Not Going Back
Before November 5, it was still possible, if a little naïve, to hope that Donald Trump’s political career would go down in history as a relatively small stain on the American project. Had Trump lost, one could claim that—though a uniquely mendacious, corrupt, and obscene candidate took the White House once—common sense and decency eventually prevailed. The 2024 election has shown definitively that what ails us as a country is a chronic condition, not a passing distemper. It shows that the return to “normal” pre-Trump politics that Joe Biden’s 2020 election promised was a mirage. We are, to repurpose a slogan from Kamala Harris’s failed campaign, “not going back.” But, if there is an ember of hope to pull from the ashes, it lies just there: in the clear signal Trump’s election sends that status-quo politics aren’t working, and that political—and, more broadly, civic—renewal is needed to pull the country out of its tailspin.
There are ample signs that the country is hungry for such a renewal. Although Trump won the popular vote for the first time, the election results showed serious limitations to his support. His favorability ratings remained in the low 40s throughout the campaign, and despite an advantageous climate for Republicans, he did not significantly expand his vote total from 2020. It wasn’t so much that he won the election as that the Democrats lost it. Harris received many fewer votes than Biden did in 2020, hemorrhaging support among young voters, the non-college-educated (of all races), and low-income households. She entered the campaign as a relative unknown, and her early momentum demonstrated that most Americans were pining for any kind of viable alternative to Biden and Trump. That Trump got elected anyway proves that our political system is still unable to respond effectively to the challenge he represents.
If liberals and progressives are to provide that alternative, they must learn from the failures of the first “Resistance.” Since the 2016 election, Democrats have focused on issues that motivated—and flattered the self-image of—their college-educated professional base: Trump’s personal foibles and crimes; misinformation and right-wing media; racism and sexism. These issues were all worthy of attention, but the all-consuming zeal they drew from Democrats distracted from some of the other real problems that led to Trump’s rise.
Most of all, the Resistance left it unclear to disaffected and working-class voters how Democrats would reduce inequality, rein in runaway corporate power, fix the health-care system, and end reckless, expensive American military interventions abroad. This allowed Trump to successfully pose, again, as the enemy and victim of a corrupt system, and to present his campaign as a rejection of the status quo.
It must be said that the Biden administration, under the influence of the party’s left wing, did make real strides toward reform: industrial policy geared toward producing good jobs and rebuilding hollowed-out communities, antitrust regulation, and (temporary) expansions of the social safety net. But these successes were obscured during the second half of Biden’s term by his obvious cognitive decline and his reprehensible support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Most of all, they were overshadowed by inflation and a broader affordability crisis. Instead of explaining clearly how she would expand Biden’s economic program, Harris’s economic message was muddled and, ultimately, too conciliatory to the party’s corporate wing.
Trump’s second term presents unique risks. He’s already tapped an internet-poisoned billionaire loaded with conflicts of interest to reform government spending; a Christian nationalist to lead the Department of Defense; and a conspiracy theorist to helm Health and Human Services. His administration is likely to further enable Israel’s destruction of Gaza and could facilitate its annexation of the West Bank; it may also draw us into a war with Iran. Trump will work to make his tax cuts permanent, worsening the deficit and opening the door for Republicans to slash social services. He plans to restart and expand a policy of cruelty at the border, and may once again try to scrap Obamacare. Finally, he will attempt to shore up a radical conservative majority on the Supreme Court, whose malign influence on our political system could be felt for decades to come. Unfortunately, thanks to congressional losses, Democrats will have little power to check Trump. The task of mitigating harm will mainly be left to the remnants of the old Republican establishment, most of which has proven all too willing to accommodate Trump in the past.
Meanwhile, the long-term task for the Democrats is clear. They must build a coalition behind clear, popular, and effective solutions to the economic problems afflicting young, working- and middle-class Americans. This platform should emphasize universal programs like Medicare for All, free or low-cost college, national rent control, universal pre-K, child tax credits, and minimum-wage increases. Democrats should also develop—and campaign on—more policies to fight corruption and break the stranglehold wealth has on our political system. They should recruit candidates who share these goals but come from outside elite circles. (Not all Democratic politicians need to be lawyers.) Finally, they should resist the efforts of nonprofits and single-issue groups to impose litmus tests on candidates and push policies unappealing to most voters.
Of course, liberals shouldn’t shy away from expressing their support for causes they consider just, but they must respect outside viewpoints and prevent disagreements over cultural issues from crippling their coalition. A broad movement united across differences of identity and geography—one that emphasizes the material concerns most Americans share—is the only hope for ending our long plutocratic nightmare.
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