Donald Trump: Anti-Awokening

One of the most telling images of Election 2024 unfolded on CNN sometime in the morning of Wednesday, November 6, when it was sufficiently clear that Donald Trump had staged a spectacular comeback. Standing before a map of the US, the TV anchor asked the poll pundit to delineate the counties where Vice President Kamala Harris had outperformed President Joe Biden in 2020. The poll­ster replied that the question was best answered through the map. Then, with the deft pressing of a mysterious button, they both stared open mouthed at a map that had responded with a flourish of brutalist mini­malism. There was not a single county in whole of the US of A where Harris had bettered the Democratic record four years ago.

Put it another way, Trump had outperformed himself across the country. This naturally included the Red states where Republican majorities are weighed rather than counted. However, it also included the deep blue of the Blue citadels such as the Queen’s district of New York City. And Los Angeles in California. Even Chicago, a city that still deifies Barak Obama—one of the most energetic campaigners for Harris—made sure that the Democratic majority in Illinois shrank.

When Trump hosted a mega rally in the concluding days of the cam­paign at New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden, the pundits called into question his priorities. What was the point in expending energy and resources in a state that in recent times had not been won by any Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984? The sceptics were, of course, partially right. In terms of outcome, none of the Blue states on the east coast gave Trump any electoral votes—the only votes that re­ally matter in a US presidential election. However, it was the increase in Trump’s popular vote in the east that was a significant factor in the Republican nominee compounding his victory in the Electoral Col­lege with a five million-plus plurality over Harris in popular votes. This prize—implying the endorsement of a majority of Americans irre­spective of geography—had eluded Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Trump’s clear victory in the popular vote settled the 2024 election and put paid to all plans in the Democratic establishment of challenging the outcome in the courts. The victory, it was clear, was both categorical and emphatic. Trump had not only captured the ideological ground on the Right, but he had also well and truly captured the Centre ground of politics.

The clarity of the verdict has prompted some disturbing ques­tions centred on the collective understanding of the US. About two days before polling, the entire political establishment went into a complete tizzy over an opinion poll in the rock-solid Republican state of Iowa that suggested Harris would outpoll Trump by three percentage points. Since the Republicans had traditionally enjoyed a seven to eight percentage point lead in Iowa, the poll suggested a reversal of gigantic proportions that would lead to the complete decimation of Trump. Although there were a few cautionary voices that suggested the poll was “garbage”, the liberal commentariat seized on it to arrive at some tendentious conclusions. First, that Harris had consolidated her hold over women voters, cutting across age. Secondly, that black and Latino males had got over their tenta­tive flirtation with Trump and reverted to the Democratic camp. And, finally, that mainstream Republican scepticism of a brash outlander had made a dent in support for Trump.

What is significant about not merely the outlier Iowa poll but nearly all assessments, quantitative or otherwise, of the 2024 presi­dential race is the colossal margin of error. The pollsters should not be faulted for reducing the contest to the battle in seven states. The outcome suggested that while the Red and Blue states held firm in their disbursement of electoral votes, what really mattered was the ‘flip’ in the states that had witnessed extremely close contests in 2020. That Trump prevailed in nearly all the ‘swing’ states, and that too with comfortable margins, should not blind us to the fact that the campaigning was intense and every vote was fought over. Where the commentariat erred was on three counts.

First, despite compelling evidence that there was a wave of dissatisfaction over the state of the post-Covid economy that had been managed by Biden, Democratic strategists persisted with the illusion that voters were disturbed by the implications of the Roe vs Wade judgment and the creeping authoritarianism of the rightwing, of which Trump was a shining example. Whether the impression—that what would sway preferences was the revolt of women over their shrinking personal space—stemmed from the outcome of the 2022 mid-term election, or resulted from the personal inclinations of Harris, will be for historians to judge. But regardless of what prompted the strategic choices, it left large areas of popular concern unaddressed. Harris was completely out of her depth addressing concerns about the economy. Her stock answer was that she came from a middle-class family, an answer that suggested either a complete non-application of mind or a belief that voters could be doled out any rubbish.

For the Republican Right, abortion has always been a contentious issue. This was more so considering the enormous influence wielded by the Christian evan­gelists for whom the right to life is an article of faith. Rather than reduce the battle to a faith versus femi­nism battle, as the hotheads in both camps would have preferred, Trump deftly sidestepped the controversy indicating that the onus of decision-making lay with the states. Instead, he turned the spotlight on the state of the economy, repeating the question that had won Ronald Reagan an electoral landslide in 1980: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

The question had one possible answer: No.

The second miscalculation of the Harris campaign was in assuming that a social coalition centred on women and ethnic minorities would see her through. To a very large extent, this approach appears to have emerged from the campuses and prosperous suburbs of America, areas where the Democratic Party has become the default party. It was assumed that poorer and non-college-educated whites, not to mention Christians and farmers, would form the backbone of the Republicans. It was likewise imag­ined that the undifferentiated bloc vote of blacks and Hispanics— who were culturally differentiated from the Trump campaign— would give the Harris campaign its booster dose.

