Further observations on the election

Before the election, when I expected the Republicans to lose badly, I said that doing so might even benefit them since it would force them to confront and try to tone down all the crazy nonsense that has become pervasive on the right over the last few years -- the anti-vaxism, the global-warming denialism, the conspiratardia, and so on.  Obviously that's not going to happen now.

There's no way to spin this week's actual election result as genuinely beneficial for anybody (except the oligarchical parasite class, who will doubtless get even more tax cuts to help add to their already-obscene mountains of wealth).  But the left, too, has its errors and absurdities that weigh it down, and if the defeat creates an incentive to confront and expunge these, then we will indeed get some benefit from it in the long term.

In Wednesday's post I mentioned immigration.  The Democrats are widely perceived as coddling illegal immigration and being willing to allow illegal aliens to stay permanently in the US.  Trump promised a crackdown, even extending to a mass deportation, and also to reduce legal immigration, which most people also feel is out of control.  In hindsight, this seems quite sufficient to explain why Trump and the Republicans won, even against the headwind of their unpopular forced-birthist stance.  However, immigration has so many ramifications that it really deserves its own post, probably next week (update:  it's here).  There are other issues that the left also needs to attend to, most of which I've already mentioned on the blog from time to time.

Take, for example, inflation.  It's true that inflation has cooled off, but prices have not gone back down to what people consider normal.  I still don't buy a lot of grocery items I used to, because they are simply too expensive now.  Housing prices are insane.  Harris did offer policies to address inflation -- such as a law against retail price-gouging, and various incentives for more housing construction -- but in hindsight she should have emphasized and publicized these more, and made them tougher.

Crime is another mass concern.  I live in a city where police sometimes can't respond to calls about shootings because there is so much other crime going on that they can't spare any officers to respond, and where there's a steady stream of businesses abandoning our once-vibrant downtown because their employees aren't safe there and the robberies and vandalism make normal business impossible.  At times I have felt literally enraged at those on the left who insist we should ignore what we can see happening right in front of us and instead believe official statistics claiming that crime is now way down.  These statistics mostly come from the FBI, and are worthless because they reflect only crimes which are reported to the authorities -- and under the conditions prevailing these days, many victims no longer bother to report crimes because they see no point in it.  The left needs to stop gaslighting the public about this issue.  They are not fooling anybody.  Worst of all, of course, is the accusation of racism sometimes slung at people who are simply expressing fear of a very real threat of violence.  It's an attitude perfectly designed to drive voters away, toward those who recognize the problem and promise to actually do something about it.

Indeed, there is a general stance of arrogance and disdain and name-calling which greatly exacerbates almost every position on the left that alienates voters.  You worry about crime?  "Racist!"  You object to high immigration?  "Racist!"  You oppose DEI-style racial discrimination?  "Racist!"  Part of why the word "woke" has become so toxic is not just that the actual woke ideology is so hostile to freedom and American values, but that people who speak out against that ideology are bullied, shouted down, ostracized, and in some cases threatened with loss of employment.  Just as Trump's crude and vulgar nature makes him more repulsive than his policies alone would do, so does this behavior make woke-ism similarly repulsive.  And silencing people does not change their minds; it just makes them mad and determined to resist.

There is also the trans issue.  Men in women's sports, men using women's bathrooms and changing rooms (which were established in the first place because women need such male-free spaces to feel secure), male sex criminals being put in women's prisons to terrorize female inmates, puberty blockers and surgical genital mutilation being administered to minors -- this is never going to be tolerated or viewed as sane by the vast majority of people.  The only reason the advocates of trans ideology have gotten away with these things for several years is that most people did not know it was happening, or at least didn't think through all the implications of it.  As it has become more widely known, public opinion is inexorably turning against it, all over the Western world.  Back in 2021 I pointed out that trans ideology might eventually drive women voters away from the left even more strongly than forced-birthism drives them away from the right, because needing an abortion is a rare event, but things like needing to use a public restroom are everyday occurrences, and feeling potentially unsafe doing so is thus a more immediate threat.  In assessing the effect of Dobbs on this year's election, I assumed that things had not yet reached that point, because most people still hadn't grasped the real implications of trans ideology.  However, there is some evidence that the trans issue had an impact, especially since Trump and Vance put emphasis on it in the last days before election day.

There are also what might be called cultural annoyances that aggravate mainstream voters.  "Preferred pronouns", referring to illegal aliens as "undocumented" whatever, guys at Pride parades in gross leather outfits exposing their genitals in public (which is actually illegal, and not tolerated in any other context), mandatory "sensitivity training" in the workplace for people who disagree with woke ideology, stilted politicized gobbledygooky language like "pregnant persons" -- these things don't do actual harm, but they create a sort of steady cultural background noise that gives mainstream voters a gnawing feeling that the country is being infiltrated and taken over by something profoundly alien and offensive.  A political party cannot do anything about such behavior, but can at least signal disapproval of it.

