Scattered reflections on the election, Trump, and the future.
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I was not surprised that Trump won, I thought he would since at least January, and my 2024 predictions prove it. But that does not mean that I do not have thoughts about it. This post is a collection of reflections rather than the structured arguments I usually attempt at the blog. With the stream of doomerish sentiment that Trumpâs victory has unleashed in parts of the European media, I feel an instinctive drive to be contrarian and to say that things will not be that bad, so that is where we will start.
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Trump won with a coalition of voters centred on the working class. Iâve heard it said that the political cleavage in Britain is class whereas in the US it is race, and Trumpâs victory disproves that theory. The fact that people managed to put group identities aside and vote with a primary focus on material class issues is a sign of American politics being more healthy than many of us thought. The left in the US can sometimes be condescending and claim that Trump does not actually put forward policy which are in the working classâs interest, which I think working class people are a better at judging that the coastal commentariat.
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It is clear that economic issues decided the election. As Jacob Shapiro wrote two weeks before the election: âThe people Harris has to convince donât care about Hitler or Beyonce. They care about the economy, stupid. And when it comes to the economy, they arenât buying what Harris is selling.â Many journalists and talking heads missed just how hard inflation has been for most Americans. I wonder if the death of the local newspaper is one of the reasons why Harris looked so strong only to lose with a wide margin. To the New York Times or Wall Street Journal journalist who makes $100k a year inflation meant vacationing in Florida instead of Florence, but to a hypothetical small town reporter it would have meant cutting back for real. The Erie Gazette economics correspondent would have seen Trumpâs win coming in a way that national coastal newspapers just couldnât.
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Harris also never formulated a clear economic vision. âWeâre not going backâ is a good slogan against Trump, but a poor slogan for Harris. When she started copying Trumpâs proposals like exempting tips from taxes and putting tariffs on China she neutralised those issues to some extent. But unlike Trump she never really laid out why she wanted those policies. Trump has many faults, but he does have a clear view of how the world works and it is easy to see why he supports tariffs.
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The Economist had a special report in October where they argued that the American economy is the âenvy of the worldâ. Why was the election decided on economics then, and why didnât that help Harris? The answer lies in how poor the American economy is on the issue of redistribution. While the overall economy has grown plenty it never quite trickles down to the working class. Executives, investors, and well paid professionals have done great lately, but that is a small cohort. Strong GDP growth is meaningless if the gains accrue to the already wealthy, and combined with inflation the average swing state voter is simultaneously worse off economically than when they went to the polls in 2020 while also being inundated with news of how great the economy is. No wonder they chose the tear-it-all-down candidate.
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If we zoom out and look at the election from a historical perspective Trumpâs victory is the final nail in the coffin for neo-liberalism. Voters across the globe have had an anti-establishment streak for the last decade, and while different political systems channel that sentiment differently, voters want the pillars of Reaganomics torn down. High levels of immigration, privatisation, and free trade has created an economy which is uniquely suited to the wants of investors at the expense of the needs of the working man. Immigration keeps wage growth in check while also driving up the price of housing; privatisation, cutting taxes and red tape has made the state ineffective; and free trade has through Ricardian logic made the US a service economy instead of an industrial economy. The neo-liberal system provided a sugar rush in the aftermath of the Cold War, but the 90âs Disney channel style middle class lifestyle (two cars and a house in the suburbs) is now the preserve of the lucky few who went to elite collages. Trump probably cannot and his proposed policies certainly will not fix the economy to work for regular folk. Meaning that Trump will face the same disappointment which propelled him into office. As Peter Hyman said on The Rest is Politicsâ election livestream: âThe left has to understand this: there is a swamp, and it does need draining.â I doubt Trump is the man to do it, even if he talks a good game.
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Which brings us on to the subject of political violence. Speculation about political violence abound before the election, primarily from the aforementioned coastal commentariat which was sure that Harris would win. Over the last four years I have seen the idea that Republicans went crazy while Democrats stood still popping up, what some call asymmetric polarisation. That view is false, Democrats have indeed veered to the left since 2016, quite aggressively so in the 2020 primary election cycle. The expectation then, is that the right perpetrates political violence while the left stands up for democracy. Reality is more complex. And the threat of political violence is not exclusively from the right wing.
