Triumph of Donald Trump, Crisis of Democrats

Donald Trump and Barack Obama have never hidden their disdain for each other, but Trump may now have the last laugh. His dominating re-election to the White House may also mark the dismantling of the Obama coalition that has been a driving force in the Democratic Party since Obama’s first election in 2008.

To the surprise of many observers, excluding Trump campaign supporters, he not only won the popular vote, but he has also shown he has a multi-ethnic and working-class coalition that grew its percentage of young voters and significantly increased its Hispanic vote.

The Republican Party, which has for decades been seen as white, Southern and conservative, after this election is looking more diverse and populist. Indeed, Trump is the first Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote as well as the electoral college.

Analysts are busy speculating on the reasons for the stronger-than-expected Trump victory. Much of the speculation aligns with the ideological assumptions of the expert doing the speculating, but what is not debatable are the numbers.

As expected, women voters went for Harris and men went for Trump, but Harris’s total of female voters declined from those who went for President Joe Biden in 2020, while Trump grew his percentage of both female and male voters.

Abortion was expected to be a pivotal issue as it was in 2022. Yet while seven of 10 statewide propositions supporting abortion rights passed, almost half of those voting for liberalized abortion laws also voted for Trump. Trump’s nominees to the Supreme Court in his first term helped overturn the law legalizing abortion nationwide, but Trump distanced himself from that unpopular decision by insisting that he was fine with leaving the decision up to the states. Prolife activists grumbled, but voters did not.

One of the most noteworthy developments is that Trump won a majority of Latino men, and Harris’s percentage of Hispanic women declined. Immigration (primarily of Hispanics from Central and South America) has been a major campaign issue, but the majority of Hispanic voters in the country have been here for more than a generation, often for two or three. Exit polls suggest that they were most concerned about the economy, but they can also be quite conservative in terms of shutting the southern border and in their opposition to abortion and cultural extremes.

One marker of Trump’s inroads was the fact that he won Miami-Dade County in Florida, the first Republican to take this heavily Hispanic county since 1988.

Black women were strongly supportive of Harris, with more voting for her than they did for Biden in 2020. However, the percentage of black men for Harris shrank as Trump made inroads in what was a traditional bastion of Democratic votes.

And Trump maintained a strong hold on white men and even white women, despite the abortion issue and despite the negative coverage of his more sexist comments.

Overall, a smaller percentage of Americans voted than in 2020, but a larger percentage of that vote went for the Republican candidate.

The cracks in the Obama coalition are also obvious as Trump grew his support also among young and first-time voters, especially male and Hispanic. The kind of identity politics that characterized Democratic strategy seems to have had its day, with party identity being less important than populist social concerns like jobs, inflation and housing.

The results suggest that class rather than race is the better predictor of votes now, with the college-educated tilting to the Democrats, but the non-college-educated, regardless of race, going Republican. If true, this could be a significant electoral realignment that may outlast Trump.

The scale of the Trump victory is underscored by the fact that the Harris campaign spent $400 million more on the campaign than the Republicans did, yet still lost.

What is to be debated is to what extent Trump grew support for his policy proposals versus Harris being punished for the results of Biden’s policy choices. It is clear from exit polling that the state of the economy was a significant factor. Americans who said the economy is in bad shape overwhelmingly went for Trump, especially in rural and suburban areas. Although economists have praised the Biden administration for negotiating a “soft landing,” shrinking inflation’s growth without sending the economy into a recession, for many Americans this is an unappreciated subtlety.

The inflationary spiral that took off after the pandemic lockdown eased was the result of pent-up demand and weakened supply chains, but the net result was the first time in more than a generation Americans had experienced significant inflationary pressure. They did not like it.

One cannot ignore the cultural issues that played a part as well. Anti-Harris ads in many parts of the country, including California, attacked policies sympathetic to transgender issues. Biological males playing in women sports, while statistically insignificant, is one such issue. So was “gender affirming treatment” for minors and the military paying for transgender surgeries.

