Donald Trump back as President with a majority in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, plus a Republican sweep of both houses of Congress!!! Voters in the liberal echo chamber thought that with his pending legal cases, the opposition to another Trump term by multiple significant Republican leaders and officials of his first Administration, including Vice President Pence, his continuing penchant for attacking and alienating groups of people (e.g. immigrants, wounded veterans, foreign democratic leaders, the press, academics, etc., etc.), his seeming autocratic, anti-democratic bias and his inflammatory conservative rhetoric, the democracy loving voters of America would never vote he and his MAGA party back into office. Guess what, none of that seemingly mattered. Trump picked up additional voters from groups across the political board and the Democrats lost voters. It turned out it’s not Trump and the Republicans who have lost touch with America, it’s the Democrats! The vote was certified by Congress, and 4 years after the Trump incited mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, we have Trump sworn in as President again and pardoning the January 6 mob!

If the Democrats had put forward a strong candidate with policy positions that appealed to mainstream America, against Donald Trump with all his issues and weaknesses, it would have been a shoe-in. But they didn’t. If the Justice Department had gotten its act together and brought the January 6th case against Trump a year earlier, they might well have gotten a verdict against Trump and prohibited him from running, but they didn’t. Trump won almost all the legal battles against the Government by his deny, delay and deflect strategy which worked wonders against a ponderous, procedure driven, and often too politically motivated judicial system.

Biden essentially killed the Democrats’ chances in the election when he insisted on staying in the Presidential race after his disastrous performance in his debate with Trump, Had he gotten out immediately, the Democrats could have had an open primary and perhaps gotten a better candidate. But he didn’t, and when he finally was pushed out by Party leaders, they chose Biden”s Vice President, Kamala Harris, to run and she ran basically as a Biden clone. That was political malpractice by the Democrats. Biden’s approval ratings for most of his term in office were very poor – low 40’s %. Biden himself would have been a very weak candidate, even apart from his clearly deteriorating mental and physical condition. Why did the Democrats think Vice President Harris, essentially running for a second Biden term, would do any better?? Because: 1) she was much younger and more physically and mentally fit; 2) as a black woman, she would attract both the female and the minority vote; and 3) again they couldn’t imagine a majority of voters actually electing Trump to a second term. Turned out, none of those theories worked. Now, with Biden out of office and the Republicans controlling every branch of the Federal Government, including the Supreme Court, the Democratic Party as a whole is polling in the high 30th percentile (according to a recent WSJ poll), having sunk to the Biden level. What a comedown for a party which thinks of itself as the conscience of the country and the good government party!

Where have the Democrats gone wrong? Most commentators point to the economy and the spike in inflation during the last 4 years as the major factor motivating voters to vote out the incumbents and many voters mentioned that as their no. 1 concern. However, while that may have influenced some voters, it seems highly unlikely that it was the major factor in electing Donald Trump to a second term. For starters, the economy has actually been very strong for the majority of Biden’s term with record numbers of people put to work and very low unemployment. The stock market has been booming for the last two years and America’s economy is way ahead of the rest of the world. Furthermore, inflation has subsided a great deal to the point that the Federal Reserve has begun cutting interest rates again. Hence, this is not the type of economy that would make large numbers of people say we need a change of leadership. Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that Hillary Clinton also lost to Donald Trump in 2016, and Biden barely beat him in 2020 and there was no inflation at either time.

So we need to look for other explanations as to Trump’s enduring support over this whole period and the Democrats’ weak showing. First, despite his character flaws (and there are many), legal woes (and there were many), and the multiple highly questionable acts in his first term, Trump projects as a very strong leader commanding others to do his bidding and punishing those who do not. A large segment of the public clearly likes his act and the Republican Party has so completely fallen in line that it really is The Donald Trump Party! He is also extremely good at keeping opponents and other leaders off balance, and at dominating all the media attention. He was elected in 2016 as an anti-establishment populist representative of those aggrieved by government policies and, by and large, he at least rhetorically delivered on that. Large segments of the public are tired of uninvited Latinos pouring across our southern border in too huge numbers to even begin to manage, disfunction in Congress, and cautious, consensus driven, politically correct Presidents. The voting public is also ready to elect a President who rightly criticizes and wants to keep us out of extremely expensive and utterly useless overseas wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. (President Biden may have gotten us out of Afghanistan but in a very abject way, and he also voted to get us into that war.) Trump promised to deal with all that (plus a lot more that he claimed, often erroneously, needed to be fixed).

Kemala Harris and the Democrats, basically promised to keep doing what Biden and they had been doing. Unfortunately, that meant a lot more identity politics, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies and programs, transgender rights, women’s rights, prisoners’ rights, immigrants’ rights, etc., etc. None of these are popular policies or programs for average Americans in today’s environment. Unfortunately, in their obsession with identity politics, the Democrats have lost track of the economic, cultural and social needs and desires of the working class – the longtime base of the Democratic Party and that working class is voting against them. Biden also was keeping us involved in both the Russian – Ukraine war and the Israeli – Palestinian war, but not committed enough to help the Ukrainians win the war, or keep the Israelis from destroying the Gaza strip and tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians before agreeing to a cease-fire. Trump recklessly promised to end both wars quickly and has, at least contributed to obtaining a cease fire in the Gaza conflict. The Democrats need a major overhaul of policy, communications and personnel. They need to get younger, tougher, more disciplined, and more focused on the needs of the citizenry as a whole than of specific minority groups.

With an autocratically inclined and grievance driven Trump back in the Presidency, what does it mean for our democracy. It will almost certainly be a time of great testing. One day in office, and Trump has already issued dozens of executive orders rejecting decisions and policies of the Biden Administration, including withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and shutting down the southern border to all immigration. He has pardoned all of the Jan. 6 rioters, thereby releasing a number of violent criminals and knowingly reassembling his anti-democratic mob!! There will be a massive government shake-up, including efforts to drastically cut the budget, replace huge segments of the upper civil service with political appointees, and further undermine the entire independent regulatory agency process. There will be a strong push to politicize the Justice Department (and maybe the FBI) so it serves the President’s personal needs and whims instead of being a more independent part of the Judicial Branch. There will also be pressure on the Armed Forces to act internally as a giant police force when called on by President Trump. Major economic initiatives will be undertaken to juice up the American economy which will exacerbate tensions with Canada, Mexico and Europe as well as third world countries. Do not be surprised if a third term is attempted. On top of all this will be a major escalation of corruption, led by the President and his family, but including the emerging oligarchs of American industry and the clever sycophants who haunt Mar-A-Lago and other facilities owned by the First Family. Because of, and on top of all this will be a major increase in litigation and a major decrease in honesty, integrity and support for human rights. Trump and his radically conservative Administration will undoubtedly go way too far for the American people with a number of inItiatives which may refocus the currently conflicted Democratic Party. It will not be a good time for America, but it may be a necessary one for us all to relearn many lessons of citizenship and community values which we have neglected for a long time. We are a strong country with many good people, and with luck, we will survive and grow.

THT

THT