Amid the all the hand-wringing, or wailing jeremiads, or triumphant op-eds out there, I’ll offer in this election post-mortem some perspectives that you’ll not see elsewhere.
But, before that - some flash bits.
First: a few have suggested Biden resign to make Kamala president for a month or so. Other than shifting Trump v.2.0’s number from 47 to 48, it would only bias 2028 unnecessarily, by locking her in as heir. Nah.
Third flash bit … how about some prediction cred? That Donald Trump has learned to never again appoint professionals or adults to office. Nearly all grownups from Trump v.1 (over 250 of them) eventually denounced him. (That one fact alone should have decided the election.) Sure enough, his announced cabinet appointments are almost all unqualified maniacs. But there’s a triple purpose to that – which I’ll describe at the end.
But that’s not what you came here for, today. You’ve been wallowing in election post-mortems, agonizing over how it could have come to this.
So, after that wallow in futility and clichés, would you like some fresh views that actually bear some relation to reality? Some may disturb you.
== So… um… W.T.H. just happened? ==
As VoteVets.org (Veterans dedicated to democracy and the rule of law) put it Wednesday: “Moving forward and regaining the initiative requires us to confront the results of this election with open eyes.”
Okay, for a start, it does no good to wail stuff like: “Americans chose a fascist dictatorship because trans kids are icky. And we hate the idea of a black woman being president.”
Um, not even close. Nor was Kamala Harris a ‘bad candidate’ (she was actually very good!) Nor was it because she ‘only had 107 days.’ Seriously? The campaign lasted forever!
Indeed, all over the globe (for the first time, ever), every governing party in a democracy lost vote share. So… maybe the Stupid-Ray Beamed By Aliens theory should be trotted back out? No, never mind that.
WTH actually happened?
Well, the demographics are clear. Major historically-Democratic groups simply did not show up, or else actively went to the GOP. While some Black men defected for reasons such as macho, they were mostly loyal, in the end.
But Hispanics far more crucially (and of both sexes) stayed home or switched sides. And will you drop the racist slander, claiming that they’re all sexist? The new president of Mexico is a woman, fer gosh sakes.
As for the trans thing, it was just one of so many hatred dog whistles. Useful to Fox and crappily/badly countered by the left. But it’s a side dish, compared to the Hispanic defection.
Plus the fact that even white women split more evenly than expected.
Then what happened?
TWO WORDS kind of sum it up! Two different one-word chants! Used repeatedly. One by each side.
For one side, that word was abortion.
Sure, the incredibly aggressive fascist putsch against Roe-v.-Wade and women’s Right-To-Choose was obscene and deserved to be deeply motivating.
Only then the Harris campaign transformed it from being a political gift by the Supreme Court into a liability. From being just one useful word into a million.
Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion! And… Abortion! (ad infinitum)
Dig it. All of the folks for whom that word was a deciding issue were already Kamala’s! Repeating it relentlessly and always - like an incantatory talisman - only made clear that hers would be a campaign exactly like Hillary Clinton’s -- led by and run by and aimed toward upper middle class white ladies.
(And please? I voted for both Harris & Clinton and worked hard for them, in 2016, and again in 2024. We’re discussing tactics, here! And getting angry when failed tactics are criticized is a sure sign of a bad general.)
Try asking outside that bell jar. After a while, each repetition (“abortion!!”) became tedious and hectoring to many.
Especially to Hispanics, who -- may I remind you -- are mostly Catholics?
Who are capable of diverging from church doctrine… but did they need to be reminded of that cognitive dissonance hourly?
…Hispanic citizens who also proved very receptive to the other side’s talisman word.
‘Immigration.’
This talisman worked to draw in support from fresh directions. Poll after poll show Hispanics want tighter borders! Yet, urban liberals refused to listen. Pompously finger-wagging that both Jesus and Deuteronomy preach kindness (they do!) toward the flood of refugees who are fleeing Trump ally elites in Honduras and Guatemala, they endlessly lectured and preached that the flood should ONLY be answered with kindness… and nothing but kindness.
… which is easy for you rich liberals to say. But Hispanic voters don’t want job competition. And your disapproval – calling them immoral when they shouted “No!” – helped to cement their shift.
== Immigration as a weapon vs. the West: It isn’t just America. ==
Did you ever wonder why right wing populism has surged in Europe? Quasi-Nazism burgeoned there – and here – for one reason above all. Because Putin & pals have been driving refugees across western borders for 30 years, knowing that it’ll result – perfectly – in a rightward swerve of politics.
You know this! It happened here. The tactic has now won Vladimir Putin the greatest victory of his life… that very likely saved his life!
But you, yes you, have been unable to see it and draw two correct conclusions.
