The challenge as I see it is to reassemble the coalition that took shape in the course of the election as well as welcome people who sat out the election and Trump voters who become quickly disaffected by the posture and policies of the incoming administration. I would add that resistance to Trump and his underlings in the early going won’t be the singular provenance of the left, even broadly understood. The field, I would guess, will be crowded.
During our moment of “fiery trial,” a new vision of a democratic and egalitarian order that leaves no one out and no one behind is imperative. In other words, the challenge isn’t simply to defend our current democratic order from the assault that is surely to come from the new Trump administration, but to make it more fair, equal, and just in the process.
In retrospect, I would argue that Kamala Harris’ political platform was too politically timid. Or said differently, too centrist. Once that became the perception of millions, her claim to be the change candidate stood on thin ground. And that is no place you want to be given the dynamics of this election in general and the popular desires of tens of millions for change in particular.
It is worth noting that Trump’s base isn’t reducible to a bunch of losers in life. Some are facing hard times for sure, but others aren’t. In fact, they’re doing well by most people’s standards. Said another way, Trump’s supporters are a motley crew ranging from billionaires and multi-millionaires on one end to people in economic distress on the other and everything in between. And if we studied them we would likely find that their reasons for liking Trump aren’t reducible to one thing or another.
1. Kamala Harris was dealt a difficult hand to play at the outset of her campaign. Thanks to Joe Biden she got into the race late by normal standards. Had Biden done what many expected him to do and taken himself out of a run for a second term early on, she would have, assuming she won the nomination, given herself time — roughly a year — to introduce herself and her vision to the American people. Yes, she was the Vice President, but that is hardly a high profile position. It can be a graveyard.
2. What is more, the economic headwinds for incumbents, which were severe across the U.S. as well as Europe, put her at a disadvantage. While the post Covid economy had rebounded and gained strength in recent years, popular dissatisfaction persisted. Inflation abated, for example, but prices remained high. And people were confronted with that reality every time they went shopping for food or to the gas station. This pernicious dynamic translated into the undoing of many sitting governments across much of Europe. In nearly every case, by margins far exceeding those of Harris.
3. Biden’s historically low popularity hovering around 40 per cent, despite “notable” economic achievements, put her at a disadvantage as well. And while Kamala wasn’t the president, she was, as Vice President, fairly or unfairly, connected to these negative perceptions of the administration. If you doubt this, consider it counterfactually: if Biden’s popularity had been over 50 per cent, and if consumer prices had fallen back to pre-inflationary levels, and if employment levels remained more or less the same, and if wages continued to trend upward, and if she had a year to introduce herself to voters would the outcome been different? I can’t speak for the reader, but I believe it would, notwithstanding the pernicious role of racism, misogyny, transphobia, and xenophobia, and other factors that negatively brought down her vote, while adding to Trump’s.
4. In saying this I’m not suggesting that the awful stench of racism, misogyny, transphobia, and xenophobia is of no consequence. To the contrary, I would argue that they were an integral part of an intertwined knot of attitudes and beliefs that shaped voter attitudes and choices before and on election day. I guess we will find out as more information becomes available, but for now it is too big a stretch for me to believe that the unconcealed, unrelenting, crude and unapologetic tropes offered up by Trump provoked only grins, laughter, high fives, and a desire to proudly wear a red hat on one’s head, but didn’t deeply inform political perceptions and voter decisions.
I’m not a historian or sociologist, but it strikes me that to make such a claim flies in the face of historical experience. It smells like gaslighting. Or, said differently, it minimizes the most pernicious forms and effects of racism as well as misogyny, homo and transphobia, and xenophobia that have left an unmistakable mark on every aspect of American life, including voter attitudes. To give a little historical perspective, what accounts, for example, for the voting patterns in the South? What explains its political backwardness? Is there an explanation for the cast of characters in the Senate and House that Dixieland sends us every two and four years since our country’s founding that doesn’t include racism, not on its explanatory edges, but at its center?
Do we really believe as some suggest that Trump’s decision in the closing weeks of the campaign to double down on the most vile forms of racism and misogyny was of no election consequence? While some of his advisors counseled otherwise, Trump, attuned to his audience and the larger dynamics of the election, ignored their advice and let loose an avalanche of the most dehumanizing invective, the likes of which haven’t been seen in modern presidential politics. Nothing close!
Indeed, there were no boundaries, no line beyond which he hesitated crossing. The viler the better. In his calculus, racist and misogynist, anti-immigrant and anti trans stereotyping and tropes that are at the core of Trump’s being would drum up votes. And, I believe, he was right. For much of his base, it was music to their ears. It gave voice and legitimacy to their unspoken thoughts and everyday utterances. To suggest that it didn’t play a significant role in mobilizing Trump voters, to suggest it has nothing to do with Harris’ defeat is not only mistaken, but profoundly dangerous.
5. The gender gap figured far less in the election’s outcome than many, including myself, hoped. The support among white women for Kamala turned out to be less than the polling suggested leading up to election day. Trump’s position on abortion didn’t prove to be his undoing among white women. Much the data would suggest that many who opposed any abortion ban turned around and cast their vote for Trump. As a result, Trump’s advantage among men wasn’t countered by the votes of women against him. This, along with his significant support from Latino men and a cohort of young men, especially young white men, was one of the tipping points in the election’s outcome.
6. Finally, to say that the Democratic Party and Kamala “abandoned” the working class and labor movement strikes me as political hyperbole that does nothing to help us understand the outcome of the elections nor prepare us for what lies ahead. Kamala offered in her political advertising and her numerous rallies — and she was indefatigable — a series of working class proposals, each of which would improve the lives of working people. Now one could quarrel whether they went far enough, whether they challenged corporate profits and governmental priorities enough. And I would. They were too timid in my view, not far reaching enough. But to say that she turned her back on the working class is another question that has to be answered with a resounding NO. Where is the evidence? To say that her campaign was submerged in “identity politics” finds little evidence in fact. One could argue, in fact, that the attention paid to and vocalization of “identity politics” was too muted by her as well as her supporters. If anybody doubled down on identity politics it was Trump. And It was of the most vile kind with no precedent.
I would only add that “identity politics” is another name in my book for the struggle for human and democratic rights. Moreover, the struggle for them is at the core of the struggle for working class and people’s unity. Ignore the former, forget about the latter.
