Post-Election Thoughts: Part II

What's Next

In my last post I gave you some thoughts about why Harris lost and Trump won. In this second of three post-election posts, I address What’s Next?

To give you an idea how challenging this is, I had almost completed a full draft, until Trump and Musk and Vance shot down the bipartisan spending deal, brokered by Speaker Johnson, that was going to keep the government open through March. Fortunately, after a near brush with shutdown chaos, a spending compromise was reached late Friday night. But the last-minute chaos triggered by Trump and Musk, even before Trump has taken office, foreshadows what is likely to be routine after he is sworn in. It’s simply his style.

Predictably and understandably, the fact that Musk, more so than Trump, seemed to be driving the shutdown train has given Democrats ammunition to argue not only that Musk is the true power behind the Trump throne, but also that the incoming Administration seems all too ready to side with the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the rest of the country. Look for that to be a unifying theme for the Democrats over the next four years. As I discuss at the end, they’ll need one.

Meanwhile, the Musk driven chaos, as well as infighting among House Republicans, has prompted a spate of stories questioning how many of Trump’s campaign promises he’ll be able to get through even a Republican-controlled Congress. Musk is Trump’s enforcer – actually his insurance policy against being treated as a lame duck – with his threats to back primary challenges to Rs who don’t follow the Trump line. This works for Senators and Representatives who are not already full MAGA. But the far-right House members who didn’t support Trump’s recent shutdown maneuver have nothing to fear from Musk: who’s realistically going to get their right?

Still, I think it’s way too early to write Trump’s agenda off, though the dangers to Republicans of disunity within their ranks is a threat to their ability to hold onto power, as I also discuss at the end. But, for now, keep in mind a few facts in Trump’s favor. Trump’s core supporters don’t care about Elon being close to Trump, so long as Trump delivers on his core promises, mainly deportation of illegal immigrants. Many if not most non-MAGA Trump voters, young ones in particular, look to Elon as a hero who will bring badly needed disruptive change to Washington. Meanwhile, as the chaos in Washington was unfolding this past, most Americans, including Democrats, were busy Christmas shopping.

So, notwithstanding the mess of the past week, I still think what I had largely written before is relevant, or will have at least a half-life of several weeks! I therefore will continue, mindful of one of many of Yogi Berra’s laws: It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

That’s a good segue into the obvious: with Trump especially, no one other than Trump – and maybe not even him on many things, given the way he operates on instinct – really knows how he’ll govern, other than perhaps by creating on purpose a crisis a week (or more). Given that reality, instead of forecasting what I believe will happen over the next four years -- a fool’s errand -- I outline here first what I will refer to as a “Core Scenario” in which the things that Trump campaigned most on are implemented, and then ask whether these plausible changes and outcomes will be enough to keep Republicans in power in the 2026 mid-terms and beyond?

To be clear, in laying out the Core Scenario I’m not endorsing it, just describing it. I then discuss a number of things could derail this scenario, with both negative and positive impacts on Republicans’ political fortunes. I close with a big caveat going into 2028: post-election there are already major fissures within each party. A big wild card looking ahead is which party will be relatively more united, with Trump eventually off the scene (spoiler alert: Trump is still human and at some point he will be off the scene)? The answer to that question may determine what comes after Trump.

Throughout all this, I am assuming (I hope not naively), despite some Democrats’ worst fears, (1) that elections will continue (so that even if Trump tried to end them by invoking some sort of emergency powers, even this Supreme Court wouldn’t let him); (2) if he is alive and healthy enough in 2028 to run for third term, Trump nonetheless will be unable to figure out his way around the two-term limit under the 22^nd amendment that prevents him from running; and (3) Trump is around in 2028 to make clear who his chosen successor is – it might not be Vance.

I also focus on the impact of Trump’s policies and events on the voters who really matter for election outcomes, especially 2028: not the die-hard Trump supporters or dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, voters will show up at the polls and pull the R and D levers, respectively, no matter what. It’s the other “swing” voters who really matter, and there really are a lot of them, millions nationally, probably hundreds of thousands in the battleground states, certainly enough to “swing” the outcomes in either direction depending on events. Among the swing voters, I think the most important are what are I call “weak Trump supporters” from the 2024 election (think Haley voters during the 2024 Republican primaries and young males, including minorities of all ages who defected from the Democrats in the general 2024 contest) and voters coming of age for future elections that are now leaning toward him. Weak Trump supporters do not necessarily like or admire him as a person or think he is the kind of role model for their kids or their peers (he certainly is not), but because they trust and identify culturally more with Trump and Republicans more than they did with Harris last time and Democrats going forward.