First: you can’t have everything you want, not all at once. Politics requires prioritization. And hence when Obama and Biden built more border walls than Trump ever did, they ought to have bragged about it! And you should have bragged, too.
Again, you cannot do all the good things on your list without POWER! And now, sanctimoniously refusing to prioritize has given total power to…
Second: and here’s a potential sweet spot for you: Want to solve the immigration crisis in the best way, to benefit both us and the poor refugees?
Go after the Honduran/Guatemalan/Nicaraguan/Cuban/Venezuelan elites who are persecuting their own citizens and driving them – coordinated by Moscow - to flee to the U.S!
Um, duh? Joe could still do that in his remaining time. He could!
But a blind spot is a blind spot…
… and even now, YOU probably could not parse or paraphrase what I just said. About the possible win-win sweet spot. Go ahead and try. Bet you can’t even come close.
How much simpler to dismiss Brin as racist. And thus illustrate my point.
== More lessons learned… or not learned? ==
Polls showed that ECONOMICS were far more on peoples’ minds than abortion. In fact, in almost every meaningful category, the USA has, right now, the best economy in the whole world and one of the very best since WWII.
Oh sure, saying that was difficult for Democrats. It comes across as lectury, pedantic and tone deaf to those working class folks who have no rising 401K, but do have high grocery bills. Or to young families staring at skyrocketing housing prices. Meanwhile, everyone is so accustomed to a great labor market that unemployment is a forgotten issue,
But does that mean to give up?
In fact, Kamala tried to get across this difficult perception gap by promising to end gouging at supermarkets and pharmacies and bragging about lowered insulin costs. But all of that seems to admit we failed, till now. So, maybe accompany all that with ads showing all the bridges and other infrastructure being rebuilt, at last, and asking “Do you know someone working at fixing America this way? Ask THEM about it!”
I found the rebirth of US manufacturing - the biggest boom since WWII – to be especially effective.
As for housing costs, I never saw one attempt to blame it on real culprits - swarms of inheritance brats and their trusts who are snapping up houses right and left in cash purchases, free to ignore mortgage rates. I mean seriously?
Okay, I admit it’s hard to sell cynical working stiffs glued to Fox on the Good Economy. I won’t carp too much on that. Instead…
Of course, there’s so much anger around and someone is gonna receive it. So notice that the core Foxite campaign – pushed VASTLY more often than any message of racism or sexism – is to blame college folks with incited hatred of non-college folks.
As I’ll say again, Kamala could have started changing this by pointing over there (as FDR did) at the real class enemies. The oligarchs who benefited from 40+ years of supply side and suck like lampreys from the hardworking U.S. middle class… both college and non-college..
== The insult that they deeply resent… repeated over and over again ==
Not one Democratic pol has ever pointed out that racism and sexism, while important ingredients in parts of the Red polity, are not their core agenda!
Indeed, count how many of your friends and/or favorite pundits are ascribing this recent calamity to ‘embedded American racism and sexism!!”
Sure, those despicable traits exist and matter a lot. And it’s easy for me to downgrade them when my life is in no danger because of a busted tail-light.
Still, can you recognize an unhelpful mantra, when it is repeated way too much, crowding out all other thought?
As commentator Jamie Metzl put it: “There will be some people who awoke this morning telling themselves that the story of this election is primarily one of racism and misogyny. They are wrong.
“Make no mistake, our country still harbors unacceptable levels of both, but that is not the story of this election. That is not who we are as a nation. We are the same nation that elected Barack Obama twice and would have likely have elected Nikki Haley, had she been the Republican candidate. Very many women and minorities voted for Trump. We need to look deeper.”
Indeed, howling “You’re racist!” at our red neighbors was likely counterproductive. They turn and point at black faces on Fox… and at the now-boring normality of inter-racial marriages… and more recently at ‘normal gays’… and reply
“I don’t FEEL racist! I LIKE the good ones!”
None of that means racism is over! But except for a nasty-Nazi wing, they have largely shifted on a lot of things. What it does mean is that a vast majority of Republicans feel insulated from their racism.
it means that shrieking the R word over and over can be futile.
It only makes your neighbors dig in and call you the race-obsessed oppressor.
== The actual enemy ==
I mean, have you ever actually watched FOX and tallied their openly racist or even sexist crap… versus who it is they actually assail most often, and openly? Care for a side bet on this?
I’ve said it before and will pound this till you listen. While they downplay their own racism and sexism, what almost every MAGA Nuremberg Rally does feature is endless – and utterly open -- attacks upon nerds.
The fact professions. From journalism to science to civil service to law to medicine to the FBI and the US military officer corps.
And NO Democrat has ever addressed that, head on!
Ever, ever, ever and ever.
Instead of ever pointing this out, they assume that defending the fact professions will sound like smugness bragging.
