Main Edition
US
FR
November 7, 2024 - 5:00pm
On Wednesday morning, Democrats woke up with a hangover after an eight-year-long binge. Despite the consolidation of the whole of the progressive movement around opposition to Donald Trump, his success this week makes him only the second person in American history to have won non-consecutive presidential elections. The size of his victory reveals the magnitude of progressive anti-Trumpism’s defeat.
So whither Democrats today — response or resistance? There are some ominous signs for those hoping for a full-scale Democratic rethink. On MSNBC, talking heads blamed “white women voters” and the “patriarchy” for Harris’s defeat. A piece of news “analysis” at the New York Times opens with the headline “America Hires a Strongman” and warns that “America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history.” That sounds like ingredients for an even stronger resistance cocktail.
In the months leading up to the election, political players in the Beltway were already sketching out a new recipe for the Resistance if Trump were to win. A group called “Democracy Futures Project” led a series of simulations in mid-2024 to lay out strategies of resistance to a second Trump administration. In a column published in the Washington Post, one of the advisors for this project offered a vision of complete mobilisation against Trump on the part of business executives, Government bureaucrats, and local officials. In addition to raising the possibility of mass protests in the streets, the column also proposed a series of sanctions — from legal action to “loss of future employment” — in order to “deter the president’s enablers”.
Despite facing an uphill climb, proponents of a more sober response to Trump’s rise could point to his decisive victory as a sign for necessary changes to progressive politics. A Democratic congressman representing the Bronx, Ritchie Torres, slammed the “far left” on social media and said that “there is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world.” He added: “The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far-Left is selling.” Many of those who hope that Democrats will avoid the debacle of the past eight years have looked to elected officials such as Torres and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as potential leaders for a movement to help the party regain the cultural centre.
Still, these would-be Democratic reformers face major challenges. It’s one thing to rebuke the “far-Left” in the abstract; it’s another to support concrete policies that would break from the vision of identity-politics activists. During the Biden years, elected Democrats often complained about the chaos at the border, but those talking points rarely translated into concrete legislative action. Even the grand “bipartisan border bill” would in fact have created a revolving door for the processing of asylum seekers. Putting a camo hat on the same old policies is unlikely to move most voters.
Eight years ago, the political establishment entered a resistance-fuelled frenzy in response to the rise of populism. Far from restoring “norms”, the daily outrages promulgated by anti-populists made political life even more toxic. They also set the stage for Trump’s triumphant return to the White House.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThis is the big challenge for the Dems. Do they move to the centre or continue on with its radical progressive agenda? I find it hard to believe that the majority of Dems support open borders, DEI and the radical trans agenda, but maybe they do. IDK.
There is zero incentive for the regime media to change course. The industry is one foot from the grave, but whatever financial incentives still exist push it towards polarization, this includes Fox News as well. It’s hard to tell if the regime media is pushing Dems toward the radical progressive agenda, or if it’s the Dems pushing the regime media towards that agenda.
Whatever happens, it will be interesting to watch. Personally, I would support a party that opposes net zero and open borders, but is more inclined to free trade. I think massive tariffs could be a weakness for Trump and could cause financial and geopolitical issues.
The Democratic party, public sector unions, universities, and legacy media is all dominated by the 7% of Americans who subscribe to the progressive-woke religion. The live primarily in the huge coastal metro areas, and work in lap top professions. The vast majority of working and middle class people want nothing to do with their extremism, but they’ve entirely divorced themselves from average Americans. Their religious bubble prevents them from reversing course.
But look out for the “7% of Americans who subscribe to the progressive-woke religion” to double down because they “were not progressive enough”.
Unfortunately, this 7% plays a disproportionately outsized role in the Dem party.
Still banging on about these open borders that don’t exist, Jimmy?
CS is still in willful denial. How predictable.
The true progressives will never change because their ideology is their religion. Much of the legacy media will never change its fervent anti-Trump stance because anti-Trumpism is now a major (perhaps the major) part of their business strategy.
It’s up to less ideological Democrats to reject the ideologues within their own party, but, as the author notes, that’s easier said than done.
My prediction is there will continue to be a strong anti-Trump movement, but the public in general are now wise to, and sick of, their tactics and their unwillingness to focus on bread-and-butter issues most people care about. It might take one more general election defeat, but eventually the hard club of reality will purge the excesses of progressivism from the Democratic party.
Blue states will continue to be run by ProgressIves so they need not be troubled, especially the rich ones.
Surely the voters in those states will notice at some point how much more rich and free people in red states are. Surely.
I’m anticipating some more Democrat sly-trick lawfare. If they declare they cheated in 2020 and Trump actually won, that would mean Tump’s won two terms already (it’s moot that he wasn’t actually in power) so he can’t be president this time. Therefore Harris is the next US president…
“Progressive” bureaucrats and academics are already rewiring their brains so as to ensconce themselves in a new MAGA bureaucracy and academia.
