Observations

On Tuesday's event:

1. I've seen some comments about the "mysterious" disappearance of 15 million Biden voters from 2020 this time around, with implications about that election being stolen.  Calm down, there are still over ten million votes to be counted, with two-thirds of them in California.  The final total turnout number will be close to 2020, though probably a couple of million short.  Because most of the remaining ballots are in Democratic states I expect that Trump's margin in the popular vote will be 2-3 million rather than the nearly 5 million as it stands now.  The extreme D lean of California, Oregon, and Washington continues.  As of now, Trump leads in the other 47 states by over seven million votes. 

2. Trump gained nationally and it is remarkable how much individual states moved towards him since 2020.  Here are the Top 10 in percentage moves from 2020 to 2024:

California (12.0%)

New York (11.6)

New Jersey (10.9) 

Maryland (10.4)

Florida (9.7)

Massachusetts (8.8)

Illinois (8.6)

Mississippi (8.4)

Texas (8.2)

Rhode Island (7.3)

This is huge movement, much of it in the bluest states.  In terms of overall margin, Trump came closer to winning New York than Harris did to winning Texas or Florida.

3.  The large Hispanic, and smaller Asian gains, by the GOP indicate that the Democrat strategy of increasing racial divisiveness, and making race essentialism a permanent fixture in our society, is failing.  That is a very good thing for this country.

4.  Saw this X post from Matt Yglesias, a Democrat liberal of the old style.  As to his nine points, I agree with all of them.  Problem is they are much closer to the Trump GOP than today's Democratic Party.

What is far more telling is that the Democratic Party has explicitly branded itself AWAY from all nine of these points over the last decade. https://t.co/UvdiidbftO

— Jeff Blehar is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) November 7, 2024

 

 

5.  To the above point, the class of political activists, public employee unions, foundations, NGOs, and billionaires that fund the Democrats will not change course.  They will continue to blame all disagreement on misinformation, racism, and sexism and continue to work hard to suppress opposing viewpoints. They may try to hide their core beliefs more, as Harris did during this campaign, but their authoritarian ideology will not change until such time when they become accountable for their behavior.  Here's an example from Laura Helmuth, editor in chief of Scientific American, which she posted on Bluesky the night of the election:

"I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists"

"Solidarity to everyone whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high school classmates are celebrating early results because fuck them to the moon and back."

"Every four years I remember why I left Indiana (where I grew up) and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist.  The moral arc of the universe is not going to bend itself."

Today she deleted those comments and posted this:

I made a series of inappropriate and offensive posts on my personal bluesky account on election night, and I am sorry.  I respect and value people across the political spectrum.  These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs; they were a mistaken expression of shock and disbelief about the election results.  These posts of course do not reflect the position of Scientific American or my colleagues. I am committed to civil communication and scientific objectivity.

Under Helmuth's stewardship, Scientific American has descended into an advocacy rag, losing its once-vaunted credibility.  In Helmuth's world, civil communication means agreeing with her beliefs and scientific objectivity is that which reinforces her beliefs.  She has all the right credentials; before taking on her current post Helmuth was Science Editor of Smithsonian Magazine, Health & Science Editor of the Washington Post, and President of the National Association of Science Writers.  I think it is pretty clear her real sentiments were expressed on election night.

 

6.  Who is going to work for Trump in the White House and federal agencies?  Personnel is policy.  Does he have the personnel with the right talents?  Will he appoint people who actually understand how to effectively manage a hostile bureaucracy?  Will he appoint nutcases like RFK Jr?  It's particularly important because Trump is not an FDR type president.  FDR was a master manipulator, while Trump gets manipulated by the people around him and isn't interested in details.

 

7.  In retrospect the great strategic mistake made by the Democrats in 2016 was their approach towards the Trump candidacy and presidency.  During the campaign they stoked hysteria about The Donald, creating a demonic figure who would end democracy and let loose the brown shirts to march in the street.  For a couple of days after the election Senator Schumer, who knew Trump better than any other national politician, made conciliatory statements about trying to work with the new administration, just prior to the inauguration warning the president-elect that the intelligence community "have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you", prescient advice considering the conspiracy launched against Trump by that bureaucracy.  Schumer knew that schmoozing and flattering Trump works best to get what you want.  Trump likes to make deals, but he's not that concerned about the substance of the deal, believing he can publicly sell whatever he agrees to.  Over the thirty years before 2016, Trump had been on every side of every issue, except trade, and been a strong supporter of Democrats.  He had no fixed views other than what he would opportunistically seize on.  Moreover, I believe he was surprised as everyone else that he actually won in 2016 and was unprepared to run a presidential administration.  A perfect situation for a savvy negotiator like Schumer.

 

However, word quickly came from the Democratic establishment that it would go the Resistance path, obstructing every administrative action, refusing to normalize his actions, and launching the Russia collusion hoax.  They created a real conspiracy against a gullible and conspiratorial minded president.  The consequences have proved terrible, not just for the Democrats, but for this country.  Hillary Clinton, the Intelligence Community, Adam Schiff, and the New York Times could not have done more damage to the credibility of American institutions if they'd been paid agents of the Kremlin.  Putin must have delighted in seeing America devour itself.

 

8.  It was encouraging to see voters in deep blue California decisively reject the craziness of the Democrat agenda.  They kicked out of office the pro-crime prosecutors in LA and Alameda counties, and a referendum proposition to reinstate harsher criminal penalties won 70% of the vote (a few days before the election Harris was asked about her position on the referendum; she declined to answer).  In 2020, the same voters defeated by double digits a Democrat ballot proposition to delete the anti-discrimination provisions of the California constitution. 

