Election 2024: What Happened?

Embry and I attended an election watch party at our Washington apartment house  where close to a hundred people were gathered in a large meeting room to watch the MSNBC presidential election coverage on a giant TV screen while chatting, sipping wine and munching on tidbits. The mood was upbeat and hopeful. I doubt that there was a single Trump supporter in the group of mostly retired people. Sure, the pollsters had warned us that the race was a tossup, but how could we lose against a scoundrel like Trump, a convicted felon, habitual liar, wannabe dictator, and braggart? Kamala had run an inspiring campaign, wiped him out in the debate, plus the Democrats had a stronger ground game for turning out the vote and had spent more money than the Republicans. Also, the abortion issue had galvanized women voters. It certainly looked like momentum was on our side.

We departed a little before ten in the evening when it already had become obvious that the  runaway I had predicted for Harris was not going to happen.  The voting reports in Georgia and North Carolina showed that Trump was clearly ahead. If Harris lost both battleground states, the path to winning would be much more difficult. Embry turned in while I collapsed in front of our television to follow the action for a while longer becoming more concerned after MSNBC called both states for Trump. I stayed up to around midnight noting that similar patterns were happening in other battleground contests, then turned in. I was worried enough that I could not fall asleep. When I checked my iPhone for an update, probably around two, the gap was becoming wider in Pennsylvania and other battleground states. I felt panic coming on and for the rest of the night fitfully drifted in and out of sleep. When I checked my iPhone around three in the morning, it appeared that Trump was going to win the election. When I woke up around five, Embry, who had been awake for some time, whispered in my ear, “Trump won!”

I  spent most of Wednesday watching MSNBC and CNN where pundits gathered trying to make sense out of what had happened. All sorts of ideas were being tossed around: “if only Biden had dropped out a year earlier, allowing primaries to pick a candidate,” “if only Kamela had had more time to introduce herself to the voters,” “if only the Democrats had not been so woke and politically correct,” “if only Biden were not so unpopular and that Kamala had been able to say what she would do differently,” “if only Kamala were not a woman,” “if only Kamala were not biracial…”

In my opinion, the main reason for Trump’s victory is what I call, “The Revenge of the Multicultural Working Class.” I have described this in my two previous blog posts. Beginning in the 1930s when FDR was president, the Democrats embraced the working class, which became the base of the party. This began to change in the 1960s when civil rights and The Great Society programs became the central focus of the party. Then in the 1980s the Reagan revolution reduced taxes for middle and upper income people and reduced financial regulations, which permitted income disparities to grow between blue collar and white collar workers. Labor unions diminished in membership and power. Then in the mid 1990s NAFTA permitted and encouraged factory relocations to Mexico. Good paying union jobs with benefits began to shrink, especially in the industrial Midwest. This was followed by influx of immigrants primarily from Mexico, Central and South America, who competed with American blue collar workers for jobs and kept wages low. Manufacturing jobs decreased from a high of 27% in 1970 to less than 10% of the workforce in 2016 and are estimated to be about 7% today. The service jobs that replaced them paid much less and offered few health or retirement benefits.

Many people who work in these jobs struggle to pay their bills. That is why  inflation became a major issue for them. When the cost of bread or milk is close to double what it was only a year or two ago, people in these jobs notice. In addition, the gap between the incomes of those with no college and those with a college degree has continued to widen. Cultural and religious values are different. Plus, many without a college degree feel that they are looked down on by college educated elites. Many in the working class are angry. Kamala did not successfully address their anger. Trump did. His dystopian message of gloom and despair resonated with the alienated working class. He rode the wave of resentment to a victory over Harris just as he had done with Hillary in 2016. Remember Hillary’s “deplorables” comment? Trump used the same playbook in 2024. Trump described himself as “Your retribution,” the strong man who will fix the woes of those who struggle to get by. The enemies are immigrants, woke Democrats, “cat lady childless women,” and elite prep schoolers born with silver spoons in their mouths. It did not seem to matter to Trump’s base that he was also one of those silver spooners. As long as he despised them, he was their hero: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Of course, this is all a lie– an example of the  quintessential bait and switch. The big money behind Trump is from billionaires who support him to get the tax and regulatory breaks they think they deserve. And the lies Trump spreads are facilitated by social media and fake news, which permit Trump to get away with saying anything he wants to. His policies do little for his base. The only person he cares for is himself. 

One thing that seems to have changed in this election compared  to 2016 is  that for this election it is not just the alienated white working class that comprise Trump’s base. Some 45 percent of Hispanic voters also voted for Trump, a huge increase from previous elections and another reason to be concerned.

There is lots of  soul searching by Monday morning political quarterbacks as to what has gone wrong with the Democratic Party. How did we  miss the size of those who bought into Trump’s dark message of dispair. The challenge for the Democrats is how to recapture at least part of the alienated, now multi-cultural, working class. The adults without a college degree in the U.S. account for 62 percent of the population. There are a lot more of them than there are of those with college degrees. The first order of business for the Democrats should be to figure out how to get them back. This involves  figuring  out how to level the playing field a bit so that everyone who works hard will be able to earn a living wage. This will take some time, effort, and money and the national willpower to make changes.

So how scared should we  be when  Team Trump team takes over? The answer is a lot.  Stay tune for the next blog post. 

 

 

 

 

 

3 thoughts on “Election 2024: What Happened?

  1. “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the Axe, for the Axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them.”

    — Turkish Proverb

  2. If I remember correctly, Ms. Harris received over $500 million in contributions just days after she was
    elevated to candidate. Money was never the issue. She spent more than Trump campaign. You are correct that the working class has now gone ” to the dark side”.

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