The Gate

After months of twists and turns, presidents pulling out of races and getting shot at, speeches, conventions, polls and more speeches, the 2024 election has come to a close in a blink of an eye. It was a terrible night for Democrats and a triumphant one for Republicans. In the past week, voters and pundits have been reflecting on the election and pointing out the now obvious flaws of the Harris campaign that, of course, no one had highlighted before Election Day. Instead of  criticizing Harris as a candidate, the global movement against incumbents that sunk her campaign before it began, the need for Harris to have separated herself from Biden and other semi-obvious and unproductive criticisms, I’m more interested in other lessons from the election.

1. Republicans shouldn’t get ahead of themselves

Despite their capturing the White House, Senate, and the House, Republicans must tread carefully. It is easy to read these results as a resounding mandate, a profound desire and affinity for Republican rule. If the results of the past eight years in the US and around the world teach us anything, that is far from the case. There is, for reasons too broad and complex to condense in these pages, a global resentment against the status quo, in whatever form that may take. In the UK, that was Brexit, followed by Boris Johnson, followed by a resounding Labour victory, each one designed to repudiate that which came right before it. The same has been true in France, throughout Europe and South America, Japan, and the United States as well. Trump’s election in 2016 was the ultimate example of this trend, and yet even that rejection of the status quo was rejected itself in 2018 and 2020. The Biden status quo was then rejected in 2022 and, of course, 2024.  Republicans are now the party in power, which means the same resentments and criticisms that brought them victory can and will inevitably cause them defeat. 

Whether that defeat comes in 2-4 years or in 6-8 depends on not overestimating their mandate, restraining their darkest and most extreme impulses and substantively addressing voters’ concerns. It requires the work of serious government, which, based on the rhetoric of their campaign, Republicans appear uninterested in. To be clear, the results of last week do not illustrate a nationwide reluctance to elect Democrats. In Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, Democratic Senate candidates won their races against well-funded Republican challengers, despite Trump carrying the state overall. Any sense of infallibility from Republicans could prove disastrous for them in the near future. Just as Democrats have been punished electorally, Republicans are equally primed to suffer should they not reign in their far-right culture wars, election denialism, and flirtations with authoritarianism.

2. Democrats need to learn a lesson from Republicans about winning

When Donald Trump lost the election in 2020, Republicans were furious at the electorate. They blamed fickle voters for being brainwashed by the media, being too sensitive over Trump’s tweets and personal conduct, and, of course, many outright denied they had lost, ultimately resorting to violence. At the time, they did not acknowledge that people were upset at the Trump administration’s bungling of the pandemic, the chaos of his governance, the abnormally high turnover in senior positions, and his reliance on crackpots like Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, and Sydney Powell. But Republicans came back swiftly. After disappointing 2022 midterms, they coalesced around the candidate they believed most capable of winning a general election, Donald Trump. Despite the attempts of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to seize their moment, once Trump decided he would run again, there was little question of who would be the nominee.

Republicans stopped mentioning the “stolen election” in every sentence. Trump hired shrewd and experienced Republican campaign operatives like Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. He successfully courted big donors, nearly all of whom supported the campaign despite initial reservations. They picked two strong, winnable issues to focus the campaign on: immigration and the economy. This winning formula is what Democrats need to consider over the next four years. There is a high likelihood the Trump administration will be incredibly unpopular, corrupt, and borderline disastrous. At the very best, they will be incompetent and ineffectual. Democrats must put aside their reliance on personally attacking Donald Trump and his supporters. They must stop emphasizing democracy as a campaign issue (I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that this is a remotely winning issue). They must stop ceding the most important issues of the economy and immigration to Republicans whilst being content to hammer on about the environment when it is an electoral loser. And most importantly, after the inevitable finger pointing and backstabbing of the next year or two, Democrats must hold serious, competitive primaries before uniting around the winning candidate who focuses more on dinner table issues than celebrity endorsements and identity politics.

3. The New Trump Administration: Likely More of the Same

Based on the first few days of the Trump transition, it appears his new administration will end up somewhat similar to their first go around. Despite articles and reporting on how this time, his team is more effective, experienced, and capable of pulling the levers of government, Trump’s initial Cabinet picks leave me skeptical. Trump claims he will be able to follow through on his plan to enact the largest deportation in history, rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants in coordination between state and federal agencies, led by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Who better to lead such an effort than Kristi Noem, the governor of North Dakota best known for torpedoing her vice-presidential ambitions by writing a book where she applauds herself for shooting her dog, as well as, during her time as governor, spearheading a meth awareness campaign with the tagline, “Meth. We’re On It.” 

His pick for Secretary of Defense, whom he is tasking with rooting out all DEI initiatives from the military, as well as being his top military advisor, is a Fox News host. Do these people have the experience and competence to execute such complicated tasks? Possibly, but unlikely. Other members of Trump’s administration who actually bring these qualities to the table, like his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and pick for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seem like good choices. They will also be, if history is any indicator, the first to be fired. Trump’s continued reliance on people who believe in his causes and ideas also limit him to picking people who are not capable of actually executing them. This next administration is shaping up to be another scattershot of ambitious ideas to remake the government that, despite some grabby headlines and marginal success here and there, will ultimately fail for the same reasons that got it elected in the first place.

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