Thoughts on the 2024 Election
The electorate spoke and opted for a profoundly different relationship between the government and The People
I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks on writing something related to the Trump-Harris showdown. I hadn’t found a tack that I was quite happy with, although I had tried several. I couldn’t find something that felt like I wanted to say in a way that sounded like how I wanted to say it, and I just kept going around in circles or into rabbit holes and dead ends.
And then the election happened. And it snowed. And my dad went into the hospital.1 And I learned that the ski racks on my Jeep are about ¼ inch taller than the parking structure at the hospital. In the midst of all that, I had a thought that I realized I want to share. I also realized that I had to wait until after the election to settle on the thought, because until we knew where we stood, there were too many options for speculation, rumination, and hypothesizing.
As of mid-evening on Tuesday, it was pretty clear that We, the People, were making an unmistakable statement through the electoral process: we understand the bargain being offered, we want Trump for ourselves and for the world, and we want Trumpism to operate and flourish at its maximum capacity. We’ve seen Trump, we’ve heard him, we’ve witnessed and heard witness to his conduct (the criminal, the unethical, the farcical, the reckless), and we handed him not only all three branches of government, but also the popular vote (vindicating the notion of a mandate). For good measure, the confidence that even if in his enthusiasm he violates the law, he needn’t worry about any potential prosecution or consequences, as a gift from the Supreme Court.
The election on November 5 was, for better or for worse, one of the major electoral reformations or revolutions within the American Republic’s history. We can discuss whether free range Trumpism will give rise to a new golden age or end with the world in flames, but I don’t think there is room for debate that this 2024 election ranks among the seminal moments in U.S. political history.
To put the 2024 election in context from this perspective, I’m predict that it will rank alongside FDR’s election in 1932 (and the subsequent enactment of the New Deal) and the Civil Rights Movement and Great Society of the 1960s, which could be tied to both the 1960 and 1964 election cycles), for the magnitude and impact of an election on the country in modern times. Following the 1932 election, the Democrats’ ascension to power and Justice Owen Roberts’s shift in jurisprudence (aligning the Supreme Court with New Dealism) redefined the scope of the federal government and its relationship to the citizenry. Wittingly or not, The People had effectively enabled through their ballot selections a revolution in terms of our system of federalism, powerfully and fundamentally redefining the relationship of our federal and state governments.
Similarly, the Civil Rights movement through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, including sweeping legislation passed by a complicit Congress, legislation that was defined and interpreted broadly by the courts, represents another seismic shift in the relationship between our government and its citizens, ending the legalized forms discrimination and segregation that had existed since the founding.2 Other elections, including Regan in 1980 and Obama in 2008, represent in some cases significant shifts in priorities and emphasis, but amount to only course adjustments, not fundamental realignment and definition of our government.
To look at it differently, if you transported someone from the early 20th century to late 1930s or the middle of the century, the alphabet soup of agencies and scope of the federal government’s reach and influence on the economy would astonish our time traveler, with at least 69 agencies created during Roosevelt’s terms in office3 and court rulings validating the expansion. Without suggesting that racism has been solved, imagine a traveler’s surprise if we took them from the early 1950s to the late 1960s or 70s and allowed them to review the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights of 1965, and a series of Supreme Court opinions from Brown, Loving, and Bakke. For whatever challenges remained on this front, an entire supersystem of legalized segregation and discrimination would have been dismantled in a generation.
By contrast, for example, a traveler from the Nixon era probably be blasé about the degree of change to the nature of government or race relations under the Reagan, Clinton, or Obama administrations—sure, marginal tax rates might be higher or lower, maybe (maybe!) we’d see minor distinctions in the rate of growth of the national debt, and perhaps we’d like to tell ourselves that we’ve made real strides on race or other social issues (and we did and have and continue to do so!). Despite campaign promises to the contrary, the federal government’s scope would have continued to expand, sometimes in one area (e.g., environmental regulation, welfare programs) and sometimes in others (e.g., military spending, the War on Drugs), but this traveler would see nothing as dramatic or foundational as New Deal federalism or the codification of the Civil Rights movement.