To be clear, it is important not to confuse weak Trump supporters with “low information voters,” or those who don’t follow political discourse in the news or online, or tune into or care much about politics, except in the run up to election day (or even election day itself). Many low information voters are core Trump voters, or MAGA. But not all. Likewise, many weak Trump supporters in 2024 do follow the news and are tuned into politics, but for reasons just outlined opted for Trump and not for Harris in 2024.

The swing voter group also includes those who didn’t show up to vote in 2024 because they didn’t like either presidential candidate, as well as “weak” Democratic voters, those who chose Harris as the lesser to two evils over Trump. Both parties view non-voters as capable of being mobilized, but I give them less importance here because if they didn’t vote in November when so much was on the line, it’s hard to envision how many of them will show up in four years. As for weak Democrats, it is possible that if Trump doesn’t hurt programs they like while keeping the economy on track, they might switch to vote Republican in future elections. But I don’t count on many of them doing so. As a result, the central question when the political consequences of what I’m about to lay out will be determined largely by whether weak Trump voters stick with him and the Republican party in 2026 and 2028.

The Core Scenario: If Trump Pulls it Off, Rs Win Again in 2028 (and maybe hold the House in 2026)

The core scenario reflects a “moderate” version (I know, to most Democrats this version is extreme as hell) of Trumpism -- campaign versions scaled down to account for Trump’s historic pattern of overstatement; some constraints on Trump’s freedom of action due to the Republicans’ razor thin control of the House, and the discipline that the stock market will impose on Trump’s worst ideas (like the across-the board 20% tariff on all imported goods and deporting every illegal immigrant).

So here’s the “core scenario”: (1) some amount of increased tariffs, possibly only those that are targeted for some negotiating purpose; (2) some substantial number of deportations of illegal immigrants, perhaps in the 500,000 to 1 million range (including both forced deportations and “self-deportations,” which could be considerably larger than the “forced” total, and are discussed further below), illegal border crossings fall substantially from current levels, and for good measure, a bipartisan deal to permit Dreamers to gradually earn citizenship (an idea that Trump floated on December 8^th, though I say half seriously, it first may have to get past Stephen Miller); (3) some cuts in the federal budget that effectively trim waste and fraud (including cancellation or scaling back of major legacy weapons systems in favor of drones, one of Elon Musk’s major ideas, backed by, of all people, Sen. Bernie Sanders), but no real cuts to the bone, especially transfer programs that help low income families, and certainly not Social Security or Medicare (which Trump has insisted will not be cut); and (4) extension of the previous Trump tax cuts, with some 2024 Trump campaign wrinkles like no taxes on tips, social security and overtime added in. Assume further in this core scenario, which is deliberately favorable to Trump for arguments’ sake, that he brokers a deal between Russia and Ukraine that, at least through the 2028 election keeps Russia at bay and Ukraine out of NATO; that the Middle East shakes out in way with Israel more firmly than ever the dominant force in the region, and Iran’s nuclear plans set back significantly (either by military means, or ironically for Trump who rescinded Obama’s deal with Iran, through negotiation brought about by the threat of force); and China not having (yet) moved on Taiwan.

Even if inflation ticks up in this core scenario no higher than the 4% range -- because of the limited tariffs, increased federal deficits, tighter labor markets, and likely a more “dovish” Fed Chairman replacing Jerome Powell in 2026 – what are the odds that, under the foregoing assumptions, Trump’s chosen Republican successor would be reelected in 2028? To me, 80%. Why, you might ask, will a majority of voters not care enough about inflation rising one or even two percentage points during the Trump administration, when so many were so concerned about inflation in 2024 (and before)? Two answers. One is that price shock of 2022 was so sudden and large, against a backdrop of inflation being more or less in the 2% range for roughly two decades, that it was much more upsetting to Americans than a future modest uptick in the annual inflation rate in the future is likely to be. Second, my bet is that weak Trump supporters will take a modest increase in the inflation rate in stride so long as Trump is seen to have delivered on his core promises (Let’s remember, there have been Democratic economists in recent years suggesting that the Fed’s target inflation rate ought to be raised from 2 percent to 3-4 percent). The fact that Trump has recently backtracked from his campaign promise to bring grocery prices down is like so much else: it riles up Trump critics, Trump supporters shrug shoulders.

