He's back. (Credit: by Jim Watson / AFP)
“He watched the play with great intensity,” wrote Cormac McCarthy in All the Pretty Horses. “He’d the notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not. There was nothing in it at all.”
This captures so much of today’s strangeness. A great jolting reality check has once again been delivered to all those who convinced themselves that something else was in store because their gut — or their centrist prophets — had told them so.
Many of us have spent the past few months watching the great American drama play out on our screens, wondering what it was that we were missing in this supposedly transformative figure of Kamala Harris, destined to prosecute Donald Trump out of history — even potentially with a “blowout” victory for the ages.
Harris was deeply impressive, we were told. She spoke to the soccer moms of America. The suburbs were rallying behind her. Her choice of Tim Walz was inspired. She was brat. The Republicans were weird. Nancy Pelosi was a genius for getting rid of Joe Biden. Biden was a giant who had saved American democracy. Abortion was the issue which would crush Trump. And yet, here we are. Fox has called the election. Donald Trump will be president again — only this time with a new electoral coalition behind him that has the potential to transform American politics not just for a term, but for a generation.
And here’s where I depart from McCarthy. While there certainly seems to have been very little to the story of Kamala Harris, the climax of the Trump show does tell us something about what the world is becoming.
This is not 2016, it is something more seismic. That first Trump election was but a tremor it seems, the disaffected white working class merely the first group to break from the old order before the stampede to come. This time, Latinos, African Americans and the young appear to have followed suit, with as many as one in three minority voters backing Trump. For so long we have been told that demography is destiny and that the Democratic Party was en route to an unbeatable rainbow coalition, as if the policies they were offering did not matter. That narrative should now be put out of its misery, Canadian style.
Harris was a poor candidate with almost no discernable message, parachuted in to save an unpopular administration on the unbelievable basis that she did not offer continuity but, apparently, change. It was a fundamentally bogus offer.
“The climax of the Trump show does tell us something about what the world is becoming.”
It seems remarkable to say it, but Trump was the substantive candidate in this election offering a critique of the incumbent’s record. What was the Harris message of this election? What was the substance of her trade, immigration or foreign policy? What was it that she offered other than the fact she was not Donald Trump? She was an actor, a cypher. By the end, her offer amounted to a single issue: abortion. It wasn’t enough.
For much of the past decade, Trump stalked his former party with messages about the border, trade and “woke”. The Democrats knew the threat and nominated Joe Biden as a holding figure in 2020 who would see off Trump before passing on the baton to the next generation. And then, it turned out, there was not a new Biden able to assemble the old Democratic coalition. Now an entirely new one needs to be assembled.
Trump is currently on course not just to win the electoral college (a plus 95% chance according to The New York Times) but the popular vote itself, a scenario deemed implausible only yesterday. It looks like he will sweep all the battleground states and more besides. Though this is no Reagan landslide, Trump is making inroads far beyond his 2016 base. He is winning in the New York suburbs and among conservative immigrants.
Ultimately, Joe Biden was right that his vice president was a weaker candidate than he had been and Obama was before him. Harris was weaker than Hillary Clinton, too. The Democratic Party’s presidential nominees are getting progressively worse. Some Democratic analysts were arguing overnight that Harrris had been denied the time to introduce herself to the American public. But this only reveals the depth of their denial. Biden was no longer fit for the presidency and would surely have lost by an even greater margin, yes. But Harris was only as plausible as she was because she was parachuted in at the last moment. It is surely the case that the emptiness of the drama she offered could only be sustained for the mini-series we got.
Trump on the other hand seems to have improved as a candidate. He has honed his message without abandoning its essential themes. He was no longer promising to ban all Muslims arriving in the US or promising to get Mexico to pay for a border wall. Yet everyone knew that voting Trump meant tighter immigration restrictions, protectionism, anti-wokery and opposition to foreign entanglements: a potent combination in any democracy. It may not be true, but that was the message.
This is important because America means something in the world beyond its borders — and not just because of its power. It acts as a great distorting mirror, offering an image of humanity that can appear grotesque in its violence and inequality and churning, revolutionary individualism. But like any good caricature, it captures something about humanity in its endless, anarchic strife. Trump horrifies many outside the United States, but like Tony Soprano or Walter White, all the more so because they see something in him that they recognise. He is a portent. Harris is little more than her caricature on SNL.
For years, it has been the European Left which has been taking its politics from America, adopting the manners and assumptions of the imperial hegemon, seeking its respect. Now, surely, it will be the Right which is empowered, much as happened in the Eighties. The European Union is already following Trump’s protectionism and immigration instincts. With Giorgia Meloni in power in Italy and Kemi Badenoch stalking Keir Starmer in Britain, expect a coalescing of Western conservatism.
What now for the homeless centrists? What of the podcast kings for the liberal left-behinds who were predicting a Harris sweep — or even for the polling chiefs running 80,000 simulations showing Harris marginally winning in some implausibly precise number? My prediction: they will remain and they will continue to herd.
Even before the results started coming in, Nate Silver was accusing pollsters of “backfitting their data to match the polling averages, regardless of what the survey actually said”. And yet, this is what we all pored over before the election, instead of concentrating on the policies of each candidate and how they will affect the lives of those inside and outside the United States. For the false prophets, there is, of course, the consolation of decline, the idea of history still moving in an ordered direction — with them being on the right side, of course.
For the next four years, though, the great American drama is back with a dark new series. A new story is unfolding. We are back in Trump’s world and we don’t yet know what he is going to do with it.
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SubscribeI have difficulty saying I am happy Trump won, I have mixed feelings about it.
But I am happy that Kamala and the Dems lost. She was “competent” and “impressive” in the same way that I am going to fly off today to live happily ever after on Pluto. A more inane, incompetent and inept candidate I never did see.