There will be no resistance and identity politics will be forgotten entirely in a few months.
This is good, but I fear the price (electing Trump) is too high.
It would be nice to see Trump getting the jail time he so richly deserves when is sentenced later this month.
Imagine electing a convicted felon to be president? What a world!
The prosecutions of Trump were what caused me to support him. I wasn’t going to vote for President until the Dems tried to put him in jail. Political prosecutions are not what we do in the US.
Nothing political about it, old sport. He was indicted by the local DA and convicted by a jury of his peers.
Or is your fat orange god above the law?
The NY DA campaigned on locking up Trump. A high Biden Justice Department official resigned and joined the NY DA’s office to prosecute. The trial was held in the most Democratic County you could find. The Judge was a major Dem supporter. Add to that the charges were petty nonsense that no one is ever prosecuted for, and you get a political show trial with a pre-ordained outcome. That’s what it was, and the American people saw right through it.
Indicting people for non-existant crimes, denying them due process and applying the law based on what is in effect a bill of detainer is alien to American justice. The fascist reality CS gleefully supports is rather blatant.
CS increasingly kers his mask slips. The fascist ignorant reactionary hatred that shines through is disgusting.
I’ve always assumed it’s a failed attempt at satire (hence the pseudonym.)
Either that or Ben Elton.
The real resistance will of course be Trump himself. He is simply too stupid and lacks the self control to deliver on his extremist agenda. He can’t help tripping over his own feet and his decline from an already pretty low cognitive state is apparent to all. His second term will be an even bigger screw up than his first.
We’ll see how his mass deportations go – I suspect that this will be this go-around’s version of building the wall. It just won’t happen, although there will be some poetic justice when the latinos who voted for this clown start to see their families rounded up and stuck in Trump concentration camps.
We’ll also see how the separation of powers hold up when Trump tries to use the judicial system to go after his enemies list.
What you won’t see is attacks on the capitol in January or attempts to block the peaceful transfer of power or years of whining about cheating that you can’t prove. We leave that sort of thing to you guys…
“What you won’t see is attacks on the capitol in January or attempts to block the peaceful transfer of power or years of whining about cheating that you can’t prove. We leave that sort of thing to you guys…”
Well I’m not one of those guys, but I’ll have to correct you:
Bush 2000- years of whining about cheating from the democrats
Trump 2016- years of whining about cheating from the democrats
Trump 2024- the whining about cheating started early and has continued. The scale of the landslide may abate it somewhat, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Remember huge numbers of Democrats apparently believe Trump hired an assassin to shoot his own ear.
The last 3 elections they’ve lost, the Democrats have whined about cheating, so you’re flat wrong.
Even though I fully expect constant lies and stupidity from you people sometime even I am surprised by the depths you will sink to. Amazing!
I don’t think anyone with single ounce of sanity would compare a few fringe voices to the 4 year campaign of lies and grievance that Trump ran. But I guess that rules you out, eh?!?!
So dumb that you had to vote Trump!
2016: democrats violently rioted at Trump’s inauguration.
2020: violent democrats invaded the White House campus and wounded dozens of Secret Service, and burned a church across the street
J6: Antifa and FBI undercover called for and committed violence and broke into the Capitol, and envouraged others to do the same.
CS, gfy
Well done. You managed to actually say something this time.
I always say something. You just don’t comprehend it.
Leftists are never going to admit that they were wrong. I’m going to buy a Liberal tears mug.
The better term is mutineers. The mutineers will try, and they will learn a lot of things about life.
Well they will certainly be able to spcially isolate people who vote Republican in blue states like California, New York and Oregon which they will continue to run. They may also be handed a boost if the Republicans are stupid enough to attempt to enact a Federal abortion ban.
There is no serious movement to a Federal abortion ban despite he false hand wringing.
The mutineers won’t find such an easy path this time.
Project 2025
One of the most sinister political developments of the last thirty years or so has been an increasing refusal by elites to let the people make fundamental decisions. In our case, the Governments of the day refused to accept the results of the referenda on the Nice and Lisbon EU Treaties and forced the people to vote again. So we have been outliers in this ugly process.
Democrats? Not from where I’m standing.
Democrats, real democrats, exercise loser’s consent; when they lose the vote they pick themselves up and examine why they lost, then start again trying to win people over.
They don’t exercise violent protest in objection to the result.
They don’t refuse to comply with the winning side in an attempt to split the country into ‘them and us’.
They don’t deliberately sabotage, or deliberately fail to implement (this means you, civil service) the policies of the winning side just because they disagreed with them.
The Democratic Party in the US, should it go down the ‘revolution/protest’ route would merely demonstrate that they are no democrats in any way, and are utterly unfit for elected office. (this applies equally to the Republicans by the way)