If the Democrats can acknowledge voters' legitimate anger about crime and inflation, if they can quell the arrogance and name-calling and the all-lecturing-no-listening attitude which pervades the activist fringe, if they can fully repudiate the trans nonsense, and above all if they can acknowledge and embrace the overwhelming majority's legitimate demand that immigration be drastically curtailed -- then they'll be in a far stronger position for future elections.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are now perfectly positioned to sabotage themselves.  If Trump manages to impose all the tariffs he advocates -- which he refuses to understand are a tax on Americans, not on foreign countries -- inflation will explode, and farmers will find their foreign markets withering as other countries retailiate (the world has a huge glut of food-production capacity relative to demand, so countries which now import food from the US will find other suppliers without difficulty).  If the Republicans slash taxes on the rich even further and eviscerate our already-threadbare social safety net to pay for it, residents of red states will suffer the most, since they receive much more in government benefits per capita than blue-state residents do.  Forced-birthism remains broadly unpopular, and any attempt to pass a national abortion ban would provoke massive opposition.  If Trump carries out his promise of a mass deportation of illegal aliens in a rushed and careless manner, the economic disruption and human suffering will be considerable, and some number of the Hispanic voters who supported him this week will find their own friends and relatives caught in the net.  Trump has a history of turning viciously against former allies at the tiniest provocation, and many of his supporters will soon learn that even they are not safe from his power.  Most of Project 2025 is probably unconstitutional, but any serious effort to impose its provisions will rapidly antagonize much of the population.  If Trump is serious about staffing his government with toadies chosen for loyalty rather than for professionalism, it will lead to massive incompetence, corruption, and infighting, just as it does in Russia and China and other countries that use the same system, which will inhibit his ability to do the kind of damage he seeks.  Giving Elon Musk a prominent role in the Trump administration might be even worse; an alliance of two stupid, bumbling, narcissistic megalomaniacs with different agendas is asking for trouble.  Trump himself may not care very much if he trashes the Republican party's electability in pursuit of his personal obsessions and vendettas, but Republicans in Congress will, setting up conflicts between them and him.  It's likely that by 2026 this administration will be widely viewed as a disaster, enabling the Democrats to sweep the House and Senate.

Finally, there are things that can be done now to mitigate the damage Trump can inflict.

The most dangerous likely effect of a second Trump term would be a cutoff of aid to Ukraine, which could result in the Russian conquest of that country, confronting the West with the same kind of existential threat posed by Nazi Germany after its conquest of Czechoslovakia and Poland made its expansionist goals unmistakable.  Especially if Trump declared that the US would not fulfill its treaty obligations to NATO, Putin would be tempted to expand further, perhaps into the Baltic states or Finland or even Poland.  This would mean a general war in Europe which would likely go nuclear; even without the US involved, the UK and France have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out European Russia.

Between now and January 20, Biden needs to send as much weaponry to Ukraine as possible -- everything short of nuclear weapons -- and give Ukraine permission to use it against Russia without limitation.  Other democracies should do the same.  The goal would be to enable Ukraine to liberate itself and cripple the Russian state before Trump takes office.  The balance of risks in this war has changed.  Failing to win the war by January 20 is potentially more dangerous than taking such extreme measures to win it quickly.

If the Putin regime falls, there would be another benefit.  Much of the crazy nonsense and conspiratardia making up the right-wing bubble of delusion originates with Russian operatives posing as Americans on social media.  The end of the regime would suppress the infection at its source, making it easier for the conspiracy-befuddled right wing in the US to eventually find its way back to reality.

Biden should also meet with leaders of other democracies and offer what help he can for them to get through the next four years in which the US will likely be an unreliable ally.  In particular, he should do whatever he can in these last weeks to bolster the defenses of Taiwan, in case China takes advantage of an isolationist US to attack.

Blue states need to start taking action, including coordinating with each other, to maximize and assert their autonomy, so as to minimize the damage Trump can do within their borders.

But as a party, the Democrats' most important task is to stop calling the voters names for voting wrong, recognize that they themselves have gone badly off the rails in several areas and are antagonizing a lot of people whose votes they need, and clean up their act even if it makes the crackpot fringe shriek with indignation.  It's got to be done.  If I'm still alive in 2029, I don't want to start the year writing posts about the inauguration of president Vance.

[Image at top:  downtown Portland store windows boarded up in an effort to protect against vandalism, a common sight in recent years]