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I have always thought of them as completely separate events, but I recently realised that the George Floyd protests and January 6th occurred some six months apart. Whatever the merits of each movement, those are two examples of political violence from the left and the right in America respectively. Add to that the multiple attempted assassinations of Donald Trump, and it is fair to worry about political violence in America even though the Republicans won the election. As the cases of the Floyd protests and Jan 6 illustrates, political violence is most common in times which are tough socially and economically, and if Trumpâs profligate spending plans and excessive tariffs are implemented I expect there to be a real risk violence in the ensuing economic storm. If harsh border policing and mass deportations are attempted by the Trump administration then there is a real risk of violence in the ensuing social upheaval.
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I frankly do not expect Trump to finish his term. He is older now than Biden was when he assumed office, and the extreme hatred towards him personally makes more assassination attempts very likely in my view. I also think that the radical left in America sees more use in political violence directed at an individual than the radical right does. The radical right sees the American state as rotten to the core. The Swamp, the Establishment, The Deep State, all of the imagery the radical right uses ironically indicates the sort of structural analysis they loath in the context of racism. Meanwhile the radical left sees Trump specifically as the problem. The spell he has the white working class under is not something Ron DeSantis or JD Vance could replicate; Trump is the perfect example of Weberâs charismatic leadership. If he went away, maybe the working class could see that he did not promote their interests, or so the thinking goes. To get rid of the Swamp by violence would be a drawn out bloody affaire akin to a war or rebellion, to get rid of Trump through violence is a much more modest aim.
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The media consensus has now shifted towards Trump 2 being institutionally chaotic whereas the baseline for a Harris administration would have been institutionally stable with public unrest in Trumpland. Most of the fear of political violence centred on the transfer of power; assuming that history would repeat. But what happens if the big man gets shot? Or dies from natural causes in the White House? The coming four years will be chaotic to be sure, especially when powers transfer from Trump to Vance, as I expect it will.
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The adage that personnel is policy in government is extra true if you expect change in executive leadership, and no doubt the highest profile person in the Trump campaign besides Donald himself was Elon Musk. There has been some talk that Musk will head up a new department of government efficiency. On one hand, the solution to many of Americaâs problems like its disastrous finances, and the way big defence companies fleece the tax payers could be that department. On the other hand, Musk is one of the uniquely least civic-minded people in America, and has neither the required competences nor the inclination to fix structural issues in the federal government.
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On the aforementioned The Rest is Politics livestream, Anthony Scaramucci made a compelling case that tech moguls like Musk and Peter Thiel who have gone full tilt on supporting Trump in the later stages of the campaign did so as a cynical power grab. It is easy to underestimate Trump, and when you see his speeches it is easy to get the sense that he is not the brightest. Why not cozy up to him and give him some good ideas? Iâm absolutely certain that Musk and Trump will have a dramatic falling out. Trump has many failings but having grown up a rich man Iâm sure he can spot someone trying to take advantage of him, and will not take it well. Given Muskâs history of baselessly accusing people he dislikes of paedophilia and Trumpâs vindictive streak I expect an intra-billionaire row of epic proportions in 2025.
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Finally, the election is the nail in the coffin for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyâs quest to reclaim Ukraineâs 1991 borders. There is no way Trump will prioritise helping Kyiv, and he would relish being invited to a high level summit with Putin where they reach a deal, preferably at an ostentatious hotel in say Switzerland with maps strewn across the conference table. The European media sometimes sounds like Putin getting to conquer what Marko Papic memorably called âthe West Virginia of Europeâ, i.e. the Donbass would be the start of the East-West war that never happend in th 1900's. That is a bit overblown, but it will cement the fact of a multipolar world where Europe cannot simply look to the US to solve its security problems.
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All in all the election of Donald Trump for a second, non-consecutive term is historic, and might be a moment to tell the grandkids about. What are your thoughts? This post has primarily served to help me make sense of what I think about it, and I am interested to hear what you think. Iâll be back with a regular post next week.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about Trump here or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by Quintin Gellar from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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