This morning on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, after giggling her way through an interview with a food person, host Ayesha Rascoe told us that "American voters have clearly embraced Donald Trump more than ever." This on the network that periodically raises funds from its audience by promising them that its news coverage is fair, thoughtful, reliable, factual, and essential information for them as citizens. But it was fairly typical of the bullshit that has spouted forth from every corner of the media since shortly after polls closed on November 5.
So it seems important to reiterate the lede that they're all missing: Trump did not win this election, Harris lost it. At the time I first posted this perspective, the votes had not yet all been counted. Now they're all in, it continues to hold true. Trump garnered slightly fewer votes this year than he did in his losing effort in 2020. Somewhat over ten million people who voted for Biden and Harris in 2020 stayed home rather than vote for Harris and Walz in 2024. If the people who had been willing to accept Harris as an understudy in 2020 had come out to vote for her as the main attraction in 2024, we would have seen a very diffierent result. Although Trump's support appears to have increased somewhat among a number of demographic groups, notably Hispanic and Black men and the undereducated working class in general, this is not because he broadened his appeal; the total number of people who voted for him actually shrank. Instead, it is an optical illusion. The total number of people who voted in 2024 was substantially smaller than the number of people who voted in 2020, but Trump's share of the pie stayed about the same, whereas the loss was all on the other side. It's like having a pizza shared among two people, and one of my slices falls on the floor. You wouldn't say the other guy's half grew bigger. But that's the braindead condition of American political journalism.
Meanwhile, we waltz into a government headed by someone who is openly fascist, just as if this were a normal transfer of power.
Lately, I have been haunted by a thought that is oddly comforting. We've lived with former-and-soon-to-be President Pussygrabber for a long time. By now, those of us who have been paying attention, who have not been brainwashed by Fox News et al., and who posses a level of intelligence slightly greater than that of a slime mold - which, as I said, excludes much of mainstream political journalism - know him reasonably well. We know above all that absolutely nothing he ever says has any substantive meaning, despite the apparent inability of mainstream political journalism to get over the idea that the words he spouts in the form of policy pronouncements have anything to do with fixed policy positions. Instead, this is a guy whose world view is just about 100% transactional. The things he says in the form of policy statements are actually merely chips, tokens, counters, checks drawn on the credit of his account at the bank of the gullible. (Sometimes he'll "change his mind." Sometimes he'll "walk it back." Sometimes he'll promise things that are mutually contradictory. Often, upon closer examination, whatever he said bears no relation to any identifiable reality.) But as Trump has amply demonstrated in the course of his miserable failure of a business career, this is a guy you need to get to pay in advance. As those who gave their votes to him are about to find out.
Yes, it's going to be a shit show. Many people are going to suffer, and many people are going to die, and the damage to this country and its democratic aspirations, if not irreparable, will take a long time to recover. Not to mention climate change, Ukraine, Palestine, the poor people of Iran, etc. etc. etc. But there's this: unless he throws out the Constitution altogether, which is of course possible but not likely, and even if this physically and mentally rapidly deteriorating man survives the next four years, at the end of this term his career as President is over. He'll never run again. He'll never face the voters again. This means that he no longer needs the people who put him in office. He's already there. He no longer needs the Rethuglicans who accompanied him into office, except for them not to kick him out prematurely. Which they won't do, for fear of their ignorant, zealous, and oh-so-loyal (to Trump) constituents. To a very large degree, nobody has a hold on him, and he doesn't need to pay them lip service any more. Instead, he can proceed to devote his full attention to doing the only thing he really cares about, which is enriching himself. Whatever he might do, despite the endless bullshit media pundits are already treating us to, is utterly unpredictable, except in terms of who can give him what. If I were Vladimir Zelensky, right now I'd be making out the biggest check I can, payable to Donald Trump.
UPDATE, November 17, 2024: In writing the above, I did not take full account of the fact that not all the votes had been counted. I recognized that the count was ongoing, but thought that ongoing tabulation would not much change the picture. As it turned out, my overall take on the election, that is, that the undervote for Harris was key, holds up. But I was not correct in saying that Pussygrabber failed to match his 2020 total. In fact, he has somewhat exceeded it, with somewhat over 76,000,000 votes this year, compared to about 74,000,000 for him four years ago. I still maintain that this does not represent a significant expansion of Pussygrabber's support, which remains essentially static. By contrast, Harris, with close to 74,000,000 votes this year, fell short of her total with Biden by almost 8,000,000 votes. The significant change in the electorate, that is, consists entirely of the number of those who previously voted for a ticket with Harris on it, but were unwilling to come out for her when she headed the ticket.