One thing to underscore: an immigration deal on Dreamers alone would be a huge plus, for the Dreamers, the country, and for Trump (and I hope for the country’s sake that Congressional Democrats take Trump’s offer to do a deal seriously, and not worry about who gets the credit, because if they do, and Trump offers something reasonable and Democrats reject it, they will look ridiculous and suffer for it during the next election, and deservedly so).

In outlining this core scenario and projections of its political impact, I haven’t brought up the clear lack of qualifications, and more worrisome, the danger, in some of Trump’s appointees: Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel, and RFK, Jr., in particular. But even if four Senate Republicans cannot muster the courage to halt these nominations in the face of now intense pressure by Trump to approve them, it is doubtful, in my view, that Senate approval of their nominations will materially affect the political fortunes of Republicans in either 2026 or 2028. To be sure, one or more of these nominees may help wreck the agencies they will oversee, give Trump bad or even dangerous advice, and cause public harm (especially if RFK, Jr. pursues his anti-vax nuttiness seriously, and wins, even over the pro-vaccine, pro-science views of other Trump appointees). But the hard reality, even with the high-profile confirmation hearings of these nominees coming in January, is that a vast majority of Americans, especially weak Trump supporters, don’t know or really care who these lesser appointees are. Readers of this column, and of course consumers of cable TV, know and care. But that’s not the audience that’s going to move the political needle. As I emphasize throughout this post, what would move the needle are bad outcomes that many swing voters may suffer and attribute to actions or non-actions of the Administration as a whole, Trump in particular, who has the loudest megaphone.

Dangers and Opportunities

So, what could go wrong, from Republicans’ perspective (and thus right for Democrats)? Three categories of events come to mind, subject to my closing qualifications about the relative “unity” in both parties, especially by 2028.

First, a broad retribution campaign poses political risks to Republicans. To be sure, retribution has already begun in a limited way with some Republican House members already have leveled baseless witness tampering accusations against Liz Cheney, in carrying out her constitutionally protected Congressional duties, and ABC’s settlement of Trump’s defamation case against the network (widely criticized by many commentators for “obedience in advance”). These events come a little more than a week after Trump’s December 8^th interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker where he said that Liz Cheney and Benny Thompson should be in jail, but said he wouldn’t pursue it, leaving the matter to his appointees? Kash Patel, Pam Bondi – both on the record already having talked about investigating Trump’s opponents. The Cheney/ABC news also follows Trump’s announcement that within 9 minutes of taking office he will pardon most (who knows, it could be all) of the January 6^th insurrectionists.

This is all very worrisome stuff, which many others have addressed on substack or through conventional media, so need for me to pile on. But being as coldly rational as I can be, so long as Trump and/or Republican retribution remains limited, I don’t see how it will keep the Core Scenario agenda from being carried out. After all, much of it Trump can do on his own, and what he can’t, his Republican Congressional majority, even as thin it is, I believe will back him on matters Trump really care about, when push comes to shove.

Meanwhile, as much as I do not like writing this, there are several reasons why I don’t believe limited retribution, coupled with the pardons, will be that costly for Republicans and Trump politically:

--A slim majority of America is now in an authoritarian mood, while many Democrats are demoralized, resigned or checked out. Trump voters, and even many Democrats, want the national equivalent of “fixing the damn roads” – namely, fixing inflation, illegal immigration, bringing more order to the world through a military buildup (peace through strength) and a more muscular use of economic weapons (tariffs) than has ever been used in the past. So long as weak Trump supporters get what they voted for, they won’t care if Trump wants to add a few (but only a few) notches to his belt, none of which directly affects them (or the rest of us, for that matter, except indirectly through a media that is chilled from doing their jobs, damage which will play out only over a long time and will go unnoticed in the meantime).

--The media targets of any retribution are not popular. One potential target in particular, MSNBC, reportedly might be sold off by Comcast, and if standing alone, it would not be missed except for a very small group of core Democrats who regularly watch it. That’s why Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinksi did that controversial interview with Trump shortly after the election, a not-so-subtle effort to persuade Trump to leave the cable network alone.

--Unfortunately, intimidation of the media seems to be working already: witness the ABC settlement. The less criticism of Trump by the mainstream media there is, the more likely it is he can carry out his agenda.

