sectors are becoming increasingly/dangerously hot in summer), whether Israeli Nationalism should be given even more of a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians than the Biden Administration has, should there be a Federal/national abortion ban --- and if you believe Trump's (sometimes) "no" on this one, to quote a long-time "offer" on this one, I've got a bridge in Lower Manhattan I can sell you).
And now on to the promised Brief Comments (well, more or less brief), in no particular order of importance.
As noted above, Trump's main campaign themes, played out sotto voce, but, to repeat, of course in words that his followers understand oh-so-well: racism, mysogyny, xenophobia, Xtian Nationalism/abortion banning: Hate; Fear; and what I call "petit-bourgeoisieism:" that is that an earlier generation of immigrants who "have made it" simply do not want to be associated in any way with newcomers of the same ethnic group.
It is obvious, with his proposed appointments, and his outside the legal/Constitutional government destruction tag team of Musk and Ramaswamy, that destruction of the Federal government as we know it, to great benefit of himself and his cast of (regulated) billionaire supporters, is his principal objective.
Do also note the following:
On the inflation rate as a reason for the Trump win, as it happened, the Current Annual inflation for the 12 months ending September 2024 was 2.44%. Inflation is down from the June 2022 peak of 9.06. But, who cares about facts?
Trump's appointees, very briefly, represent an old radio program called "Amateur Hour:" they are boot-lickers or Far-Rightists or both. Rubio, Noem, Stefanik, Zeldin, Hegseth, Gaetz (that he and the House Repubs. do not want the "Ethics Report" released tells you all you need to know about Gaetz' Grabbing --- if there were nothing there, of course he would want it released; he withdrew from the nomination as I was finishing up the editing on this column), Linda McMahon (perfect for wrestling with the teachers' unions as she sets about the destroy public education),
Why does Trump want recess appointments? Primarily (as is well-known): NO hearings.
Merrick Garland "played fair," that is he waited to start actions against Trump until he, Garland, had all his ducks in order. Failed completely to take into account Trump's very well-known delay-delay-delay tactic (which is one of his "Seven Magic Tricks," this one learned from Roy Cohn). This Trick worked to a fare-thee-well.
Not a mandate (again): Click Here
That "sanewashing" by the media --- that ignoring so many of Trumps' "off-the-wall" episodes --- was a major factor. They just him get away with "stuff" over-and-over again..
As is well-known, Trump has been elected/re-elected as a convicted felon/sex-offender, and a person found liable (for a very large sum) for sexual assault/defamation. These facts reflect the power of the above prejudices in leading him to victory.
Additional issues he used were: tariffs, opening public land to petroleum, drilling, cutting way back on alternative energy sources, ending the "Green New Deal." They likely did not mean too much to the majority of the voters who went with him.
PLUS, to consider, post-Election:
Separation of powers IS different from concentration of powers, even in a capitalist country
BUT, don't just blame the voters. If the U.S. did not have a political party running on fear, racism, and xenophobia, the voters would not have one to vote for. Also, when is the last time you saw the GOP running FOR something that would benefit large segments of the population? (See next week's column.)
And further:
The "actual malice" requirement for libel suits (that the person charged with lying knew they were lying) will be repealed by the Republican Congress. Trump will then go after media licenses; and [certain] newspapers.
Would another candidate, a Jew from PA, a woman from MI, do better? Nah. The Dems. did not have an ideal candidate: a non-White woman. And so, prejudices came out where they might not have otherwise. E.g., for some Spanish men: Catholic, abortion, misogyny, the "petit bourgeoisie." For some Blacks, the same as that last one. Why were the polls not reflective? If you are a racist, a misogynist, or both, you surely are not going to tell that to a pollster. Some of us thought that Trump would beat himself in the campaign. Why didn't he?
Again, racism, misogyny, anger, and his repeated lies, especially about the economy (low unemployment, low inflation, high stock market), worked. low unemployment, low inflation, high stock market. Deportation? Nah. Border will be made tighter. BUT: Canada will close its border; Mexico will build a wall and pay for it.
IMPLEMENTING PROJECT 2025 One critical summary of Project 2025 says: "Project 2025 is a 920-page document that outlines how a conservative administration can reshape the federal government and the country according to a Christian nationalist vision." The plan, supported by former Trump officials and organizations, includes a detailed 180-day agenda to purge and replace federal workers and policies." The latter in particular is a key indicator of what a 2nd Trump Administration would do to overturn Constitutional government just like that: they would repeal the Civil Service Act of 1883, and amended, fire tens of thousands of civil servants, and replace them with political appointees. One of the principal objectives of that Act was, of course, to prevent that from happening ever again.
Ukraine? Can you say Putin-in-Lvov? How's your Polish? Remember: Putin has the pee-tapes.
Media's fear of Trump: Bezos, and etc. (Not just fear; skyrocketing of fortunes the day after Trump win).
Are bets already being taken on how long it will be before Trump really goes off the deep end in public?
Using the Trans issue. Who would have thought? (My, there is so much sexual fear in this country.)
Trump on health and health care: Click Here. Trump lies in virtually every other arena of public policy (except racism, misogyny, and xenophobia), so why should anyone believe him on matters of health care. He will go politically on this one: a national abortion ban ("women should be punished" famous interview with former MSNBC host Chris Matthews), as well as screwing up national vaccination programs, doing what he can to cripple or at least reduce the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act.
And for now, as Porky Pig said in the old Looney Tunes cartoons that I saw as a kid in the old movie theaters: "That's all, folks!"