READING TIME: 4 minutes
COMMENTS: Everyday I wake up, scratch my ass, and wonder why we elected Trump to another term. How the fuck did that happen? It has been such a disaster, we’ve all got to wonder why, what caused it, how did it happen. In delving into the numbers, it is clear that it wasn’t because Trump expanded his base. It was because liberals refused to vote for Harris. We the People didn’t learn our civics lessons in Trump 1.0. We the People refused to do our democratic duty in 2024. We the People have flushed the world down the shitter. Great.
KEY WORDS: Election 2024, Trump, Democratic Responsibility, Civics Lesson, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Kamala Harris, Swing States, Political Price to Pay, Reputation
COMMENT: How does economic angst, misogyny, and racism Trump democratic duty?
Every day I hear the news and I shake my head in disgust at the corrupt depraved antics of Trump and his minions. I wonder how we the people could’ve returned the the Orange Doctor to the White House and Republican majorities to Congress. It just doesn’t make sense. We the people, we were told during election 2020 were the saviors of our democracy….
Wait a minute! You don’t suppose we’ve been cursed with a second round of Chaos Agent Orange because we’ve abdicated our democratic responsibilities as voters, do you? Is it possible that seventy-seven million of us looked at the choice in 2024 and said, “Meh, we survived Trump 1.0, and I sure don’t want the old geezer Trump says is senile or the nice Black lady with the loud brassy laugh, so why not? What’s the worst that could happen?”
Did Trump’s voters really forget the Insurrection? His shambolic response to the #COVID19 pandemic that left over a million excess unnecessary deaths in the country? His huge tax cuts to the wealthy that drove the national debt to record-breaking heights that we’ll struggle to pay down for generations to come? That this was the guy who appointed the SCOTUS justices that swore Roe was settled law and then voted to overturn it in Dobbs? We really forgot the chaos, division, and strife that the Pathological Liar brought with him to the White House?
If we didn’t forget it, then we looked upon the steaming pile of mishegas that was Trump 1.0 and chose to repeat it all over again only this time with the promise of mass deportations, withdrawing from NATO, and scuttling Biden’s pivot to renewable energy because the most prolific liar in the history of the world said he would bring egg prices down eight o’clock day one?
It doesn’t matter which of those are true. Trump is merely a symptom. We the People are the problem. We are refusing to fulfill our democratic responsibility and elect serious honorable people to office.
The 2024 Election Dissection
Trump actually won the popular vote this time! He didn’t get a majority, so there’s that… Uh, yay us? It was Trump 49.8% of the vote to Harris’ 48.3% — a 1.5% margin. Not much, I guess. In raw numbers that was 77 million to 75 million. He won by two million votes. But, the electoral college shows that garnered 312 votes to 226.
Hunh, that’s quite a shift from 2020.
Harris received 6.3 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020, and every single state showed a swing in Trump’s favor. The villain origin story isn’t that Trump ran up the score — it’s that Democrats and independents simply stayed home. In New York and California alone, Harris was off Biden’s totals by almost 3 million votes.
Wait a minute. Always do the math. Harris got 75 million votes, but that was 6.3 million less than Biden in 2020, so, let’s see, four, five, six… Uh, carry my one… Take off my shoe… Biden received 81 million votes! Why, if the same people what voted for Biden woulda just voted for Harris, she woulda won!
I hate to say it, but this is less a shift to Trump and more a national shrug. Let’s stay home and hope for the best. Why would that be? I dunno. I’ll scratch my ass while we look at some more numbers.
Why did the Swing States Swing to Trump?
Trump jactated about winning all seven swing states, but the margins were, once again, razor thin. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton by 80,000 votes. Agonizingly close. But, Biden only beat Trump by 44,000 votes in his swing states. Even closer! My palms are sweaty even thinking about it. So, how did 2024 shake out? Trump won by 765,000 votes in the seven swing states. How is that possible?
After two impeachments, 34 felon convictions, nearly a hundred more pending felony charges, and being found civilly liable for sexual assault, fraud, and abuse of non-profits, over seven hundred thousand people thought the man who staged an insurrection rather than a peaceful transfer of power should be returned to office?
Americans Unwilling to Vote for Harris and Unwilling to Punish Trump
This tells us something important about the American electorate: there is no action so heinous that a candidate can be reliably disqualified from ever attaining office. America loves a comeback story. Hell, Nixon could’ve been reelected.
And it’s not just Trump expanding his coalition with first-time young toxic bros, or the shift among young Black and Hispanic men. It’s that liberal Americans weren’t willing to come out and vote for Harris when the alternative was Trump returning to office. Apparently we didn’t learn anything from 2016, when we handed the Republicans Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
Why wouldn’t we remember the lessons from Trump 1.0 — the near-nuclear exchange with North Korea, the chaos, the lies, the divisiveness? Why wouldn’t we remember that Biden tamed the pandemic with reasonable public health policy, passed three of the most substantive pieces of legislation of any American president, and engineered a soft landing from COVID-driven inflation? Why wouldn’t liberals turn out in droves to elect the first Black, female, South Asian president?
