Judging only by the names and resumes of Trump’s proposals to fill top government positions, this isn’t a normal transition of power from one democratic government to another. The incoming administration doesn’t fit on the same bourgeois democratic continuum of its predecessors. To put it another way, it’s a different political species, precisely what kind we can’t say at this moment, but that will come into view in the early going, I suspect.

What we can say, generally speaking, is that the new administration comfortably takes up space on another continuum that is right wing extremist, racist, misogynist, homo and transphobic, xenophobic, authoritarian, christian nationalist and led by a strongman. Will it be in the mold of Orban’s Hungry or Putin’s Russia? Or Mussolini’s Italy? Is Trump a fascist? He has many of the markings. In any case, brace for an assault of unprecedented scope and depth, the likes of which we have never seen.If I’m wrong, I will be so happily!

As I see it, Trump and his administration will largely set the agenda and shape the terrain of struggle as we move into the new year. The popular movements and coalitions will find themselves in a defensive posture, protecting rights and victories secured in earlier times from a right wing extremist authoritarian onslaught. At the top of the Trump administration to-do-list is his much promised assault on the immigrant community, the scale of which we haven’t seen in modern times, probably never. At the same time, I would be surprised if the administration doesn’t move quickly on other fronts as well — legislative, executive actions, trade wars, and the pruning of (or should I say taking a sledgehammer to) the federal government.

What isn’t clear to me is the degree to which the authoritarian, fascist minded strongman will use the state apparatus to exact retribution against his opponents in the state and society. Internationally, it is also hard to see anything good happening on Trump’s watch. In the current two war zones, both the Palestinians’ and Ukrainians’ battles for national rights and justice got more uphill, to say the least. The confrontation with China will likely grow worse as will the political and economic tensions with Canada and Western Europe. Trade wars will break out. The further ascendancy and aggressiveness of right wing authoritarian rule at a global level will gain new momentum and confidence. Any hope of minimizing the worst effects of climate change will be lost. Finally, collective efforts to address global poverty and the proliferation and control of nuclear weapons will flounder.

Against this congealing storm of vengeance, retribution, economic contradictions, war, and counterrevolution, the challenge, it seems evident, is to reassemble at the local, state, and national level the far flung coalition — including Never Trumpers — that took shape in the course of the just completed election. Such a reassembly should include people who sat out the election and Trump voters who hopefully become disaffected by the policies of the incoming administration. In other words, the resistance/opposition to Trump and his underlings in the early going won’t be the singular property of the left or progressives, even broadly understood.

The field, instead, will be crowded and the forms of struggle will be many. And the Democratic Party will be in the middle of the mix. Only a big ship with more than one captain can navigate the country to a safe harbor and a just future in current circumstances. And while we don’t have either Lincoln or Douglass or Tubman onboard this time, we have a rainbow of able, astute, and democratic minded leaders to steer the ship through stormy seas to a safe harbor where freedom bells, we hope, will once again begin to ring!

“It’s tempting, in some ways, to do the same for the election result as a whole—to normalize it by putting it down to prosaic explanations like the impact of inflation and the anti-incumbency mood that has swept through most of the democratic world. Those factors are of course very real. Inflation, in particular, acts as a cipher for a much wider range of perceptions, not only of immediate hardship but of unfairness and powerlessness. But we must not lose sight of the much larger consequence of Trump’s victory: it decisively shifts the idea of who is a normal American.” Finton O’Toole — New York Review of Books

O’Toole has a point here, but he overstates it in my view. He makes it — the new normal — sound like a settled matter. But such an assertion is premature. What is “normal” remains still a contested matter. The election didn’t settle this. Trump and gang have the upper hand to be sure, but no one should underestimate the opposition which numbers in the millions and possesses resources of hope and resistance. The “new normal” is still to be decided.

As I see it, Trump and his administration will largely set the agenda and shape the terrain of struggle as we move into the new year. The popular movements and coalitions will find themselves in a defensive posture, protecting rights and victories secured in earlier times from a right wing extremist authoritarian onslaught.

At the top of the Trump administration to-do-list is his much promised assault on the immigrant community, the scale of which we haven’t seen in modern times, probably never. At the same time, I would be surprised if the administration doesn’t move quickly on other fronts as well — legislative, executive actions, trade wars, and the pruning of (or should I say taking a sledgehammer to) the federal government.

What isn’t clear to me is the degree to which the authoritarian strongman will use the state apparatus to exact retribution against his opponents in the state and society.

Internationally, it is also hard to see anything good happening on Trump’s watch. In the current two war zones, both the Palestinians’ and Ukrainians’ battles for national rights and justice got more uphill, to say the least. The confrontation with China will likely grow worse as will the political and economic tensions with Canada and Western Europe. Trade wars will break out. The further ascendancy and aggressiveness of right wing authoritarian rule at a global level will gain new momentum and confidence. Any hope of minimizing the worst effects of climate change will be lost. Finally, collective efforts to address global poverty and the proliferation and control of nuclear weapons will flounder further.

Against this fast forming storm of vengeance, retribution, economic contradictions, war, and counterrevolution, the challenge, it seems evident, is to reassemble at the local, state, and national level the far flung coalition — including Never Trumpers — that took shape in the course of the election. Such a reassembly should include people who sat it out and Trump voters who hopefully become disaffected by the actions of the incoming administration.

In other words, the resistance/opposition to Trump and his underlings in the early going won’t be the singular property of the left or progressives, even broadly understood. The field, instead, will be crowded. And the Democratic Party will be in the middle of the mix. Only a big ship with more than one captain can navigate the country to a safe harbor and a just future in current circumstances. And while we don’t have either Lincoln or Douglass or Tubman onboard this time, we have a rainbow of able, astute, and democratic minded leaders to steer the ship through stormy seas to a safe harbor where freedom bells, we hope, will once again begin to ring!

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. The economic headwinds for incumbents, which were severe across Europe and the U.S., 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 this counterfactual: 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?

4. In saying this I’m not suggesting that the awful stench of racism, misogyny, transphobia, and xenophobia would be of no consequence to the election’s outcome. To the contrary, I would argue that no matter what the circumstances they would be an integral part of an intertwined knot of attitudes and beliefs that shaped voter attitudes and choices before and on election day. As for the just completed election, 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, 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 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 his 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, 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 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. Where is the evidence? One could argue, in fact, that the attention paid to “identity politics” was too muted by her as well as her supporters. If anybody doubled down on identity politics, if we want to get to the truth, it was Trump. And It was of the most vile kind with no precedent.

Truth is, as I see it, 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.