Two things are clear, Trump won a resounding victory by building a coalition that did not give a toss about his narcissism, his racism, his misogyny, Arnold’s putter, his authoritarian tendencies and his many other shortcomings as a human being. It was a sort of political domestic violence in that the more he abused segments of the electorate, they came back for more and ultimately voted for him. On the other hand, Biden’s inner circle which include Jill Biden and Ron Klain are to blame for this political catastrophe. Klain had a political blind spot believing, Joe beat Donald in 2020, and he could do it again despite his mental fitness. This political catastrophe has handed Trump’s Party, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, in effect political carte blanche without guard rails. https://grumpyoldbastard870122708.wordpress.com/2024/02/24/biden-or-burden/
Harris could not distance herself from Biden, something someone selected in a contested primary could have done. Other than a ray of light at the presidential debate, Kamala was asked to push a barrel up a very steep hill and inevitably failed. As I have said before, she would not have been my choice in a contested primary. She has gracefully conceded with a closing speech that was another word salad. Unlike Trump, Biden has continued a tradition that the sitting President invites the President-elect to visit the White House to discuss the transition, something Trump refused to do in 2020. Please remember January 6th and note that Trump still has not conceded defeat in the 2020 Presidential election.
Trump gained votes in every demographic from Black and Latino men, women, the young and more broadly amongst the pious and conservative Latino community. Not to be outdone, 90% of white “god-fearing” evangelical Christians and Conservative Catholics voted for Trump. The Catholic News Agency reported that 56% of all Catholics voted for Trump. This is due to the infallible Holy Father’s intervention when he described Harris’s stance on abortion which is a woman’s right to choose, as akin to an assassination. This proves one thing; his organisation’s misogyny remains a core value.
What went wrong for the Democrats?
Firstly, a large part of the failure as mentioned earlier lies at the feet of Biden and his refusal to step aside in the interest of his country and then decided to anoint his little-known VP Harris. I was clear within days that she would not have won in a contested primary. The messaging was poor, in that a large part of the campaign focused on abortion and threats to democracy though important they did not speak to the working classes who were still suffering from the rise in the cost of living. Jill Filipovic implied that Harris’s defeat was simply down to her being woman, I disagree, though it is clear that there is a level of misogyny in red states and amongst so called “real men who I call millennium man but from the first millennium. Filipovic said that Kamal was a vastly superior to Trump and eminently qualified for the job, as a prosecutor and much better read but as a person with sharp political antennae, no. As pointed out earlier Harris would not have won a contested primary, just listen to Pelosi.
At the heal of the hunt as James Carville said, “It’s about the economy stupid” and again on this count the Democrats failed to get out a compelling message. The Federal national minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, yes, £5.75 per hour, in effect slave labour. If the Dems are the working persons blue collar party, why the hell they did not embrace Bernie Sanders proposal of a minimum wage of $17 hour, phasing it in over say 2 to 3 years. That is speaking to all working “men” black, white and the rest of the rainbow. The inflationary effects would be minimum as labour costs a declining element of the cost of goods. To be fair the Dems began to lose the working classes back when they embraced the liberalisation of the economy and shareholder tyranny, resulting in new words entering the economic vocabulary such as, off shoring and deindustrialisation.