It doesn’t make sense, especially when you consider that the alternative was returning the Chaos Meister himself to the White House and handing the Republican Party the Congress so they could complete the job of dismantling our democracy.
We’re told that it was economic hebada-jeebadies, but that wasn’t true in 2016 and it wasn’t true in 2024. It is the foundation of misogyny that we built our systemically racist culture on that explains it.
Reputation Lost, Reputation NOT Regained
And now, as Trump blunders across the world stage destroying lives and our reputation with wild abandon, no one will trust us ever again. Not because Trump is being a bull in a china shop, but because the American voter cannot be relied upon to never elect someone like him again.
And now, as Trump destroys our reputation around the world, the damage isn’t just that he’s being the bull in the china shop. It’s that the American voter cannot be relied upon to never elect someone like him again.
Whatever evils Trump inflicts upon the country and the world are laid squarely at the feet of the American electorate. We refused to do our democratic duty and learn the civics lessons that Trump and the Republican Party have been teaching us, sp we’ve earned it.
Blog On, Siblings!
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I just lost another one to “SECURE CONNECTION FAILED WHILE THE PAGE WAS LOADING” Maybe it will show up like that other one.
It did. What did you do to piss Ye Olde Blogger off, Bob?
IDK. It’ seemed like I hit a time limit on writing the reply, but that doesn’t make sense. I also ran into trouble with my postings to Cabbages shortly after. Sometimes it tells me that “publishing” failed because I might be offline, but then it goes ahead and works. That could be instability in my connection, brief outage things. The really weird one was in posting my “SONG Of THE DAY”. The right item showed in the editing page, but the published post reverted to the one from the day before, and going back to editing couldn’t fix it. I cant figure not only why it did that, but how it could be. The only fix I have found for that one is to exit Firefox and restart it. Just another case of the joys, weirdness, and challenges of blogging with WP.
Howdy Bob!
Having had the wonderful pleasure of using several Internet browsers over the years, especially when everyone was all heady about Apples being the best thing since the Univac — they’re so intuitive and innovative! Bah, humbug! Moving the close your browser box from the left side to the right and calling the control key command is neither intuitive or innovative, it is just annoying as hell. Anywho. When I was forced to use Apples because the school I worked for gave everyone an Mac, many of us naively — in the beginning, there was no choice — used the Apple web browser. Turns out many websites were not optimized for the browser and wouldn’t work correctly. Very annoying. I’ve tried to get away from Chrome because of big tech evilness, but in the end, everything is optimized for Chrome. That maybe the root of your problem, but Firefox is popular enough that it shouldn’t be. It could be the old cookie issue, too. I hate clearing my cookies, but sometimes you have to to get a website to work correctly.
Complex systems. What are you going to do? Things are bound to go wrong sometime or another.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
In complex systems, something will always go wrong, if only because somebody is always trying to improve it. Some wise man, I forget which one, said something about trying to make something perfectly fool proof faces the problem of perfect fools. That especially applies to politics and public policy. “Good enough for now.” is a vastly underrated goal.
Howdy Bob!
I’m reminded of the political maxim, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.” Complex systems can be difficult to manage because there are so many unknowns. Back in the day when I was a computer science major — why I can’t possibly explain, but it quickly became clear that I was in the wrong profession — computer systems could experience catastrophic cascading failures. They have so many interlocking pieces that failure in one small area could cause multiple systems to fail. As the components dependent upon those failed, more would follow suit. We see this in our growing climate disaster, too. But, in the global economy and our national government, it could easily happen. The failure of oil and other industrial products to move through the Strait of Hormuz could cause untold unexpected consequences as the industries dependent, even in small ways, on them fail. As travel is restricted due to fuel shortages, tourism and trade are diminished. Those effects will ripple through economies in unexpected ways. Already, We’re seeing work hours restricted in Asian countries, meaning less productivity across the board. Countries in Asia are now left vulnerable to China who has stockpiled oil reserves and is able to procure even more Iranian oil. Now is the time for China to push its claims to the South China Sea when the Philippines is leat able to defend its far flung minor territories and the US unable to back them up. Now is the time for China to extend loans and other help to the severely hurt economies of Cambodia and Viet Nam, extend the hand of friendship to Thailand and Bangladesh when few or no other nation can.
As we roll our budgetary expenditures into the military and withdraw from social services, basic needs of the most vulnerable among us will go unmet. Anger and desperation will drive anti-social and criminal behavior. People will move from small towns and the countryside to larger cities looking for work and support.
We cannot predict the effects that all of these changes to our delicately balanced systems will result in or what she’ll have when a new equilibrium is found. The only thing we know is that it will be different than it was before, and as Trump said before launching his excursion into war crimes in Iran, ‘It will all work out,” meaning everything He’s ever done has not resulted in his utter ruin and he has found a way to survive, and he will this time, too, in spite of all of the death, misery, and harm caused.
Hopefully, Trump will find a way of claiming victory that he so desperately needs, so we can get back to where we were before his excursion into war crimes in Iran.
Huzzah!