It would have an a tragedy of epic proportions for her to be the first female POTUS and a setback for women, as she was grist to the mill of all those who say women can’t lead. So bye-bye Kamala, we are happy to be unburdened by what has been with your useless contributions to the world.
Now, Tulsi Gabbard…that’s a woman who’s capable of it! Smart, articulate, courageous, tough, relatable – I think she’s amazing. I think she is going to have a stellar career.
The Dems need to be put through the wash. I won’t go into the reasons why I think this, I think we all know them. Whether they’ll be smart enough to finally go through the phase of introspection they should have begun in 2016 when Trump won the first time remains to be seen. The signs are, they’re reaching for the same old responses and the same old tired insults. Well that’s their problem – if you don’t want to understand something, you won’t.
[Random bit of US political trivia for y’all, seeing as I’ve been inhaling American history this year: Trump is only the 2nd POTUS in history to serve non-consecutive terms. The 1st to do so was Grover Cleveland. If you win a pub quiz with that, you owe me one, OK?]
Superb Katharine.
The article itself is also a fine analysis by the best political journalist in the UK, or perhaps anywhere.
I agree 100%. Great article and summation of this very strange election drama. Only in America….or maybe not.
Speaking as an American, this drama has been…interesting. I hope we don’t do it this way again.
I agree with all of your comments (as usual). The main reason that I’m comfortable with the result is because – like Brexit – it will “p*ss off “all of the right people :).
The Democrats are going to have to rethink their identity politics policies. The use of “Communities” both in US and here assumes that these are homogeneous groups who all think the same and encouraged to think of themselves as victims rather than people who care about cost of living, jobs the same as most groups. This is not an appealing offering if you are looking to improve your lot and that of your family.
“Community” is the most dangerous word in Western Civilization.
Along with Infrastructure.
‘Disinformation’ is right up there too.
But how many activists and vested interests are going to argue that the Party wasn’t ‘progressive’ enough? After all it might be too difficult to admit they were simply ‘wrong’.
[avuncular chuckle]
I have to concur. Never have liked Trump. I don’t think he goes nearly far enough in his populism. I think he’s largely a con-artist. Still, I have to appreciate the resounding rejection of globalism and identity politics. The Democrats need a new message and new leadership, but I have a feeling it’s gonna have to get a lot worse for them before that happens.
Well, yes, that’s good but will they behave any differently than when they lost that debate or when Trump won first time or when Johnson won?
The lack of introspection on the Left over the last decade (in particular?) has alarmed me.
Nice one. Agree. One day may be these self serving twonks will Geddit, not holding my breath …..
Spot on. I’ve just been watching a CNN segment in which some bloke was going on about “it’s all down to sexism and racism.”
They are just never going to get it that people are worried about real problems not invented ones
Barak Obama won two elections by substantial margins. So much for the racism explanation for Kamala’s loss. And when a woman is nominated with depth and leadership skills, and not Hillary’s baggage and Kamala’s vacuousness, it will put an end to the sexism explanation. The excuse that anyone who votes against them is sexist or racist, and not someone with policy differences, is just another way Democrats try to win election by insulting voters.
Did you also know that Grover Cleveland won his first term after surviving a scandal that many thought had killed his chances? That gave rise to the fun chant, “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” during the race, and after his election to the rejoinder, “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.”
Grover Cleveland entered the White House as a bachelor who had (though he denied it) fathered a child out of wedlock, and his former lover entered an asylum. As president he married at age 49 a 21-year-old woman who was his ward, being the only president to get married in a White House ceremony. His personal life may seem a little rascally, but he was actually known for honesty and integrity during a period of political corruption.
Here’s a harder trivia question than yours — what other presidents ran for another non-consecutive term, but lost?
John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson also married while president, though both were widowers not bachelors.
As to former presidents running unsuccessfully for a non-consecutive term, Millard Fillmore and Theodore Roosevelt come to mind. Are there any others?
Good catch. You are right about John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson. I should have said Grover Cleveland was the only president to hold his marriage ceremony in the White House. Several other people have had White House weddings, but only one president.
Good also on Millard Fillmore and Teddy Roosevelt. Martin Van Buren also ran for a nonconsecutive term, twice in his case, as did Ulysses Grant, who served two terms but ran for a nonconsecutive third.
I don’t really appreciate the snide opener to that comment. It was unnecessary.
I am sure it was said on jest.
Go Grover!
Hurrah for Maria! Hurrah for the kid! We voted for Grover & we’re d*mned glad we did.
Grover Cleveland also holds another unique record—the only president who was also a hangman. As sheriff of Buffalo, New York, Grover Cleveland personally operated the lever of the gallows during two men’s executions.
Theodore Roosevelt ran for a non-consecutive term I’m certain. I think Martin Van Buren ran as a third party candidate several years after he lost his reelection campaign as well. Those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head.
I like Tulsi Gabbard too, but I think she has probably peaked in her career. She is one of those people who sound good but don’t know how to get things done. Bobby Kennedy is another. And of course, as you note, Kamala Harris is the queen of non-accomplishment.
Except that to be queen would be an accomplishment . . .
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
‘I have mixed feelings about it’ – feelings are all you seem to have about it.
Under Biden and Harris healthcare coverage expanded, caps on drug prices were enforced for senior citizens, investment in public services rose, alongside wages (albeit unfortunately outstripped by inflation) – to name but a few things that were achieved for ordinary Americans. What exactly then is Trump’s record on materially benefitting working people, besides trillions in fruitless tax cuts to the super rich? Please tell me, I would be genuinely gladdened to hear it!
Gap between income of poorer workers and the rich decreased for first time for decades.
Investment in public services, such as? Numbers of bureaucrats rocketed for sure.11 million illegals walked across the southern border, COVID deaths doubled in Biden’s first year, and he stopped the US being self sufficient in energy, going cal in hand to KSA for help.