But they’re wrong. And there are reasons why the all out assault on all fact-professions is the core agenda underlying everything Republican/MAGA/Putinist.
And someday – as I mention below – this will at last be admitted openly.
Alas, too late, as beginning on day one of Trump v2 there will commence an all-out terror campaign against that officer corps, against the FBI and especially the United States Civil Service. And science.
And when that happens, point proudly and tell your children: “I helped do that.”
== The giddy joy in Moscow ==
Oh, there are MAGAs who write to me – on social media etc. - taunting and gloating about all this. To which I reply:
“Enjoy your victory. Your pleasure is as a firefly glow, next to the giddy ecstasy in the Kremlin.”
A few comments furthering that.
a. Jill Stein deserves the Order of Lenin. She likely already has one in her secret Moscow luxury dacha.
b. Recall the Four Scenarios I projected, last Sunday? As I predicted in scenario 4. If Trump wins convincingly, he will surround himself with loyalists and this time no ‘adults in the room.’ No Kelly, Mattis, Esper, Milley, or even hacks with a brain, like Barr or Tillerson or Pence.
c. What no one else has mentioned - or will - is how this cuts all puppet strings to Trump. Nothing Putin has on him… no pee tape, or snuff film, or video with Epstein kids… will matter anymore. Nor will blackmail files on Cruz or many others. All – even Lindsey Graham – will have their “I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue” moment. And when that happens…
…there is a very real chance that Trump will feel liberated to tell Vlad to fuck himself. Or even take revenge on Putin for decades of puppetting control threats. I have repeatedly asked folks to learn from the wisdom of Hollywood! From the last ten minutes of CABARET. From Angela Lansbury’s soliloquy in the last half hour of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. From the oligarchs’ last resort in NETWORK.
But no. I am dreaming. Putin will retain control. Even if blackmail ceases to work, there’s flattery, which is far more important to DT than anything else in the world. And liberals insanely ignore that.
== How will America respond to this Confederate conquest? ==
One of you, in our lively comments section below, said:
“Trump is who we are and we are not the great people we used to be.”
Malarkey. As I described here today, midway through this phase of the ever-recurring Civil War, it seems the Union side’s generals keep firing in mistaken directions. But do not look at this as “America is irredeemable.”
View it as “America has once again been conquered by the entirely separate Confederacy, the recurring romantic-feudalist cult that now has its Russian and other foreign allies. Actual America is now occupied by that other entity."
But recall that it consists of almost all of the inhabitants of this land who know stuff. And if our mad cousins push too hard, mass resignations by the competent will only be the beginning.
And no, - even though we are the ones who know everything cyber, bio, medical, nano, nuclear and all that, it won’t come to any of that.
Watch instead – if they go after the civil service and officer corps - for the words GENERAL STRIKE. And let’s see how they do without (among 10,000 other taken-for-granted things) their ten day weather reports. Especially when the parts of North America that will be the very worst-hit by climate Acts of God will be the Southeast.
== Final bits ==
Tariffs? Oh, dear oligarchs, try some wisdom from a surprising portion of Ferris Beuller’s Day Off!
And I reiterate, there is one thing that Joe Biden could do – right now – that would upset the DC apple cart, and (presumably) be very much not to the Trump-Putin party’s liking. Last week I laid out how Biden might still – even now - affect the USA and world. And human destiny.
Oh... also I promised to explain why Trump's announced cabinet appointments are almost all unqualified maniacs. But there’s a triple purpose to that.
1. This will maximize flattery (what Trump lives for), but this time he's only chosen appointees who are blackmailed and controllable. In some cases, Russian assets now appointed atop U.S. intel and defense agencies.
2. Unlike all the 'adults' in Trump v.1, this time every single person named will join in the coming all-out war against the FBI, military officer corps and U.S. Civil Service.
3. Unlike all the 'adults' in Trump v.1 none of these will never denounce him in tell-all books.
== So, what lessons did we learn? And what does the future hold? ==
Geez, you’re asking me? My predictive score is way above average, but I truly thought a critical mass of Americans would reject an orange-painted, makeup-slathered raving-loony carnival barker. I was wrong about that…
… but it only shows how stoopid so many millions of sincerely generous and college -educated Americans are, for assuming they knew who the gone-treasonously-mad right is oppressing.
Wake up, educated gals & guys and gays and every other variant under the sun. It’s not your diversity they are coming after. Nor the client races and genders you defend, many of whom just said ‘fuck off!’ to being protected by you.
The oligarchs and their minions have one enemy they aim to destroy.
It’s you.
1 comment:
The "Malefactors of great wealth" seem uninterested in running a successful economy, preferring dominance and having more than anyone else. IOW, channelling their inner alpha primate. They may eventually learn a harsh lesson, unfortunately at our expense.
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