A strange advantage the Democrats have had in recent years was their agenda on issues like race, gender, censorship, immigration, and crime had become so insane and extreme that older liberals, and younger people who paid less attention to policy, would simply disbelieve anyone who described what the D policies actually were because you sounded crazy talking about it.(1) Its very extremism formed a protective shield.  Maybe that is changing.

 

9.  One positive about the Trump victory is avoiding the Trump/Bannon crowd immediately claiming the election was stolen.  They would have done so regardless of whether there was supporting evidence.  Making stuff up is good enough for them.  It's just what they do.  We are fortunate to have avoided the chaos they would have created.

 

In 2020 Trump lost because of the white suburban vote shift nationally, something that also happened here in Maricopa County.  There is no big mystery to what happened if you look at precinct data.  But Trump and his crowd didn't care. 

 

10.  Having won, will Donald Trump eventually drive the bus off the cliff as he did in 2020?  My betting is yes.  He's the same guy, with the same characteristics and behaviors, and he's now 78.  Trump is not changing his ways.  As an example, if there is a recession on his watch he will respond poorly, lashing out at everyone.  

11.  Though I disagree with him on some issues, there is no question that when it comes to smarts, policy knowledge, and the ability to speak in coherent sentences, JD Vance stood head and shoulders above Trump, Harris, and Walz.  He should be a viable contender for the 2028 nomination.  However, Trump's history provides a cautionary note.  Trump always wants to be the center of attention, the unquestioned boss who demands absolute loyalty.  Should he decide that Vance is getting too much attention, too big for his britches, or wavering in that absolute loyalty, Trump will publicly demean Vance and demand JD kowtow to him.  Chances are he will destroy Vance's future career before 2028.  Anyway, he probably wants Donald "Fredo" Trump Jr to succeed him.

 

12.  What happens after Trump's term?  It is his party now but there is no one on the scene with the same combination of weird charisma, attitude, style, and inattention to the details of policy and governance that has led to his success.  Those who, since 2016, have tried to imitate him, like Kari Lake, have failed.  And, if his administration is a failure, he will leave rubble behind.

 

And for that post-2028 world we must also realize that while we know what Trumpism or MAGA is from a rhetorical and attitude perspective, we have no idea what it means from a policy perspective; nor does Trump.  Its substance remains unknown because it is dependent upon Trump's impulses at any particular place and time.  You can't pull his 2024 campaign statements into any coherent overall picture and even if you could, it is no guarantee of what he will actually do come January.  For instance, you can make a good case that on foreign policy Trump was the best president since the end of the Cold War, though that is said less in praise of him than as an indictment of the foreign policy establishment of both parties over the past three decades.  But the thing is that Trump's 2016-20 performance has no relationship to what he might do in 2024-28 because it's all improvisation and impulse.  I have no ability to predict what he might do; nor do you.  It means no GOP candidate in 2028 has any idea what they might inherit.

 

13.  I leave you with two final observations.  

The first from Holman Jenkins, writing in the Wall St Journal in 2019:

Mr Trump is said to upset the norms of our political life, but how exactly?  By lying? By engaging in demagoguery?  By making absurd claims?  His real trick has been to be a one-man satire of our politics.  And so far he has yet to find an opponent or critic - whether Mr Biden, or Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney - who doesn't prove his point.

To show what a liar he is, his enemies entangle themselves in lies.  Democrats have turned themselves into a party of Adam Schiffs, who, whatever his previous virtues, now is wholly defined by his promotion of the collusion canard.  It's an amazing psychological feat to squander their advantage over Mr Trump in this way.

Ditto the media.  In their eagerness to traffic in falsehoods about Mr Trump, his media critics lend him strength.  We face the weird prospect now of a world-class scandal involving the FBI and the intelligence community being aired even while much of the press is committed to being part of the coverup.

The second from Henry Kissinger in 2018:

I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.  It doesn't necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.

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(1)  Try telling someone that Biden's first order of business was revoking a Trump Executive Order that allowed federal employees to be trained about diversity and the benefits of multiculturalism but forbid training based on racial stereotypes and scapegoating.

Try telling someone that Biden issued an Executive Order requiring any AI used by the Federal government incorporate racial and gender bias and stereotyping.

Try telling someone that Biden issued regulations ending women-only sports and facilitating the transing of elementary school children. 

Try telling someone that the Biden administration advised a pro-trans activist medical organization to drop its draft recommendation that puberty blockers and other dangerous medications not be given to those 14 and under because such a recommendation could be damaging politically.  And the organization, WPATH, followed Biden's advice!

Try telling someone about the efforts by Biden to censor opposing viewpoints on social media and about the FBI monitoring, as potential terrorists, parents who objected to the inclusion of race essentialism in public schools.

Here's Andrew Sullivan, a gay man who did not vote for Trump, on the nuttiness:

It matters when the elites decide to re-educate the masses in Neo-Marxism. Young men are sick of being pathologized, as they should be. Urban residents — from San Francisco to New Jersey — are maddened by Democrats’ seeming indifference to violent crime. And one of Trump’s most effective ads — “it shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Mr. Trump’s favor,” according to the NYT — was on Harris’ support for public funding for sex reassignments for illegal aliens and prison inmates. It packed a real punch among black and Latino men and suburban women.

The Democrats’ insistence that women have penises and men give birth is perhaps the most insane position any major political party has ever taken in US history. And how exactly do you remain a pro-woman candidate when you favor boys competing against girls in sports and women prisoners being forced to share intimate space with biological men convicted of rape? At some point, as Harris found out, you can’t. But can she and her party extricate themselves from this hole they keep digging ever deeper? I doubt it.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

For a while, it was difficult to get people to accept that the Biden administration opened our borders.  It was a brilliant stroke for governors of border states to start shipping illegal immigrants to sanctuary states and cities, finally waking up more people to what was actually going on.