‘What exactly then is Trump’s record…’ – rather than me do your research for you, read Victor Davis Hanson’s “The Case for Trump”. Seriously. Please! There you will find OODLES of examples of what Trump achieved. The book is updated with a long introductory chapter that brings the story up till mid-2024.
Tax cuts go to those who pay income taxes. Under the US progressive tax structure, the top 10% of taxpayers pay over 70% of all taxes, arguably better than “their fair share.” The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay only 2-3% of all income taxes. If you cut taxes, and leave the money in the private economy for saving and investment, the cuts are not “fruitless”; the entire economy benefits, including the 50% who pay almost nothing in income taxes, but need a strong economy to prosper.
This kind of hints at why I still don’t actually think that my gut feeling that Trump was a moment in time – and that moment had passed – was wrong, per se (though I’ve certainly been mulling over why it may have been).
I think that the Democrats very much lost, more than he won.
I’m someone, were I American, who would vote for a literal block of wood over Trump. Almost literally anyone (or anything) would be a less bad option, to me.
But even I have to admit to being a tad concerned about the failure to return to a more classically liberal tone on the part of the Democrats, and what that would mean, in terms of societal trajectory, if they won.
This is besides being severely unimpressed, to say the least, that they initially tried to run someone so clearly in cognitive decline we can’t even blame him for that decision at all (and I feel bad that was done to him; he deserved a more dignified end to his career).
I still don’t think a vote for Trump was the better way to go. But it’s truly the Democrats who deserve the most blame for not making themselves the much better option, instead of just the only option for someone like me (who would absolutely, most likely always, take literally any option over Trump).
Perhaps when your TDS recovery is complete you will be able to see things more clearly.
I appreciate your thoughtful comment, sir, even if I don’t agree with some of your points. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Thank you! I also appreciate your being similarly open to thoughts that differ from your own (says Ms Clementine).
For all their talk about democracy, the Democrat party is killing it. Firstly, America is a Republic, not a democracy. Yes, we have a “one man, one vote’ paradigm, but if you cannot see the sinister, dark MO of the Democrat party: no democracy as they pushed out Biden; no democracy when the elite decided among themselves to install their candidate; no honesty to acknowledge Biden’s dementia until a sudden “Damascus Road” conversion; likely one of the worst Vice Presidents miraculously becoming the “Poster Candidate of “Joy”; and I could go on. The real American citizen has begun to see through, I wish it was only a charade, but the real Democrat party and where it was taking America. We said ENOUGH.
Let’s not skip over weaponized phony accusations against political opponents, censorship, mass jailings, d intimidating lawyers from representing their clients, stripping attorneys of their bar membership for political reasons, lawfare that utilized denial of due process. And of course:
Invading the nation with millions of undocumented unlawful immigrants at tax payer expense.
And sending said illegal immigrants en masse to live in swing states.
Also the promise to enlarge the SC to suit the Democratic Party, talk of cancelling the First Amendmentt, of cancelling the electoral college, these were Dem proposals not Trump’s..
What completely puzzled me about the block-of-wood is that Andrew Sullivan nailed it: a (non-) choice between malignancy and mediocrity. And yet so many (including even Sullivan himself) said: therefore, vote for the mediocrity. I don’t get the “therefore” bit.
It’s not complicated at all. The Democrats are the party of corporate America. Corporate America has been making money hand over fist for three decades during the globalist era. They don’t want any change. They want open borders. They want money to flow freely across borders so they can avoid taxes. They want to be able to exploit workers in what Trump so eloquently called s***hole countries, pay them next to nothing, then import the goods back tariff free to pocket the profits. Where do you think rising inequality comes from exactly?
The corporations and multinationals lined up behind Biden in 2020 to get rid of Trump. Trump has had fewer large donations than any modern President. People know these things and draw the obvious conclusion. Harris has the same backers that Biden did. It’s good to remember that this is basically a binary choice. There are two real possibilities and anyone who wants to affect the outcome must pick one or the other. Trump’s election doesn’t mean people love him or even like him. He’s just the one they dislike the least. The American people don’t want more of the same globalist crap. They are dissatisfied and want something else. Trump is something else. He’s an alternative. Maybe not the best alternative, maybe not even a good alternative, but he’s not what they hate most at this particular moment. I wouldn’t read much more into it than that.
I’m comfortable with the Trump win if only for the fact that Tulsi Gabbard appears to be positioned to gain an important role in the new administration. I’m hoping for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.
Maybe, but I would be stunned if Tulsa Gabbard got an important role. Her only real experience is as a Congresswoman from Hawaii, and she did little in that office. She is bright and pleasant to listen to, but has shown no ability to get things done.
Well she made mincemeat of Kamala in the last primaries…. I’m sure you would call that a low bar but look how quickly Kamala rose.
I don’t call winning debates or giving speeches or holding meetings or winning elections accomplishments. I want to know what Tulsi Gabbard has gotten done in her life. Any business built or run? Any deals negotiated? Anything that gave her executive experience or showed executive talent? I’ve looked for that in her career, and I’m not seeing it.
When I was an executive I asked our CFO to go to Japan and get our subsidiary there to improve their numbers. She did, and when she came back she said she had a productive three days. I asked her what she did and she said she had back-to-back meetings. But what did actually do, just talk with people?, I asked. Yes, she said. So, I said, you not only wasted your time but the time of all the people you met with. It was true. The numbers didn’t improve.
Good ideas and brilliant plans are commonplace, everybody has them. What’s important is the ability to execute — ie, executive ability. The ability to find and lead people to get things done. And that’s rare.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have that ability, in spades. I’ve seen no evidence that Tulsi Gabbard does.
“I have difficulty saying I am happy Trump won,”
Taking that idea and expanding it a bit, it’s hard to *like* Trump: I suspect that even the majority of his supporters feel the same. But in both instances (Clinton, Harris) his opponents were very unlikable in some hard-to-describe way. Trump at least comes away as genuine–a genuine super-sized ego, maybe, but there’s nothing perhaps hidden about him, nor does one imagine he’d even bother very hard to consider your opinion of him, beyond appreciating his ability to govern.