The 2024 election will mark the next substantial reformational shift in the relationship of the government and people in our republic. Trump’s GOP4 will have an astonishing amount of leeway to remake government in a remarkable number of ways. With both houses of Congress and a supportive SCOTUS, it’s hard to imagine what, beyond Trump’s own humility, will contain the coming revamp; let’s just say I’m not going to make any wagers that assume Trump’s modesty is likely to serve as a reasonable limitation on any initiatives or policies. Having learned from his first presidency how troublesome it can be to have cabinet secretaries, generals, and service servants who are loyal to the Constitution and rule of law messing up the gearworks, we can expect a Trumpist administration to be populated with unqualified sycophants, idealogues, and grifters. Couple this unfettered control of all three branches with the Court’s get out of jail free card for the president, and it’s hard to see what guardrails, brakes, limitations, or restraints will operate to limit the breadth and magnitude of the Trumpist revolution. We, the People, have given him all but a blank check.5
If we simply take the Trumpists at their word, we can expect:
Draconian efforts at border enforcement and massive deportations (which I’m happy to bet will result in inflation as wages increase to attract workers to replace the deported6), including the invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act
A tariff-centric industrial policy (again, an inflationary policy)
The dismantling of Obamacare
The withdrawal of the US from NATO
The use of the Department of Justice to punish political and media enemies of Trump
The politicization of large swaths of the federal civil service and the departure of cadres of professionals from the government
The implementation of loyalty tests for bureaucrats joining the civil service
The transformation of America from the welcoming beacon of the Statute of Liberty and Reagan’s “Shining City on a Hill” to a walled-in fortress distrustful and unwelcoming of furrners (just wait for a re-launched travel ban on Muslims)
Viewpoint-based discrimination to award and revoke student visas
Military action by the U.S. in Mexico to combat the drug cartels, which Trump will label as terrorist organizations
A multipart policy effort to continue the process of decoupling and prohibit US investments in China, Chinese investments in the US, and the importation of any goods from China (curious to see how the Walton family reacts)
A massive expansion of the federal debt, resulting from tax cuts for everyone for everything while protecting or increasing all entitlement and military spending
Substantially increased involved of the government in the economy, from caps on credit card interest rates to limits on the price of eggs to mandated decreases in car insurance rates
Concession of Ukraine to Russia, which will likely encourage Putin to claim additional territories in Europe, specifically in the Baltics and Poland; this will also encourage China to continue its aggression
An unashamed association of Trump’s person with the state (i.e., Trump’s enemies are the country’s enemies)
The use of federal military to suppress political protests and speech on U.S. soil
The effective repeal of schools requiring that children be vaccinated for any diseases (file under: how terrible can these ideas get?)
Expansion of a variety of “election integrity” efforts (which, given that there is simply no proof anywhere at all of problems with our elections, is really just voter suppression)
Elimination of any policies designed to mitigate, decrease, or combat climate change, and the adoption of policies basically just designed to increase global warming
The adoption of a regulatory framework for social media companies, the intent of which will be to disallow viewpoint or content moderation of certain views (Trumpism and white nationalism = ok, porn = not protected) and to discourage any effort to control the truthfulness or acceptability of content of the content on their websites
In fact, I’ve created a bingo card so you can play along at home. Enjoy! Maybe not ALL of this will come to pass, but it’s certainly on the table. It’s what the Trumpists are advertising!
I’m not arguing here that any of this is or will be good or bad, in whole or in part.7 I’m just saying at this juncture I’m discussing only the sheer magnitude of shift in the disposition of the government. We know that the Trump administration will be empowered and encouraged — it’s been given a mandate, after all! — to make huge changes in the structure and function of our government and its relationship with a variety of institutions that are key to our republic. We can easily assume these changes, once enacted, will be long-lasting, far-reaching, and difficult (or impossible) to overcome, requiring the same unanimity of all branches, leadership bent on sweeping change, and a willing electorate. That’s why this is generational on par with the the New Deal, which, once entrenched, was never really an option to rollback. (At least until now.)