The lessons of this anti-woke backlash are unlikely to be lost to the political world. Trump has contributed significantly to rolling back the tide of woke activism from schools in America and even the rest of the democratic world where such pernicious ideas were beginning to take root

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This over-reliance on identity politics turned out to be misplaced. Harris won a majority of votes of the black and Hispanic communities, but Trump won a significant minority of these com­munities, enough for the Republican Party to incorporate them in future initiatives of the conservative movement. What made all the difference was the importance of national secular issues, particularly the economy and illegal immigration. The belief in the Harris campaign that only bigoted whites were concerned with illegal immigra­tion and that ethnic minorities were naturally in favour of open borders was based on an over-reliance on the flawed political instincts of those mentally resident on the campuses. It was about as silly as the Democratic bid to cut down Trump’s support among black male voters by favouring a greater use of recreational drugs.

At the same time, the Trump campaign did not entirely steer clear of what the Left likes to see as ‘personal’ politics. At different points of the campaign, it was becoming increasingly apparent that there was a groundswell of resentment against the excesses of woke intrusiveness. Rather than make a big thing of DEI and Critical Race Theory, the Republican side focused on the travesty of biological males participating in women’s sports and insisting on the right to use women’s toilets in schools. This had been a sim­mering issue among all parents, including moms who otherwise felt strongly about the restriction on abortion rights. Trump’s deft use of this parental unease, along with Harris’ evasive answers to questions of criminals demanding sex-change operations at gov­ernment expense, ensured that cracks developed in the suburban alliance nurtured by the Democrats. The lessons of this anti-woke backlash are unlikely to be lost to the political world. Trump has contributed significantly to rolling back the tide of woke activism from schools in America and even the rest of the democratic world where such pernicious ideas were beginning to take root.

Trump turned the spotlight on the economy, repeating the question that had won Reagan a landslide: ‘are you better off today than you were four years ago?’

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The tendency of the American liberal-left to see the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement in caricatured terms, as the epicentre of bigotry, has contributed immeasurably to the demonology around Trump. However, it is instructive to note that the issues which are of fundamental concern to America and its standing in the world were raised by the Trump campaign.

The first, of course, was the economy that went beyond the stan­dard of living issue to embrace the larger question of the future of the US as a centre of manufacturing. It is remarkable that a scheme for the revival of industry (and even services) in America proved to be of so little concern to the Democrats. The suggestion that the Left has written off the unionised working class may sound facile, but its lack of concern seems to tell a clear story. It is not necessary that the protectionist tariffs that Trump has suggested as an incentive for domestic investment in manufacturing be a magic wand. There is a real possibility that in the short run it will fuel inflation. However, the larger question is the gap between the US as an innovation hub and its decline as a manufacturing centre. Trump has successfully put these concerns back on the centrestage of national policy.

The second issue that only the Trump campaign addressed was thegrowing clout of Chinaintheworld, including its emergence as a potential threat to the US. As a leader wedded to a transactional style of international relations, it is entirely possible that his wariness of China is negotiable. Certainly, a Trump regime would like to put curbs on China’s ability to milk the lucrative American and European markets by riding piggyback on the principle of free markets. At the same time, it is less interested in China’s potential hegemonic role in Asia and its arm-twisting of smaller countries such as Taiwan and the Philippines. The new Republican ‘realism’ implies a retreat from military involve­ments in the world. NATO has already been served notice for the failure of its member-states to raise its defence budget. This could force the regime in Ukraine to consider meeting Vladimir Putin halfway. The question is whether a similar accountancy approach will define the US’ Indo-Pacific involvement, to which is also linked the future of Taiwan and the Quad.

The final issue, also centred on foreign policy, where Trump could make a big difference is West Asia. There are anecdotal sug­gestions that a big section of Muslim Americans did not vote for Harris in protest at the free hand given by the Biden administration to Israel in Gaza. While Harris made no worthwhile interventions on the subject during the campaign, Trump too did not make his views too public although the generous display of Israeli flags at the Madison Square Garden rally told its own story. Ideally, Trump would like nothing better than Israel finishing off its military pacifi­cation without either restraint or delay. This will give Trump a twin opening. First, it could enable him to cut back America’s military in­vestments in Israel without jeopardising the security of the Jewish state. Secondly, if Israel successfully uses the window of transition in the US to further cut the regime in Iran and its proxies to size, Trump will be in a very advantageous position to renegotiate the revival of the Abra­ham Accords involving Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and, perhaps, Egypt in a peace deal. At the heart of the approach will be the need for Is­rael to fight a short, decisive war that will force the Ayatollahs away from any pan-Islamic involvement. At the same time, it will be a message to different shades of the Palestinian movement to either recognise the finality of Israel or be reconciled to prolonged subordination and even marginalisation.

For Trump, the victory is at one level a huge personal triumph, the likes of which are rarely witnessed in the political world. At the same time, narrowly surviving two assassination bids and overcoming the machinations of the Deep State, makes the most hardened of individuals believe in their own destiny. The conver­gence between these two trends makes the reading of Trump’s tea leaves an impossible project.

Trump will either do it his own way or perish in his bid to redraw America’s destiny. The next four years should be unmissable.

About The Author

Swapan Dasgupta

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