November
15, 2020
The election
that, by many, was termed the most consequential election of our lifetime, is
now twelve days behind us and the dust is beginning to settle even as the
outgoing president is kicking up a storm by refusing to accept defeat. It shows
a mixed picture and it certainly did not comply with mainstream predictions and
expectations. Case in point: the prediction that this would be a ‘coattail’
election in which whoever would win the White House would take control of both
houses of Congress with him did not come true, on the contrary.
Joe Biden
won, but by a much narrower margin of 306 versus 232 Electoral Votes than the
polls had made us believe; he failed to take outright control of the Senate,
and lost a significant number of seats in the House of Representatives. Note,
that the Senate composition will not be decided until January 5 when the State
of Georgia will hold a run-off election for 2 open seats and that the race for
13 seats in the House has yet to be decided. At the time of this writing,
Republicans hold 50 seats in the Senate, versus 48 for the Democrats and 203
seats in the House, versus 219 for the Democrats.
Republicans
picked up one governorship in the State of Montana and flipped control of the
New Hampshire legislature by winning a majority in both the New Hampshire House
and Senate. Trump won half of the 50 States of the Union, but he lost the
popular vote by almost 4% (>5.5 million votes).
The only
‘blue wave’ in this election was the one caused by the order of ballot
counting, with in person Election Day votes being counted first, before the
mail-in votes were canvassed. Trump overwhelmingly won the Election Day vote,
creating late on November 3 and early on November 4, the impression that he was
heading for a clear and convincing win, but, as the vote counting progressed,
he kept losing his advantage and ultimately lost the battle ground States of
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and, surprisingly, also the States of
Georgia and Arizona.
On the other
hand, Trump won handily in key other States that had been considered to be ‘in
play’: notably Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Ohio.
The bottom
line is that Trump and Trumpism did not win the day, but did not get
irrevocably repudiated either. In a basketball context a 78-73 score would
signal a very close game. And the question is, what can the winning team, this
time squeaking by, do to confidently look forward to the next contest?
The answer
to that question is very much in the hands of the Republican Party. It has been
taken over by Trump and his acolytes, but it has left a large number of
traditional Republicans out in the cold. What are they to do in the run up to
the next national elections in 2022 and 2024? Will they step in line and close
ranks with the Trumpists to maintain party unity? Will they find temporary refuge,
at least until the storm passes by, at the Democratic Party, if not as active
members then as sympathetic outsiders? Or will they accept the GOP as a cause
lost to Trump and seek to establish a new, republican party that can
fundamentally change the American political landscape by giving the voters a
choice for a centrist alternative for the existing two parties?
Somebody,
the Democrats or these Centrists, will have to test the cohesiveness of the
Trump voting block in the coming 4 years. Trump has already hinted at his
intent to run again in 2024 and it is hard to see how the GOP can deny him the
nomination now that he has shown to have the support of 73 million Americans.
It is easy to see a repeat of the 2020 primaries in which no serious GOP
contender chose to run against him.
It raises
the question who will be able to peel the onion and what will it take to pry
constituencies away from the defeated 45th President? In order to
break the impasse, someone will have to separate the kernels from the chaff
from amongst the Trump supporters. Let Trump have the bigots, the white
supremacists, the xenophobes, the fascists, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys
and the Boogaloos, but find out what drove all others to vote for him and what
it will take to bring them back into the fold of traditional American
democracy.
Anecdotally,
we know of some of the reasons why people voted for Trump even though they
would take exception to being part of the cult that has formed around the style
and personality of the 45th President:
· Fear of the extreme left tendencies
in the platform of the Democratic Party.
· Rejection of the violence and looting
that has accompanied widespread street protests against police brutality.
· Disdain shown by the ‘establishment’
for the needs and opinions of the less educated.
· Disregard shown by the
‘establishment’ for the negative effects of globalization on the lower income
classes.
· Desire to shake up the system that
has sharply increased inequality in all aspects of life and failed to deliver
on the wishes and expectations of the ‘common man’.
Who is going
to compete with Trump in addressing these serious and legitimate gripes many
Americans, call them the ‘righteous disgruntled’, have with the current
political constellation?
In that
contest, the Democrats will have to overcome three handicaps. First, unless
they miraculously win the 2 open Senate seats in Georgia, they will be
paralyzed in Congress to advance any major legislation. Second, because of the
lack of legislative progress, they will be hard pressed to keep the support of
a majority of Independents and the traditional Republicans. The Democrats can,
ironically, be happy to have Trump as the opponent, because any other populist
(without the personal flaws and age of Trump) would be much better positioned
to capture these constituencies and address the grievances of the ‘righteous disgruntled’.
Third, they will have to neutralize the extreme left wing of their party that
has scared away all but the most ideologically driven voters.
The
traditional Republicans have even larger handicaps to overcome. Since they have
virtually no chance recapturing control of the GOP anytime soon, they would
have to create a viable third party in the very short time available until the
2022 elections. And build a party on a platform that can attract the ‘righteous
disgruntled’, plus a majority of the Independents and some centrist Democrats.
As of the time of this writing, we detect no action in this direction. A
centrist third party could be the catalyst needed to finally break through the
gridlock that has dominated American politics now for decades. The election
result of 2020 can be interpreted as showing a reluctance by the voters to give
either the Trump GOP or the Democrats full control of the DC machinery. A
constellation with a centrist party flanked by a populist, rightwing, GOP and a
leftwing Democratic Party would provide the American voters with a much clearer
choice, but history has proven to be very averse to backing away from the
two-party system.
A
reshuffling of constituencies between the parties, like we have seen in the
South where, in the second half of the 20th century, the Republicans
have supplanted the Democrats, is much more likely. Unless a centrist third
party gets created and takes a hold, the GOP will more and more become the
party of the reactionary nationalists, the under-educated, and the rural
population, with the Democratic Party capturing the urban and suburban elite
and the progressive intellectuals.
Either way,
the opposing powers in Washington are now confronted with the choice to allow
Trump to consolidate his support with the righteous disgruntled or to pry these
voters away from him by addressing their grievances by their actions and promises.
Will the Democrats accept that challenge or will it be up to a yet to establish
opposition party? And, whoever picks up the flag, can they pull it off? If neither party can separate the kernels
from the chaff, they will implicitly cede the high ground to the Trump GOP.
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