Note that I’m not saying that he actually *has* this ability–though one can argue that his first term demonstrated this somewhat–merely that one of the few things he cares about in terms of your opinion of him is his ability to govern.
I agree with most of that. Well done.
I particularly agree on Tulsi Gabbard. That is some woman, and it says a lot about the Democrats that they were happy to see the back of her.
She belongs elsewhere, and if and when she gets there, the sky is the limit.
Her commercials were some of the most generic schlock I’ve ever seen. Price-gouging? Really? Across the board inflation as a result of price-gouging? Making billionaires pay? How? A wealth tax? Taxing international financial transactions? We all know the corporate backers who put Biden in office wouldn’t allow that. Kamala actually ran a commercial that accused Trump of siding with corporations and the super rich, when anybody who wasn’t living under a rock for the past eight years knows that the major corporations lined up against Trump from day one. He has never enjoyed the approval of the super rich, the establishment, the multinational corporations. In fact, they’ve done everything humanly possible to stop him. It’s insulting that she thinks anyone, educated or not, would believe that the candidate backed by the super rich and the corporate world wasn’t the candidate of the super rich and the corporate world. Elon Musk and the handful of millionaires/billionaires who supported Trump were and are simply those who saw which way the wind was blowing and reckoned it was better to be at the right hand of the devil than in his path.
Kamala never had anything resembling a campaign platform, just more of the same. Trump is bad. Trump is rich. I’m a minority and a woman. Vote for me. This was all she had. No plan for how to help the working class. No transformational legislation to bring blue collar jobs back to the US. No intention of securing the border. No new policy of any kind. Biden at least had that much. Her problem was that she was pinned between her financial backers and the public opinion. The winning policies that Americans would support are basically all anti-globalist, anti-corporate now, but she can’t or won’t go against her corporate backers. She’s smart enough not to openly embrace unpopular policies. Standing up for her real policies would only make things worse. So, she pounds on the table and belittles the other guy. People are never quite as stupid as the ruling class wishes they were.
If this doesn’t serve as a wake up call, I’m not sure what will. Were it not for Trump’s notable and historic unpopularity and his history of being a terrible human being generally, this could easily have been a worse defeat than the Democrats suffered in 1980. The public has rejected globalism. The globe has rejected globalism. There is no foreseeable future where there’s one big world with no borders and everyone gets along. Will they have the humility to accept defeat? Can the people wrest control of that party from the hands of the billionaires, corporations, and bureaucrats as the Republicans have? I suppose we’ll see. It’s more than a little late, but late is still better than never.
I’m going to enjoy a Trump win for purely selfish reasons. I’m going to enjoy it watching Hollywood’s liberal elite lose their freakin minds over it!
The idea that those people, Hollywood people, should recommend who the nation votes for is so absurd, so utterly ridiculous, it takes my breath away.
To Donald I say welcome back. You have a better supporting cast this time around. Now you need to deliver.
My enjoyment comes from seeing Liz Cheney lose. I can’t stand her, or Adam Kinzinger. They turned into two of the most repulsive, self-righteous people in politics.
Don forget that Liz and Adam and the rest of that execerable J6 scam are corrupt, too!
And expect there are a lot of J6 victims who are hoping to be out of jail in 2 months.
What are you most looking forward to him delivering? What did you most enjoy him delivering last time?
What did I enjoy him delivering the last time? A strong economy. Low-unemployment for minorities and working class workers. Reduced income inequality by helping those at the bottom rather than punishing those at the top. The Abraham Accords. What did I not enjoy? The chaos generated in significant part by those who refused to accept his election (calling for his impeachment even before he took office), the politicization of the CIA and FBI, not to mention Hillary, who tried to win by spreading the Russian collusion story. Oh, and Trump’s bombast. Big deal. We aren’t voting for a new best friend. We vote for policies that will benefit the country.
Yes a geat mix of relief that the voting system is still functioning – though it’ll never be perfect, and watching the TDS cry-bullies freak out! I have been emailing requests to legacy radio shows in NY, CA etc to play “Wisconsin Death Trip” by Static X and dedicate it to demrats – especially harris. No takers as yet – ironic that demrat and left leaning radio plays a lot of gangsta rap and some rocknroll too… how does that play with their bosses in Iran and Hamas?
The voting process in the US needs a major overhaul and soon. Who knows what the real results would have been? I followed voting on X and there were plenty of irregularities reported, photographed and videoed.
It’s pretty clear what Donald Trump is going to do when he’s in office, or even before. One big thing he will do is talk to Volodymyr Zelensky and to Vladimir Putin and make an effort to stop the war in Ukraine. Another is that he will talk to Benjamin Netanyahu and make an effort to bring peace to the Middle East. For the past four years the American president was missing in action. Not anymore, starting now.
Hezbollah has been firing missiles at Israel just this morning. One penetrated the iron dome.
Yes on the first, doubtful on the second.
I hope you’re right. I do. But Netanyahu seems pretty cheerful about the result.
I’m not sure Donald Trump will be successful in Ukraine or Israel — both those wars are tough, tough problems to solve. But I’m sure Donald Trump will try. He can’t help himself. The man is a dynamo.
Poor Joe Biden, by contrast, was a zombie president. It was pitiful to see him visit Ukraine and Israel. He was just there for photos. No engagement at all.
“What now for the homeless centrists?”
The centrists voted for Trump. The ‘woke’, people who do not want moderate policy on things like immigration, didn’t.
Stop pretending.
Yes I was going to post this. I was always socially liberal and economically centrist and I would have voted Trump for sure. I considered myself centre left for decades. The left has moved much further left.