Jack
Yes, the systems are not only complex, but self organizing. Often, as is so clear in regard to the climate system, we individually and collectively have nowhere near the level of control we like to imagine. The political and economic world is trying to adapt to multiple changes and shocks at once. 53 Countries met to seriously consider what the path can be to really get off fossil fuels in response to the supply problem caused by 2 nations deciding to attack a third. All the warnings from climate scientists, environmentalists and activists over the past 50 years didn’t accomplish what a war in a critical spot does. And Trump’s actions and words have everybody pondering a world in which the United States cannot be trusted or counted upon in maters geopolitical, military, or trade. If we thought we were living in interesting times before, ain’t nobody seen nothin’ yet.
Howdy Bob!
I think the world has determined that the US cannot be relied upon because We the People will elect another Trump at any given moment. We’ve demonstrated that We the People cannot be relied upon to support the liberal world order, but we will support an American gone wild world order.
The only silver lining that the dark cloud of Trump, MAGA, and the anti-democratic Republican Party can have is that the rest of the world isolates us and quickens their transition to renewable energy. It is craziness to think, but we cannot be trusted to keep our word or to uphold the terms of treaties that we committed to fifty years ago or more.
Even if we oust the Republican majority from Congress, impeach Trump, prosecute the corruption, and keep JD Vance on the straight and narrow until 2028, we will not return to our trusted place in the world. We can never be trusted again. The re-election of Trump is a disqualifying event for leading the rest of the world.
The house of cards we built after World War II is now scattered around on the floor. It is up to some other country or countries to pick them up and begin building anew.
Huzzah!
Jack
That is the situation. Empires rise and fall, and perhaps the most common cause of fall is overreach. I think, looking at the history, that overreach is usually a case of narcissistic hubris.
I have pondered how our system would have to change so that we and others could be sure this wouldn’t happen again. Loss of empire may be part of that answer, by which being the President of a second rate power becomes just another work-a-day, un-glamorous administrative job.
You cannot discount the mass media’s and the Democratic Party’s professionals class’s hands in this.
The MSM spent most of the election in 2024 with endless stories about how feeble, senile and unfit for office Biden was BASED on ONE SINGLE DEBATE PERFORMANCE, while Trump was braying on nonsense in his rallies. They knew they could do this with impunity and their casual disregard for facts, because, unlike Trump, they knew that Biden woulnd’t retaliate against them, because he actually thinks the Constitution matters.
Then because of that Biden stepped down, and the Dem proffessionals went nuts claiming that Harris was never chosen by the voters to be the nominee, and we should immediately hold a lightning primary round, immediately casting a cloud of doubt over her campaign.
Despite this the Harris campaign started well, with a compelling message about how, well, WEIRD the Republicans were, with their obsession about absurd shit.
Then the same old Professional Class od Dem Campaign Consultants reverted to their standard “The ‘Murrican People want a fundamentally Center right, ‘Republican-Lite’ government” and promptly under-bussed the liberal Democratic base, like they always do.
And for SOME reason ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ , those voters stayed home. Hoocoodaknowed?? It must be ther fault! Lazy Slackers!
Howdy Grouch!
Ultimately, it is the fault of lazy slackers. It is our job as voters to be on top of issues and trends. Regardless of what the consultants said, how Harris campaigned, or any other factor. Trump’s shambolic response to the #COVID19 pandemic and the insurrection disqualified him from ever serving in an elected government position ever again. That’s the story. Why would anyone have voted for him? Why? It makes no sense. Nothing could be worse than what we have right now.
The only reason there was Democratic pushback against a Harris candidacy was because she was a woman and maybe because she was a woman of color. We can make up any other reason we want to, but that is what it gets down to. We built our systemically racist society on a firm thick foundation of misogyny.
The corollary to Johnson’s observation that you could win the vote of any white person by telling them at they were better than the lowest black person is that you can get the vote of any man by promising them that they can abuse women.
Huzzah!
Jack
Jack. we must pay attention….being a one issue voter is what has killed this system and will continue to do so…..chuq
Howdy Chuq!
The corollary to that rule is that being a Puritopian will kill democracy equally dead.
The heart of democracy is compromise. We have to find common ground with those we disagree with in order to make laws and policies and implement them. That’s the real issue we have. Those who are paying attention are single issue voters or Puritopians. Those who aren’t paying attention, well are voting like that, too.
Huzzah!
Jack
Compromise is a good thing but what we have now is cloaked compromise where special interest decides what is what. chuq
Well, in a way I am a ‘one issue’ voter: I have never voted for a Republican…I came of voting age in the aftermath of Nixon.
Howdy Bruce!
I think a lot of us who came of age during the Nixon era turned against the Republicans in a deep everlasting way. Between Nixon and Reagan, I felt I could not only never trust a Republican, but I was never seen — in today’s parlance — by Republicans. They proved themselves to be despicable people.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
I have never voted for a Dem or Repub since 1980 when all this craziness was young….thanx for the visit and comment. chuq
Reagan was the backlash to Nixon being driven from office. Nixon was the backlash to the Civil Rights legislation. And, we’re back to the old lady that swallowed the fly.