In approaching life, I’ve tried to prepare for the unexpected. Doing so has helped me to manage my disappointments. Still, I was blindsided by the results of the 2024 US General Elections.
I should not have been, as I’d long predicted the outcome. I felt that the USA was due a period of intense reckoning that the return of Donald J. Trump as President (POTUS) could bring. Moreover, his narrow defeat in the key battleground states in the 2020 elections –despite criticisms of poor leadership and disastrous governance–convinced me that his return was a distinct possibility.
The only explanation I can find for being blindsided is that I allowed myself to hope that Americans would use the political campaign to reflect on the future of their country, beyond the traditional concerns of the economy, jobs and immigration. Moreover, I hoped the importance of character, sound values and morals would enter the frame of analysis of voters, and that some consensus, however shaky, would emerge on what’s right and wrong, and what’s true and untrue.
I was wrong! As we used to say as children, “hope is a motorboat.” It can be a fleeting thing.
Expecting rationality in politics is like expecting President Biden to beat Julien Alfred in a 100 metre race. Often, voters draw on single issues in deciding their vote, and disregard other issues that might affect them. Thus, a voter with a pre-existing medical condition, who might lose medical insurance coverage, if President-elect (P. E) Trump repeals the Affordability Care Act (Obamacare), — and does not replace it with a better law–could be swayed instead, by his promise to enact mass deportations of illegal migrants on the first day of his second term. Similarly, for American-Muslims in Reardon, Pennsylvania, using their vote to protest the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel in its war against the Palestinians, mattered more to them than their shaky civil status in the USA.
So, what does a second Trump term portend for the USA and the world?
The USA is about to move into uncharted waters. While Project 2025 leaves no doubt about the thrust of P.E Trump’s policy agenda, it has generated much uncertainty about the America that will emerge by 2029. With full control of the Senate and the Supreme Court, and likely control of the House of Representatives, how President Trump governs will be as critical as the policies he implements.
For starters, the Rule of Law will likely face unprecedented challenges. One expects the Federal cases mounted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against P.E. Trump, which he consistently dismissed as “witch-hunts” and “election interference” will immediately disappear. He promised to pardon those whom he believed were unfairly convicted and imprisoned for taking part in the calamitous January 6th march on the US Capitol. But what sentence will he face in the felony case in which he was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and how will it be received?
If Project 2025 is fully implemented, the system of government in the US will be drastically overhauled, with hand-picked appointees replacing career civil servants, and with promised changes to the DOJ and the Department of Education (DOE). Having won the popular vote by 5 million, P.E. Trump can claim he has full latitude to implement his reforms.
Equally concerning is the future state of the political culture that envelopes the 2-party system in the USA. Understandably, Democrats are devastated over the loss of the Presidency and the legislature. The Party leadership must accept much of the blame for this. It took an underwhelming performance by President Biden’s in the first Presidential debate, to convince his Party that at 81-years old, he would not have survived the mental and physical challenges of a grueling campaign. His late withdrawal left Vice President Harris four months to organize her campaign and raise enough money to reverse Mr. Trump’s double digit lead over President Biden and win the Presidency. As it turned out, her laudable efforts did not impress voters. Shockingly, she pulled 15 million fewer votes than President Biden did in 2020.
Additionally, I believe the Democrats erred by not showing enough deference to the sentiments of the electorate on immigration and the economy. They harped on Mr. Trump’s directive to House and Senate Republicans to kill the Bill that would have addressed immigration, but ignored how that issue was being perceived by voters in the context of the unbearable cost-of-living. The Biden-Harris economy is touted as “the envy of the world.” Millions of new jobs have been created and the stock market is humming. Struggling consumers who see this as a mirage, seem unconcerned that things will only worsen if P.E Trump fulfills his promise and imposes stiff tariffs on Chinese goods.
After the weeping and gnashing, will Democrats become apathetic and temporarily or permanently withdraw from the electoral process? Or will they quickly ditch their despondency and regroup for the mid-term elections in 2027? What hope could they have of a successful outcome? The messages used in the 2024 election did not work. What new messages can they devise to regain control of either legislative chamber. How do they restore the power of truth over lies? Will they resort to lying too? Will they shed their timidity and become more united and uncompromising in dealing with the cut and thrust of politics and the pursuit of power?
As for the global impact of a second Trump Presidency, not even the most gifted, Gadè can reveal this. Mr. Trump could leverage his friendship with President Putin and PM Netanyahu to end the hostilities in which they are involved. He could withdraw the US from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Hopefully, he will oversee an inspired presidency that leaves America and the world in much better shape than he found it on Inauguration Day. But then hope…is a motorboat!