All bets are off, however, if the retribution effort turns out to be broad-based: Going after CBS or NBC would be a lot more alarming to swing voters than attacking MSNBC. And going after sitting Congressional leaders – like Bennie Thompson, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, let alone former presidents like Biden and Obama (whom Trump has threatened), or outgoing Biden officials, like AG Merrick Garland – would not only be a five alarm fire for democracy, but would run the risk of alarming many Trump supporters who dismissed his retribution talk as “Trump being Trump,” and voted for him anyhow because they wanted a change, but not all out revenge with no legal basis. Which is why I don’t think Trump will follow through on any broad retribution agenda. Certainly, I hope I’m right.

Nonetheless, given all the threats, President Biden is facing mounting calls that he preemptively pardon Trump’s apparent targets. A recent letter to the editor to the WSJ from Nathan Lewin, an esteemed Supreme Court litigator, points out that it is unclear whether the Constitutional pardon power can be exercised preemptively. For that reason, Lewin suggests that preemptive pardons by Biden could backfire, by inviting Trump to go after those targets if only to test the preemptive pardon authority in the courts. Lewin could be right, but there is a way for Biden to avoid that outcome: issue the preemptive pardons paired with a broad pardon of Trump, in both the January 6^th insurrection case and in the Florida documents case. Pardoning Trump now would help offset the political fallout, even among many Democrats, for pardoning his son Hunter, and would do the country a favor: it would keep Trump focused on doing his job as President, not squandering time and effort with a pointless retribution campaign. I realize, as I just wrote this, that from a narrow political perspective many Democrats may secretly hope Trump keeps his eye off the ball and mounts the broad retribution campaign that would trigger much more consternation and opposition. Still, I am sticking to pardon swap idea: why not do the graceful thing, pardon Trump along with the preemptive moves, so the country can move on from all this nastiness? History would look more kindly on Biden if he did this in the wake of the Hunter Biden pardon.

Second, if Trump and/or Congressional Republicans pursue a substantially more extreme agenda than the one in the Core Scenario, they also run a substantial risk of losing enough swing voters to make a difference in future elections. But those measures must impose costs on those swing voters in some tangible ways that they realize can be tied to the actions or inactions of the Trump’s Administration. Some examples include: substantial budget cuts in federal programs that now help some weak Trump voters, including Medicaid, food and housing subsidies; the “full Trump tariff agenda” that imposes 10-20% tariffs across the board; mass deportations (both forced and voluntary, which could out to be more sizeable) that cut deeply into the labor supply of the construction, food processing and restaurant industries that have relied, to varying extents on illegal immigrants), which combined with tariffs and substantially enlarged federal deficits, could push inflation well above the 4% range; curtailing or even eliminating Obamacare, which even many Trump voters benefit from and now accept (while many Americans are boiling angry with their private insurers, those covered by Obamacare policies now would be even angrier to have them ripped away); and a broad retribution campaign, against not only the media but more than a handful of Trump’s “enemies,” that makes swing voters nervous enough to vote Democratic the next chance they get. It wouldn’t take much from this menu to flip the House to the Democrats in 2026, consistent with the historical pattern of incumbent parties losing some seats in mid-term elections. Republicans only have a few seats to lose.

Of course, even if Republicans lose the House but retain the Senate, that could embolden a lame duck Trump to push legal boundaries and simply refuse to spend monies authorized by Congress (“impound” is the technical term), testing the willingness of the courts to go along. Indeed, Trump may try that tack in his first two years, as a way of implementing certain DOGE suggestions that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy come up with that Congress may not approve, although many of their likely ideas will require Congressional approval (like the welcome proposals to consolidate the banking regulatory agencies and to merge the DOJ/FTC, both long overdue). The conventional wisdom is that even this Supreme Court wouldn’t let Trump impound appropriated money, even pursuant to some kind of emergency declaration, but then the conventional wisdom about what the Supreme Court would do in the presidential immunity case was wrong.

The third category consists of “surprises”, both domestic and foreign that would not just scramble the political landscape but do so in a way that hurts Republicans and helps Democrats. Every President is hit with such events, and how each reacts determines their fate and that of the country when they happen. These surprises need not work against incumbents and their parties, if handled deftly, but they can also work against them, too.

On the domestic front, consider these examples: more climate related weather disasters and/or another deadly pandemic, or infectious disease outbreak (the bird flu now circulating mutating to become highly transmissible between humans) that the Administration fumbles in way that swing voters recognize.

