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 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.
[avuncular chuckle]
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
I don’t owe you one — I knew that Grover Cleveland was, until now, the only president elected to non-consecutive terms. Did you also know that he 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 while president. 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?
I don’t really appreciate the snide opener to that comment. It was unnecessary.
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.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
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’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!
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.
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.
“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.
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.
“…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.
A night of the long knives for the dems.
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
“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.
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…
“…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.
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.
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.
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
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….
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 indistinctively 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.
“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.
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.
What would have happened if Biden had carried on?
Trump is frightening because he is unpredictable and unhinged; Harris is frightening because shed is an appeaser and ideologue. Assuming a Trump win, UK and the whole of Europe will have to choose between stepping up its own defences, or giving in to the forces of barbarism. It would probably have been no different had Harris won.
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.
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.
There was always the unease Harris a weak match-up for Trump. There was a reason Obama didn’t immediately endorse. He and others weren’t convinced. But momentum and limited time meant the Democrats rallied to her cause.
Trump was lucky. Twice he’s beaten flawed female candidates in a Country that still can’t see itself with a female POTUS.
The Author is correct though that the Democrat echo chamber blocked out too much. Most folks don’t follow politics and won’t have been that aware or bothered byTrump’s more incendiary statements. Inflation, esp couple of years ago, what they remembered.
However now he has to govern. And obvious his cognitive decline indicates he’s not the gifts or energy he once had. Be ready to hear more about the 22nd and 25th amendments. He’ll shaft Vance (he can’t stand anyone dimming his own Star) and yet today the first day of JDs 2028 campaign
in a Country that still can’t see itself with a female POTUS.
Of course that would be the reason. It couldn’t be personality, could it? I mean Harris didn’t actually have one and Clinton’s was that of a Hyena. As time goes on you’ll get used to how things worked out and adjust to the world. Or go into therapy, but expect a long waiting list.
Interesting essay. The points it makes are at odds with its conclusion, however.