Defeated by their own snobbery, just like the remainers. Hilarious.
JD Vance as the new VP.
There’s a bonus which bodes well for the future (as well as RFK and Tulsi Gabbard on board)
The coming of J D Vance may well be the most consequential result of this election.
I don’t think JD Vance will do much as vice president. The job really is an unimportant one. Under the Constitution the vice president has only two jobs. One is to be a lady in waiting. The other is to break tie votes in the Senate. Truly the office is only worth a bucket of warm, er, whatever.
“…Harris was a poor candidate with almost no discernable message, parachuted in to save an unpopular administration on the unbelievable basis that she did not offer continuity but, apparently, change. It was a fundamentally bogus offer…”
Replace ‘Harris’ with ‘Starmer’, and ‘administration’ with ‘party’ in the snippet above (you can leave the ‘she’ in, as a sop to Starmer’s obfuscations about sex and gender), and the same conclusion is valid. And yet here we are, lumbered with a bogus government ensconced for the next five years, just because we the public wanted to oust the party of the preceding bogus governments.
Trump will likely give Starmer a bloody nose.
Absolutely, and Lammy as well. I have seen all that stuff about Starmer and Lammy getting on well with Trump over a chicken dinner – omitting the fact that the chickens in that case would have been Starmer and Lammy, plucked and stuffed – with Trump apparently behaving effusively. But that is to miss the point about Trump. Anyone who has read anything by Trump will know that was expected behaviour. But Trump will unquestionably exact revenge in private by setting humiliating terms for both going forward, including requiring them to become supplicants. If they don’t comply, he will take the humiliation into the public domain and the UK will suffer.
Yes, and tools in Labour Party decided to double down on offending next president by sending Labour activists to meddle in USA elections.
The sooner David “mastermind” Lammy is sacked the better for uk.
Unfortunately main tool will be still here.
This is not a mistake Blair, or Mandelson, or even Cameron would have made because they were all socially savvy and understood the psychology of the people they were dealing with. Johnson made some uncomplimentary comment about Trump in the company of other leaders like Macron, but got lucky with timing because Trump lost, otherwise Johnson (and the UK) would have paid a price. With Johnson it was carelessness. With Starmer and Lammy it’s dumbness – but it’s the UK that will pay the price, for example if they ever go for a trade deal.
Maybe uk should send Lammy as ambassador to Papua New Guinea?
They love fatty porker on a spit.
Yummy or Lammy.
Whatever.
Possibly literally. Which would make for good TV.
He has the founder of MMA on his team!
We’re stuck with Starmer for 5 years unfortunately. The best to hope for is that he will see the writing on the wall for the next election and row back on some policies – but I doubt it.
I see that Kemi is already goading Starmer about Trump in PMQs.
Stopped at the headline. The democrats were not complacent – they don’t listen. Even now they are not listening. They worked their bubble hard. But that bubble is not mainstream America
Their strategy was to squeak out a less-than-popular win with policies no one liked, and in retrospect it looks like a bad strategy, but well, they didn’t lose by that much and if it had worked, Tom McTague would be lauding their amazing campaign efforts.
I think the real difference maker was Musk, whose anti-fraud tools checked some of the worst of the Dems cheatery.
It has been obvious to me for some time that if the Democrats were deliberately trying to hand the election to Trump then they couldn’t have done a better job.
In their zeal to promote the most extreme elements of the progressive agenda they have tacked so far left on keystone issues like immigration, drug policy, crime, Title IX etc that they have repulsed even many of their own former natural constituencies.
To add to which Harris was a hopeless candidate parachuted in when the lie about Biden’s competence could no longer be sustained. Her refusal to engage on any policy issues or the Biden-Harris administration’s record was a tactic which backfired spectacularly, not least because mainstream news outlets don’t have a monopoly any more.
Tina Fey used to do a funny bit as Sarah Palin playing a flute because she is so vacuous she mistook an election debate for a high school talent contest. Harris has basically been the progressive equivalent of Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin.
Watch the mainstream media lashing out…. Trump lied is the take. They simply don’t understand that people are seeing through this unholy marriage of liberal governments and corporate media.
The mainstream media hasn’t yet caught on to how irrelevant the mainstream media increasingly is.
I watched CNN into the wee hours of the morning, and it was baffling how out of touch those people were. They just couldn’t grasp that Donald Trump had pulled off his victory. Instead of shock this time there was bitterness. But, thankfully, no signs of real anger.
Yes, I spent some time watching CNN too. I never watch legacy media except for clips on YouTube or X. I made an exception as I had such an urge to gloat!
Great post.
I am on my fourth bottle of wine (plus some extras) since yesterday.
Happy days, listening to woke idiots crying into soya latte about Kamala loss.
This useless cow was part of fraud on American people by promoting Biden as mentally fit to be president.
She should be charged with treason.
What about doctors who claimed that Biden was fit for office?
They should be strucked off medical register as minimum.
Charged with treason imo.
“Complacent Democrats assured him victory”. Wrong, Mr McTague!
Trump was assured of victory because millions of people in the USA endorsed his vision and rejected the corrosive DEI politics of the Democrats. Trump’s victory was not a passive consequence of Democrats’ complacency – it was an active victory, won by his accurate appraisal of the aspirations of the US electorate.
Hope for the West has once again arrived on the horizon after long years of darkness perpetrated from within.
Agree about the active victory and most of the Dems did not vote Dem because they wanted Harris and gang but because they had been brainwashed by the MSM into TDS.
Well, it was still close if you consider how poor Kamala candidacy was.
With better Democrat candidate it would be much closer.
I hope that your predictions are correct.
Although it has to be long term project.
We need Vance to become 2 term president to suppress woke poison in USA system.