These conservative cultural issues resonated with Hispanic voters in particular. Rep. Maria Salazar, a Florida Congresswoman, mentioned the “gender affirming” policies specifically. “The Democrats left Hispanics. We did not leave them,” she said.

The Trump campaign highlighted past positions held by Harris that painted her as a progressive out of touch with mainstream values. The Harris campaign did a poor job of responding to these attacks, and she was often less than eloquent when challenged by interviewers on these subjects.

The three greatest handicaps Harris faced were that she was inextricably tied to the Biden Administration with all of its perceived weaknesses; she did not go through a competitive primary process where her policies would have been closely examined; and she had only 100 days to mount a national campaign. One could say that what she accomplished was extraordinary given the short time frame, but she was competing against a man that Americans were familiar with and who had in essence been campaigning for nine years.

Critics like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi are laying blame for the defeat at the feet of Joe Biden and his inner circle. Given his increasingly frail presence, they say that Biden should have been forced to renounce his campaign much sooner. Those around him were more concerned with protecting and affirming him than in thinking about who should succeed him. By the time this question was faced, his Vice President was the only viable candidate, however untested.

After stunning defeats like this, political parties usually promise to re-examine their fundamental principles. But the interest groups that hold sway in each party often make it difficult to really do a course correction.

Should the Democrats be willing to do such a self-examination, they might look closely at both their apparent strengths and obvious weaknesses.

The Democratic Party that was once the party of the working class is now the party of the coastal elites, the college educated and various self-appointed advocates of factions (Hispanic, Black, LGBT, etc.). For the last several elections, it has grown weaker in the Midwest, South and much of the West. It is perceived as holding positions that are “politically correct” but alien to many Americans.

There is a strong libertarian ethos in the American soul – you do what you want but don’t tell me how to think or live. It tolerates gay marriage, for example, or abortion, but it bristles when it is told what language to use or what beliefs it must adopt.

While certain progressive intellectuals use the phrase Latinx as a way of avoiding gender linked nouns (similar to Italian), Hispanics overwhelming reject such political correctness. Trans activists who insist on using gender non-specific pronouns (“they” and “them” rather than “she” and “her,” for example) or who insist on “pregnant person” rather than “pregnant woman” likewise cause a reaction. What is politically correct in conversations at the Democratic National Headquarters just sounds weird to many Americans in the rest of the country.

Three of the Democratic senators who lost re-election were part of the party’s moderate wing. As the Democratic party shrinks, it tends to strengthen the progressive wing that come from safe districts or states that are in ideological lock step. This does not bode well for the party if it intends to become a party capable of speaking to, and representing, the broad swath of American voters.

Underscoring the ideological craziness still to be overcome by Democrats, The New York Times reported Nov. 8 that there is an effort by some women outraged by the election results to reject “heterosexual dating, marriage and sex, as well as childbirth” because of male support for Trump.

On the other hand, the Republican party now must deal with the challenges that come with victory. Although traditionally fiscally conservative, at least when out of power, Republicans are now likely to institute a broad series of tax cuts that will greatly increase America’s already staggering $36 trillion debt.

It is also considering tariffs on a wide range of foreign goods, especially Chinese. Most economists say this policy risks stoking inflation as costs rise and are paid for by American consumers.

Trump has painted himself as an anti-war president, invoking America’s isolationist instincts. But foreign crises often force a president – whether he be Biden or Trump – to be reactive. The shattered landscape of the Middle East, the battered towns and cities of Eastern Ukraine, the festering conflicts in Sudan, Mali, Myanmar and elsewhere remain challenges for U.S. diplomats and military strategists, regardless of campaign promises.

And as the Trump administration dismantles many of the climate policies of the Biden administration, the rest of the world, and most especially Europe, will have to imagine a world without American leadership or guardrails even as the planet gets warmer.

Americans have spoken. They remain divided, often bitterly so. The first moves of the Trump administration may set the tone for the next four years, shaping both his agenda and the resistance that almost certainly will result.