The Dems failed to highlight the economic successes, in terms of jobs created and the investment in red states as a direct consequence of Bidens Infrastructure Bill, the Chips Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Harris failed to demonstrate that American economy is the envy of the world, growth 2.7%, 16 million jobs created, historical low levels of unemployment including for African Americans, inflation down at 2.4%, GDP per head $85000, manufacturing output and real wages up. These elements and Bernie’s minimum wage proposal would have done the trick. The irony of this defeat is that the Trump’s range of unfunded tax cuts in his first did nothing for the working class, a type of gushing up economics that added $8.5 trillion to the debt. In reality, Biden’s programs did support the working class. Another area in which the Dems failed even though they out spent Trump by of billions was their media strategy and their over on reliance mainstream media. Rather than do both her 60-Minute interview and the Joe Rogan Podcast, she refused to do the Joe Rogan Podcast. I am no fan of Rogan; however, he attracts 15 million listeners many of which would not watch CNN or Fox for that matter. She could have introduced herself to an audience alienated from politics, who were male and would have known next to nothing about the Vice President. This 15 million are part of the 72% who said they were either dissatisfied or angry at the direction the country was heading. This was not a deplorable moment, but a crass failure of political messaging, a missed opportunity to reengage with a demographic the Dems have left behind, showing a blind spot to the understanding of the 72%. The Dems need to learn a lot of lessons because their failures will affect all of us living in World Inc. Before I finish, the next person who runs for president for the Dems in 2028 must firstly someone young, loud, charismatic, understands the new global ecosystem, economically literate, can speak to the issues affecting the working class, and build a team that understands how political messaging works in this new information ecosystem and most importantly have a vision. Why, because the next democratic candidate for president will be up against JD Vance and his tech billionaire mentor Peter Thiel, who believes democracy and freedom are incompatible. The Dems need to stop categorising voters as college educated and non-college educated as if one has more intelligence than the other seriously, have you forgotten Harvard educated Senators, Josh Hawley, and Ted Cruz, Harvard educated Vice President Elect JD Vance and University educated leader of the house Mike Johnson and Harvard educated Elise Stefanik, stop it now. In addition the Dems need to stop closing down discussion on cultural issues as Transgender rights , yes transgender people have rights and should be e treated equally under the law but it is also legitimate to have a debate how this manifests itself in the day to day life of ordinary people without being woke slammed. Finally, one thing is clear, Trump has been described as a fascist and many other unflattering labels yet, he was better tuned into the strange vibes of the US electorate, something else the Dems need to understand and considered. This was summed by a voter who said, “He seems Hitler Esque, in a bad way, though I see no alternative, he is the lesser of two evils.” In Michael Woolf ‘s book Fire and Fury in which he wrote, when on a flight to Atlanta someone used the phrase white trash and another passenger asked what the phrase meant Trump replied, “they are like me except poorer” , well ,that is an insight and a half.
As I write this Cruz, Hawley, Rubio, Taylor Green, Johnson, Morgan, Farage, and many other Trump sycophants will be travelling to Mara Lago to kiss the ring. Many of his surrogates are coming out with the usual, that his utterings during the run-up to November 5th were just “campaign talk “and hyperbole, in effect saying you cannot believe a word that comes out of the President elect’s mouth. This is what 72 million Americans have voted for. I am sorry to say that political and economic illiteracy amongst many of Trump’s supporters is frightening. Many of Trump’s supporters are climate sceptics and we will see his administration roll back or withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate, in effect abandoning the global south and any attempt to mitigate the greatest existential threat to our species.
Trump’s mates talk about forever wars and on the issue of Iraq and the debacle that was Afghanistan, I have some empathy with. However, they wrongly conflate what is happening in Ukraine with previous conflicts. Failure of the Trump Presidency to support Ukraine or impose an unjust peace is quite frankly appeasement, like doing a mate a favour. That mate now has a lot of new BRICS mates, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa in addition to North Korea and Iran. Putin rolling over in 24 hours, is like Trump’s bromance with Kim Jong Un, unrequited love.
If Germany and the US had given the Ukrainians the right to defend themselves properly, that is the ability to attack Russian military targets in Russia, the situation would be quite different today. I understand why Zelinsky is nervous. The great foreign policy guru Piers Morgan on News Night said that Trump’s thinking is war is bad for business and implied that this was not an unreasonable way of thinking and just wanted a deal. He went on to imply that Trump had no ideological bent, what he means that like any narcissists Trump only acts in his best interest. The reality is that Trump already sees everything through a transactional prism, devoid of principles, values, international norms, and conventions. War is not good; appeasement just delays the next phase of the war.
How the Trump Presidency treats Ukraine will also impact Ping’s desire to take back Taiwan and control the South China Sea. China is the most concerned about the Trump presidency and it is all about tariffs, something at this stage in China needs like a hole in the head why, because its economy is going through a bit of turmoil. Trump’s relationship with the world in general will be predicated on the Trump’s new mantra “America First” which simply put is a move towards isolationism,1930’s Charles Lindberg style at worst or a do not fuck with me bullying type tranactionalism, were the bully’s needs and objectives are paramount.