In his victory speech he said “I hope that you’re going to be looking back some day and say that was one of the truly important moments of my life when I voted for this group of people beyond the president, this group of great people”
This is a different Trump. This time it appears to be about putting the right team in with people like JD Vance, Elon Musk, Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard and others helping work towards getting the right team in…
Can we hope to see Mayor Khan leave the UK now, as he promised to do if Trump won? Though what US politics has to do directly with him he does not say. Also I think our Foreign Secretary must resign now. His unstatesman like, intemperate language regarding the new President ill becomes his office and will probably disadvantage our relationship with the US.
@Lame Duck Lammy
Thank you for the reminder about Khans pledge. We’ll see if he’s true to his word. I wouldn’t bet on it though. Lammy, what an embarrassment for the UK now.
Lammy, foreign secretary ? What a silly pr*t.
Listening to CNN what kind of country America has become to elect Trump you can see cognitive dissonance within many people who are used to power and privilege regardless of election results. Demonising Trump will simply increase their propensity to delude themselves of their own moral superiority.
I’ve just been perusing the Graundiads comments pages, and my goodness it’s hilarious; the hand-wringing, the disbelief, the cursing, the weeping and wailing . . . So Sweet! It’s like a prayer really.
I don’t care very much about Trump one way of the other, but instinctively if the left are wetting the bed about it, then on balance it’s probably a good thing. Pile some money into the S&P500 and ride the wave, baby.
Yes, I am going to buy Guniard and New Statement tomorrow and have a great laugh reading cries of woke idiots.
They sure are. Clinton was awful but you could see how it had happened.
Biden was an OK candidate but he was an enormous risk because of his age and, more importantly, his lack of acuity which was very visible even in 2020. The Democratic machine didn’t want him, they picked him only because they were terrified of Bernie and, even then, they had to get up to some pretty dirty tricks to do it.
But a competent party which had been compelled to run a candidate in such poor health would have done some succession planning. A competent party would have thought long and hard about who it was going to have as its VP.
It wouldn’t have picked Harris in the first place
If it had picked Harris, it would have made real efforts to build her up – hand her some easy wins. Make her the face of something, anything, good. Not only did they not do that, they gave her the border to fix and zero political capital with which to do it. That was either political malpractice or, more likely sabotage on the part of Team Biden.
It was obvious in 2020 and very obvious by the midterms that Biden wasn’t going to make it through another election, let alone another term in one piece. A competent party would have forced him to retire and either hand over to Harris so that she could build her own reputation or allow at least the appearance of a competitive primary. They allowed Biden to block that and then they stood by as he marched forward to the debate and immolated himself.
This was a historic masterclass in politcal incompetence. There is culpability all over the floor and up the walls. The Dems are already blaming this on misogyny and racism, they will, no doubt nominate other patsies as soon as they’ve had a few hours sleep. But this was a car crash in slow motion and they did it to themselves.
One way to think of it is that 2020 was acoup and Biden was the face of the junta leading the coup. Biden lost favor with junta leadership and was replaced by Kamala’s opportunism. She assumed the junta would hold together to “win” again in 2020. However without a pandemic to give a figleaf of cover more censorship and “election defense” to the extent required in 2020, Kamala’s inherent emptiness could not be hidden. Trump, despite near100% major media effort, was able to get his message out.
Think of this: he was nearly murdered twice and the dog whistling for violence against Trump only increased. And media was complicit.
Kamala proved that her message, like her joy, are both empty and saccharine .
Trump, warts and all, has already proven himself once, and frankly worked his ass off.
He has earned it. He won it. He deserves it.
Agree with this, but why make no acknowledgement of the achievements of Biden’s administration for ordinary Americans? Instead this is just piling in on the utterly one-sided stream of Dem-denigration that the herd here has automatically degenerated into, rather than try and instigate a serious discussion of which administration would have been better for working people based on their previous records.
Perhaps you don’t think now is the time, but all this does in my opinion is fuel the ‘all as bad as each other’ perception which the biggest rogues win by.
Clearly ordinary Americans did pretty badly under Biden. Wages never caught up with inflation, for example. Promoting the trans movement wasn’t very good for ordinary people who are not suffering from various delusions..
And that point was made by, of all people Larry Summers, about six months back.
Robert Reich and his ilk had been out doing a media round scolding Americans for not being more grateful that wages were now growing a bit faster than inflation.
Summers published a paper saying that this was entirely due to the current measure of inflation which left out the cost of interest. This meant that it was ignoring, the real cost of housing, car finance, student debt and even medical debt – all of which were ballooning.
Basically, almost everything that was actually driving inflation. If you used the previous measure of inflation, then inflation had reached 18% in 2022 and it was hardly surprising that ordinary Americans were furious.
Great point. BidenHarris achieved the first invasion of the United States.
BidenHarris set up one of the largest domestic censorship regimes in American history. The largest censorship ever in peace time. BidenHarris achieved a stronger Iran. BidenHarris kept more US citizen political prisoners than any other Administration. BidenHarris ended Trump’s reform of diabetic medication so he could reinstall it to his credit. BidenHarris was the first Administration to collude with multiple jurisdictions to wage lawfare against a political opponent.
BidenHarris achieved many firsts indeed.
Simply because the point I’m making is about politics rather than policy.
If you genuinely believe that Democrat policies were better, fine. But if you also believe that Donald Trump represents an existential risk to the future of American democracy then it is incumbent upon you to bring your A-game to the business of defeating him. It is incumbent upon you to build a coalition that wins. They didn’t.
The Dems’ didn’t run on their record. Their political strategy was rooted not in policy but in the proposition that they were “the good guys”. If you are going to run that strategy then you are acutely vulnerable to evidence that you are either, no better than anyone else or, in some sense worse.
For example, there is very little daylight between the Biden/Harris and Trump positions on Israel. But that position hurt Harris rather than Trump because the Democrats are claiming to be the good guys. This is a position that is difficult to reconcile with providing the very bombs that are being dropped on children.
