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Democrats
and liberal pundits are already trying to figure out how the Trump campaign
not only bested Kamala Harris in the “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest and
the Rust Belt, but gained on her even in areas that should have been safe
for a Democrat. Almost everywhere, Donald Trump expanded his coalition, and
this time, unlike in 2016, he didn’t have to thread the needle of the
Electoral College to win: He can claim the legitimacy of winning the
popular vote.
Trump’s
opponents are now muttering about the choice of Tim Walz, the influence of
the Russians, the role of the right-wing media, and whether President Joe
Biden should not have stepped aside in favor of Harris. Even the old saw
about “economic anxiety” is making a comeback.
These
explanations all have some merit, but mostly, they miss the point. Yes,
some voters still stubbornly believe that presidents magically control the
price of basic goods. Others have genuine concerns about immigration and
gave in to Trump’s booming call of fascism and nativism. And some of them
were just never going to vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
But
in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality
show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of
wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might
have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters
never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than
electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.)
His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a
giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing,
impaired grandpa.
Back
in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,”
the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to
participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile
to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and
to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes
led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible
voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to
involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these
charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored,
relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply
uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.
And
so it came to pass: Last night, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires
grinned and applauded for Trump. They were part of an alliance with the
very people another Trump term would hurt—the young, minorities, and
working families among them.
Trump,
as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of
these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of
government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as
president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to
truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other
impediments to enlarging his power.
Americans
who wish to stop Trump in this assault on the American constitutional
order, then, should get it out of their heads that this election could have
been won if only a better candidate had made a better pitch to a few
thousand people in Pennsylvania. Biden, too old and tired to mount a proper
campaign, likely would have lost worse than Harris; more to the point,
there was nothing even a more invigorated Biden or a less, you know, female alternative
could have offered. Racial grievances, dissatisfaction with life’s travails
(including substance addiction and lack of education), and resentment
toward the villainous elites in faraway cities cannot be placated by
housing policy or interest-rate cuts.
No
candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real
interest in such things. They like the promises of social revenge that flow
from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic “I will fix it”
solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he
supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs. (I knew Harris was in
trouble when I was in Pennsylvania last week for an event and a fairly
well-off business owner, who was an ardent Trump supporter, told me that
Michelle Obama had conspired with the Canadians to change the state’s vote
tally in 2020. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part of the conversation.)
As
Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it in a
social-media post last night: The election went the way it
did “because America wanted Trump. That’s it. People reaching to construct
[policy] alibis for the public because they don’t want to grapple with this
are whistling past the graveyard.” Last worries that we might now be in a
transition to authoritarianism of the kind Russia went through in the
1990s, but I visited Russia often in those days, and much of the Russian
democratic implosion was driven by genuinely brutal economic conditions and
the rapid collapse of basic public services. Americans have done this to
themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high
living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a
hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along
with such delusions.
The
bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The
last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately
competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool
noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule
with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to
own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
Those
voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be
unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was,
after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number
of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his
vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
Trump,
unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has
triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters.
Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is
any to be found.
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