On Gaza, Netanyahu was the first to congratulate his friend Trump. Trump has already given Netanyahu carte blanche to get “the job done “which simply means from Netanyahu’s perspective is the creation of a greater Israel by consuming the occupied territories. Trump has given the Butcher of Gaza an even bigger knife. Summed up like this, from the river to the sea, not a Palestinian will be seen, that process is already underway. Remember it was Trump’s special envoy, Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner that moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, agreed to the annexing of the Golan Heights and signing of the Abraham Accords. He has appointed Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel, an evangelical Christian Zionist and Netanyahu ally. He believes there is no such place as Palestine which means there are no such people as Palestinians. He also said “I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side.” Genesis, the uttering of a megalomaniac
The Accords were designed to “recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom, including religious freedom” and “We encourage efforts to promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue to advance a culture of peace among the three Abrahamic religions and all humanity”. Such a load of balls, this was a trade deal which excluded any reference to the occupied territories, the suffering of the Palestinian people or a root map to a two-state solution. I fear for the future of the Palestinian people, which is already bleak, is going to get worse. Just to add, shame on Prime Minister Starmer and Foreign Secretary Lamy, Biden, Scholz and other world leaders who have failed to stand up against the use of food and medicine as a weapon of war, war crimes and the continue breaking of international law by the IDF. When politicians talk about the “WAR “in Gaza it is not a war, its ethnic cleansing at best and genocide at worst. By continuing to use the term war, it justifies their continuing supplies of military hardware. Cutting winter fuel allowance takes more of a priority than stopping the genocide in Gaza where the UN have reported that 70% of those killed are women and children and the 100’s of thousands on the brink of starvation. Read my earlier pieces on Gaza.
Coming back to our continent, the EU needs to step up on two counts, to become more militarily independent from the US, which means upping defence spending north of 3% of GDP and to my regret creating its own “umbrella”. The EU needs to man up, currently its GDP per capita is 70% of the US at $61,000. The EU R&D expenditure is 2.2% of GDP which is 60% of what the US spends. The EU does not have a significant presence in the cloud computing space which is dominated by the US companies that provide 75% of cloud computing capacity. As far as the manufacture of advanced chips and Ai is concerned, the EU plays in the lower division, behind both the US and China. Another headache for the EU, is its trade surplus with the US and what any new tariffs will do to that surplus and the impact on corporations and jobs in Europe. In respect of Ukraine, if the US steps back can Europe step up the answer is, probably not. The need to plan for and build a defence infrastructure is vital. Setting Trump’s presidency aside, none of the above takes into consideration the rise and impact of right-wing populism across Europe and a Germany the backbone of Europe, which is in a midlife crisis, about who they are, who are their soul brothers are and their place in the world (as exhibited in their response to Ukraine and the slaughter in Gaza).
As far as the UK is concerned and like the OBE, Order of the British Empire, where there is no empire, the TSR, The Special Relationship where there is no special relationship, if one exists, it exists only amongst the British establishment and in Starmer’s and Lamy’s head. The demise of TSR, if it ever existed was accelerated after Brexit. The UK after Brexit has become a sort of Sinn Fein, “Ourselves Alone” and Keir Starmer’s economic strategy “GROWTH” a sort of Make GB Great Again has become his clarion cry. This now needs to be achieved in a multi polar world, where the west is not the best let alone only kid in town, where social cohesion is breaking down, rising demand for public services, economic nationalism is on the rise, Trump’s tariffs and where the European Union as a union, is under stress. Another nod to a “brave new world is future corporate domination where a handful of corporations and financial institutions command an ever-greater concentration of economic and political power to hold countries to ransom. Governments have a greater fear of these corporations than their electorate. Do you remember Sunak’s starry eyed bromance interview with Musk. The UK faces many of the same issues effecting the EU but without the solace of being part of a trading block.
A full embrace of the “America First “policy turns on its head the current world order both in terms of trade and international cooperation and alliances, which to be fair are far from perfect. The UN and other international institutions will become even less relevant, the need to invest in of the Global South will be relegated, resulting in the widening of global wealth inequality where today 40% of the words wealth is held by 2% of the world’s population and 2% is held by 50%. Failure to invest in climate crisis at scale, which means trillions of dollars, not billions will see mass migration on an unimaginable scale, exacerbated by the greatest existential threat to our species and others, climate change.
The final and broader question that needs to be posed about our intrinsically interwoven future:
“Is humanity as a collective agent an illusion.”
TAKE A COUPLE OF PILLS YOU WILL BE FINE IN THE MORNING
Suneil Sharma
November 12th 2024
The Gob 
Leave a Reply