And incidentally, that observation holds true irrespective of what you personally think about Gaza. The objective point is that Harris depended on pro-Palestine votes more than Trump did.
A night of the long knives for the dems.
It’s still the economy, stupid.
Trump won because the electorate saw that the ‘progressive’ approach with its commitment to Globalisation and Green growth was leaving them poorer, less secure and in many cases destitute.
The ‘Identity Politics’ is much less important than the media and liberals want us to believe.
I am pleased, despite the reservations that anyone must have about his character, that Trump won, because he may offer an alternative to the decline of the working class.
And because his foreign policy is more likely to make the world safer than the empty moralising of Obama/Biden.
“…it turned out, there was not a new Biden able to assemble the old Democratic coalition. Now an entirely new one needs to be assembled…”
Look, forgot the Democratic coalition, if the Democrats had not burned their bridges with Musk, they could have assembled a new Biden in one of his Robot factories.
McTague bang on the money again. Especially the bit about Biden knowing that Harris was a dud and unfit for office. Too bad he was as well….
Tom, Trump is a known entity. He doesn’t fly off the handle on policy. He is one of the few leaders in the West who actually prioritizes the citizens of the country that elected him. He doesn’t do censorship. He doesn’t do thought crime. He doesn’t do racist policy. He believes in basic biology. He thinks everyone should have equal opportunity. He dislikes war.
Please explain the darkness in that.
Just nothing on poverty and the fact that 60% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck?
He’s anti-abortion, anti-woke. Wonderful.
I woke up this morning utterly delighted by the news of Trump’s victory. I’m relishing the prospect of low inflation, high employment, sensible immigration control and Middle-Eastern peace, and the demise of woke word salad fascism.
“We are back in Trump’s world and we don’t yet know what he is going to do with it”- The statement is not strictly correct- the best predictor of future performance is past performance.
It was not compliancy that cost the Democrats. They realised that the gap was not going to be sufficiently narrow for them to steal the election this time.
The first rule of election fraud, if you think there is a good chance you may lose, don’t try it
I don’t think the Dems were complacent or ‘dropped the ball’ as they say. The Dems were just being their ‘anointed’ progressive selves as Thomas Sowell explained thirty years ago. They think that people that don’t vote Democrat are morally and intellectually inferior. How else can you explain why voters wouldn’t support the clearly superior political vision of the Democrats? The Deplorables as identified by Hilary in 2016 have failed the Democrats again – pure and simple – and worse, appear to have spread their unacceptable views to previously dependable voters.
However, the scale of Trump’s victory and the clear majority in the popular vote just doesn’t budge the ideological needle for the “It’s not me, it’s you” Know Betters. If Trump follows through in any meaningful way on what he promised we’re looking (hopefully) at the demise of progressive totalitarianism but even at ebb tide expect them to double down on their crusade against the non-believers.
I woke up to this great news this morning. If I was somehow able to offer Trump one piece of advice (yeah, I know, fat chance), I would ask him to hire better people this time for the top jobs in his administration.
Hire deeply loyal people. Hire competent people and turn them loose to get the job done. He can set the direction and receive the praise, but put some hard core conservative operators into the senior levels of the federal government and start the slow job of finally draining the swamp.
In his interview with Joe Rogan that’s what Donald Trump said was his biggest mistake — not hiring good people.
Yet everyone knew that voting Trump meant tighter immigration restrictions, protectionism, anti-wokery and opposition to foreign entanglements: a potent combination in any democracy.
Well, yes, which goes back to this contention: his political legacy will be less about Trump himself and more about the dysfunctional system that made his candidacy and wins possible. A healthy republic would have no place for him and he would have no interest in governing it. But the republic is not healthy. The damage, as people have noticed, is almost exclusively the work of a professional political class and its permanent bureaucracy.
When asked what was good in life, Conan responded “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of the progressives”
Interesting essay. The points it makes are at odds with its conclusion, however.
The numbers aren’t finalised, but the glance I had suggested Trump mostly held where he was in 2020 in terms of vote totals, with a handful of improvements in key swing states, but mostly still not breaking through to win over too many Democrat voters.
Harris, on the other hand, performed worse than Biden in most states. The Democrats simply didn’t get the vote out in the same volume as 2020, something that was visible in the early voting numbers.
The post mortem will be whether it was the lacklustre Biden term in office, Harris’s unlikeability, or disgust at a party aligned with the Cheneys? Though the news is about Trump, the reality of the loss is that the Democrats failed to repeat the votes they got last time.
Given the enormity of the result, the next big question will be what to do with Washington DC, the heart of Federal government, and a city that voted 92% Democrat (again) with only 19,000 Trump voters among its inhabitants. Surely the seat of government should better reflect the politics of the country it governs?
No matter which way DC votes, DC must never become a state. That really will end the Republic
If you look at Democratic vote this time against 2020 how can you seriously believe that Biden was so popular, when not really campaigning?
It looks like electoral fraud.
I was always against conspiracy theories, but it stares you in the face.
Trump wrote the essential book on comebacks. It’s among his many NY Times Bestsellers.
Amazon: Whether you love him or hate him, one thing is certain about Donald Trump: He is a true American original, with great instincts and billion-dollar dreams. “The Art of the Comeback” is Trump at his best–unpredictable, irreverent, and irrepressible.
Publisher : Times Books; (October 27, 1997)
Language English
Hardcover 244 pages
ISBN-10 0812929640
ISBN-13 978-0812929645
Best news possible for Reform.. worst for Starmeroid!
Last night as the returns came in I watched several well-spoken and apparently thoughtful political commentators explaining why it was that Trump was poised to win. They posited concrete reasons, like the economy: current generations had never experienced a period of inflation, and while it’s true that inflation has abated greatly, it’s bite still smarts. This seemed bogus: an attempt to explain that while the economy is by historical measure not bad enough to be a negative influence for an incumbent, it really *was* the economy, stupid.