While I admit that I might be wrong, and that the victory of the Trump GOP may not lead to massive changes in our governance, or that Trump may show some restraint, or that somehow some institutions will remain barriers and beach heads that frustrate the Trumpists’ more extreme intentions, I don’t think that I am. The day after the election, I woke up early and laid in bed thinking about what I hope won’t be true despite Trump’s open campaign promises to the contrary (e.g., abandoning Ukraine and NATO, persecution of political enemies, anti-vaccination policies, tariffs for everyone, etc. etc.) and realized that there is no reasonable basis for such hopes. Trump told us what he wants to do, and we’ve equipped him with every available means of doing what he said. Whether you think it is for good or ill, you can’t believe that anything like checks and balances or institutional integrity or political norms will restrain Trump and his GOP, and there’s no reason to assume that they don’t intend to carry through on as many promises as they can, given the power handed to them.
Let’s also be clear: no one can claim they were fooled this time around, or that they couldn’t have seen whatever is coming. This is what the American electorate wanted, and there was plenty of truth in the advertising. We know what we can expect. Two impeachments have shown us. Trump’s buffoonery as a world leader, mocked by allies and played by enemies, has shown us. January 6th showed us. The Big Lie has shown us. The lists of traditional conservatives and Republicans who know and worked with Trump and who have warned us unequivocally (and, in fact, sometimes perfectly vocally) shows us.8 We certainly know what and who we elected, and we took every step we could to enable him to do everything he said he will do.9
This is us, whatever happens, and those who voted for him cannot claim they were unaware of what the results might look like. So when public schools stop enforcing vaccine requirements and polio and measles and small pox stage comebacks, or when Putin demands territorial concessions from Poland and Baltic states, or when inflation soars as a result of tariffs and trade wars, or global warming accelerates, there can be no suggestion that we didn’t think THIS (upturned hands suggesting an imaginary pupu platter of consequences) would be part of the deal. Of course we did.
Which brings me back to my contention that the 2024 election will be among the most consequential in our nation’s history. While it is true that people (especially the candidates themselves) love to remind us during every election cycle that “this is the most important election of our time,” in this case, given the knowledge of the outcome, we today know that in fact this one was. If you voted in favor of the wave of change that’s coming, well, I hope it works out for you.10 But if inflation spikes and your eggs and milk and appliances at Walmart suddenly get really expensive (best case), or if the world goes up in flames (less good case), don’t complain to me.11
As Huxley might say to us, we paid our monies and made our choice. And we did so emphatically, inviting change of generational scope.
PS - Ok, fine. If I had to look for a light in this shadowy gloom, I’ll turn to Gandalf (who else?). Let’s all remember that we still can decide what we’re going to do with the time we’re given.
Bonus Comment #1: The election cannot be satisfactorily explained by suggestions that Biden’s late departure, identity politics, Harris’s late entry, Walz vs. Shapiro, etc. were the difference maker.
The voters were the difference here. There is no way Trump goes from losing the popular vote twice to winning the popular vote because of campus protests over Palestine, DEI, transgender swimmers, or whatever. Yes, Biden got out too late, but there was still a choice between Trumpism and relative normalcy, and we convincingly chose not normalcy.
I’m certain that these various takes all are true and had an influence. Unquestionably. But it is a little bit incredible to me to suggest that offered a choice between full throttle Trumpism and a candidate running as hard to the center as a Democrat could (in many cases even adopting the same policy positions as Trump!) paid a price for the fringes of her party. If people were that concerned about the fringes of a party, then why didn’t we see a greater impact of Trump’s coziness with Christian nationalists and Nazis? (Unless…) Even in the aggregate, these various influences and excuses cannot explain the runaway victory of unbridled Trumpism; certainly no single factor here “was the difference maker.”
The real problem, I’ll argue, is that Trumpism is what we want.
(I’ve always thought that this is among the most brutal of songs.)
Bonus Comment #2: No, the election doesn’t represent fully-informed and strategic thinking.
I get that a lot of people think the price of milk and eggs is “too high” and that they’re personal experience in the economy is not reflective of the relatively strong performance of the economy at the macro level. I also assume that most people don’t contemplate the impact on prices of tariffs, mass deportations, and price controls at the macro level, either.12 I don’t envision that people sat around the proverbial kitchen table triangulating the outcomes of unitary control of a bicameral legislature coupled with a supermajority of Originalists and Textualists on the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, though, there’s no subterfuge at play. A whole bunch of people looked at each option and were supportive enough of Trumpist policies and conduct that they felt no need to impose any checks or balances.