But it was much simpler, I think: many voters in widely dispersed areas found Harris to be less likable, less authentic, than Trump, improbable as that sounds.
That was sufficient to prevent her from being elected.
The last paragraph of the piece is disconcerting.
It very much remains to be seen whether this election represents a deepening of the spectacle, the ‘portentous masquerade’, or something more substantive.
Rejoice!
One question springs to mind that no one has so far asked, why didn’t Sunak delay the general election
Have posted this elsewhere but think appropriate here too:
For all those who doubted, those who said Trump was toast, or that Desantis would do better, or that Kamala had it in the bag because she’s brat or because Taylor Swift endorsed her, all I can say is, in the words of the late Bobby Heenan, ‘I’m not the kind of the guy to say I told you so, but I told you so!’
DEI dies
Trump as President? Wonderful, can’t wait to see 2TK and his woke entourage grovel and scrape. Oh, and only hope beyond hope for POTUS to put down amoeba Lammy for his racist attack!!
Elon Musk for a place in Trump’s administration then…
…President in 2028?
You heard it here first.
I don’t think that is his aspiration at all.
It is impossible for Musk to become President.
Yes
Elon Musk is a talented person but you wouldn’t want him in government. He would be terrible at it. He can’t give a speech. He doesn’t care what other people think. He doesn’t know how to do deals. He’s not a people person, and that’s what politicians need to be. He’s a Mr. Spock.
His weaknesses are similar to but different from Trump’s but is his catalogue bigger than Trump’s? I’m not sure, either way. However, my tongue in cheek comment might still have come back to haunt but, as he was born in South Africa, I think he is automatically not eligable to be president. Shame really. 🙂
Apparently you were only watching the regime propaganda if you believed this –>” Harris was deeply impressive, we were told. She spoke to the soccer moms of America. The suburbs were rallying behind her. Her choice of Tim Walz was inspired. She was brat. The Republicans were weird. Nancy Pelosi was a genius for getting rid of Joe Biden. Biden was a giant who had saved American democracy. Abortion was the issue which would crush Trump. And yet, here we are.”
You may need to crawl out of your bubble, especially if you wish to understand the America between the coasts. Yes, we vote, too.
You may need to realise that isn’t the authors opinion, but that of the message that was being portrayed of Harris’ campaign by her supporters
A good result in the way that it will give RFK Junior the legitimacy to get rid of the evil that rules in the FDA and CDC. Hopefully he will stop these crooks from doing any more harm to their Citizens.
My brother Stateside, who’s done a lot of calling for the Dems over the years and helped turn Georgia in 2020, struggled in Wisconsin recently. He’d warned party bosses three years ago they were losing touch with non college people but they didn’t pay enough attention..
We also need to remember that because of the cult of personal responsibility over there and the refusal to acknowledge socioeconomic class, those who’ve got on via college or not, strongly if implicitly look down on the others. Not so much second class citizens as invisible. Until…..
It is strange; travelling outside the US, I do not think that I have met anybody who liked Pres. Trump let alone anybody who would vote for him. Yet, he on three separate occasions has commanded a popular vote of above 70million and in the current election he even had a majority in the popular vote which is virtually unheard of, for a Republican.
The only reason I can see is that everybody outside the US believe the New York Times and the CNN’s of this world, MSM – biased and fake. The US has now moved on into the internet and Podcast world which is filled with right of centre News and Information,
Reading the comments, it is hard to believe that President Trump was elected in 2016 and led a very successful presidency with no wars, excellent economy with significant improvement in the minority situation. Oil self-sufficiency, significant reduction in illegal immigration and major modernisation of the military. I would have thought the US would be glad to have him back, with all the experience and know-how that was gained. That seems to be the case.
What would have happened if Biden had carried on?
Even bigger Trump victory.
[Deleted]
As usual, the faults and errors of the losing party are now being exposed.
It is intesting how gleeful peoople are about the suffering of the Liberals. You would almost think they had voted Trump mainly out of spite: that they did not really believe he would make their lives better (probably a correct judgement) but that at least they could make other people’s lives worse.
The media is going to make much about this being an era-changing election, but it really wasn’t anything of the sort. It was a typical American throw the bums out election. The Democrats had become so toxic that even large swaths of their coalition, Hispanics and Blacks, abandoned them.
The Democrats got what they deserved. Biden promised to rule from the center and bring people together then ruled from the far left domestically and as a cold war neocon internationally, saddling Americans with DEI, gender politics, inflation, and a needless war in Ukraine. He then conspired with his advisors to stay in office when he was clearly incapable of a second term. When it became painfully obvious he was unfit the party thought they could foist his DEI pick of a vice president on the country, and she couldn’t maintain a stage-managed charade of competency for more than a month.
The people would have voted for anyone, and they did. Trump is a convicted felon, a moron, a buffoon and a neo-fascist, more Mussolini than Hitler. I suspect what we will get is the usual Republican playbook, of tax-cuts and deregulation with a Trumpian frisson of chaos. I don’t think he will do any real damage or change much. Unless there is a crisis, and there are a lot of potential crises around the world waiting to explode. Keep your fingers crossed.
I’d like to know how you would have avoided the neeedless war in Ukraine. The only option I can see would have been to force Ukraine to capitulate to Putin – or to refuse to help them, which would amount to the same thing. Are you really happy with Putin rebuilding the Russian empire?
Well, starting with Clinton we could have foregone the policy of pushing NATO up to Russia’s border. Biden could have used diplomacy to negotiate a settlement that would have given Russia the Crimea and the Donbass and guaranteed Ukraine would not join NATO. What you call capitulation I call making peace. Hundreds of thousands of people have died and billions in American taxpayer dollars have been wasted in a useless war that when it is done will result in Russia getting everything they wanted before the war.
FYI, the buffoons just lost the election. Jerk.