The Framers crafted our system to blunt and frustrate the will of the People, and to discourage and limit the opportunity to demagogues to inflict too much damage.13 But the system itself is imperfect and when enough people get on board at the same time, those checks and balances — both institutional and implicit — can be overcome. This is precisely the situation that concerned the Framers into making just one single branch of government subject to direct democratic election. Whatever else they were, and for their limitations, they weren’t dumb, those Framers, but neither could they design a system impervious to an overriding, if maybe inexplicable or confounding, choice by the electorate.
He seems to be ok.
I understand and appreciate the argument that we still have considerable problems of institutional racism and etc. I’m not in any way attempting to suggest that racism in this country was solved by 1968. I’m only asserting by the late 60s, sufficient legislation had been passed (coupled with various Supreme Court opinions) to have dismantled the legal foundations of ostensible government-sponsored and -enabled discrimination and segregation. The definition of which groups of citizens would receive what forms of protection from the government was altered at a core level, even if perfect equality and equity has not been achieved.
Card on the table: I’m trying to be respectful of friends who still consider themselves traditional (or classical, or country club, etc.) Republicans and conservatives, but do not align with Trump or Trumpism. For my own part, I do not understand the Trumpist GOP as an updated version of the GOP of Reagan or the Bushes, nor do I see it as an institution in the service of most forms of conservatism as I’ve understood them. Trump’s GOP may be offering lower taxes (maybe to some), but won’t be “fiscally responsible.” The U.S. will not be a world power committed to the preservation of a liberal world order promoting human rights, liberty, and free trade. I assume we will blow up Obamacare, but Trump pledged to pay for IVF for all, so it isn’t clear to me that the Trumpists will be for smaller or less government, really. All I’m trying to say is that I’m happy to try to carve out space for traditional Republicans who dissociate from Trumpism.
Now that I think on it, we’ve kind of given him a blank check, too. From what I’ve seen, there seems to be a consistent prediction that Trump’s policies will add more to the federal debt than a Harris administration would have been likely to. Oh, and they will be more inflationary than Harris’s proposed policies. Don’t take my word for it: https://www.crfb.org/papers/fiscal-impact-harris-and-trump-campaign-plans; https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/site-assets/assessing-the-macroeconomic-consequences-of-harris-vs-trump.pdf.
As usual, don’t take my word for it: https://theconversation.com/why-mass-deportations-are-costly-and-hurt-the-economy-73504; https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-mass-deportations-cause-job-losses-for-american-citizens. And if you are someone concerned about the price of food and inflation, this article is worth considering: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/magazine/milk-industry-undocumented-immigrants.html.
I mean, look: I certainly have thoughts on the matter of this ending well or not. It won’t be good. But I’m saying that even if you are in favor of all this and believe it will be a net positive for the country, it’s not upping the speed limit from 65 to 75 or labelling ketchup a vegetable for purposes of school lunches.
Seriously. Read the lists and comments of folks who have turned on Trump. These are serious people and serious Republicans. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/trump-cabinet-endorsements/; https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-10-23/the-high-profile-military-leaders-who-have-come-out-against-donald-trump; https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/13-former-trump-administration-officials-sign-open-letter-backing-john-rcna177227.
Nick Cattagio does not mince words or feelings in his review of this choice: https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/you-broke-it-you-bought-it/.
A quick programming note: I’ve been at pains to avoid suggesting any disdain or animosity with respect to people who voted for Trump. Although I don’t think I’ve intended to convey such sentiments previously, I’ve received feedback that I’ve been perceived as doing so. I admit that I don’t get it, but that’s not the same as holding someone in contempt.
I’m really working on a regimen to train myself against thinking or saying “I told you so.” I don’t want to be like that or feel like that. You’re welcome to call me out if I slip up. On the other hand, though, I will have no truck with any denialism or excuses if the world goes up in flames, or even just smolders a little.
Don’t believe me? Of course you don’t. I wouldn’t, either. But, still: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/735161586781898890/pdf/Price-Controls-Good-Intentions-Bad-Outcomes.pdf; https://www.hoover.org/research/what-goes-wrong-when-government-interferes-prices.
One day, I’ll work on my magnum opus about why our system has run its course. In short, though, we (society) have outpaced the advantages that the system relied on to function, fairly reliably, for over two centuries. We’re too fast for it now.