On the international front, Trump assumes office at one of more perilous times in American history. Senator McConnell has suggested that the current global situation bears resemblance to 1939: the quiet before storms that may reach us, like it or not. A number of observers have already suggested that we are already in the early stages of World War III (with Russia, Iran, China, North Korea now closely aligned and fighting our allies). Meanwhile, governments throughout the developed world are in trouble: in South Korea, in the UK, France, Germany, and even Canada.

To be sure, it is possible that things will work out, with some luck and some eye-through-needle combination of a military buildup and negotiations to keep all the hot spots from boiling over. The optimistic outcomes are built into the Core Scenario outlined above.

But there are also many things that can go wrong, for the US and for the world. Consider this small sample of possibilities, not all of them “surprises,” since each will be influenced by the policies that Trump pursues (and by “Trump” I literally mean him, since he does what he wants often against his advisers’ advice). Moreover, the outcomes listed below are likely to be linked: US credibility (a notion I gave too little credence to in my early years, but as now a senior adult credit a lot more) will be on the line in all of them:

--A “cave” to Russia on Ukraine, which could lead to a huge humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, followed by an emboldened Russia that then gobbles up the Baltics, and maybe moves next against Poland. True, Russia’s economy is weakening, but having already pressured North Korea to provide troops to fight in Ukraine, Putin may apply more pressure, to get more. Trump walks away from NATO, no one is leading the EU (especially in the wake of the German government collapse), Russia takes advantage.

--Perceived weakness or failure by the US in dealing with Russia and Ukraine is taken as a signal by China that the US won’t be there for Taiwan if China moves against it: by blockade, through cyberattacks, military force, or some combination of all three. So, China takes one or more of these steps in 2027 (its promised date to “do something” by) or before.

--To keep Iran on the verge of going nuclear, suppose the US and/or Israel do more to set back Iran’s nuclear program than Israel did in its earlier strike – but then Iran retaliates against US warships in the area and/or through terrorist attacks in US/European citizens so that the US is drawn in militarily (in the wake of Israel’s devastation of Iran’s air defenses, my uninformed view is that exporting terrorism is more likely than an all-out military attack of Iran’s own). Best case: assume Iran’s government is toppled. If so, is it likely the replacement regime would be any less of a threat to the world order?

--Syria is still highly unsettled to say the least. In a worst case, the country becomes a new ISIS or ISIS-equivalent front, exporting terrorism not only to Israel but to the West. Trump withdraws the 2000 troops we have there now, and terrorists fill the vacuum.

--Though as I write this a Gaza deal with a hostage exchange seems imminent (how many days could that have been written only for hopes to fall through?), suppose it doesn’t happen. Trump has threatened that if no deal happens before he takes office “all hell will break loose.” What does that mean? Even more bombing of Gaza? What’s left to bomb? Make clear that a Palestinian state is never going to be in cards? If so, that presumably is a deal breaker for MBS in Saudi Arabia, and then all dreams of the Israeli-Saudi rapprochement fall apart. If no Gaza deal happens, and following his prior pattern of issuing threats only not to follow through, suppose Trump does nothing. Hell doesn’t break loose, in other words. Doesn’t that hurt US credibility, not just in the Middle East, but elsewhere (China?). Shades of Obama’s infamous red line about use of chemical weapons by Syria.

--The current disorder in the world will be aggravated by Trump’s tariffs against historic allies and friends of the US. America’s “soft power” becomes so dissipated that only our “hard power” is left. But in the meantime, rebuilding our industrial base takes time, while lots of fires burn around the world. And our friends are gone. What could go wrong?

You get the idea: lots can go wrong for the US, the world, and affected countries, over the next four years. Not all of what happens the US can control. But any further unravelling is likely to be worse if we become even more isolationist, which is certainly the way Trump talks. One clear lesson of history is that vacuums are filled if we’re not there. And they tend to be filled by bad actors.

Suppose the worst, or even half of that, from some combination of the events just listed, or others not there (e.g. North Korea does something crazy). Will any of it matter politically here at home? That is to say, do enough of those who voted for Trump get so unnerved by global events that they cross over and vote Democratic, in 2026 or 2028, or both? Two things would do it.

First, if global events hurt the US economy in a material fashion, substantially boosting oil prices, inducing a recession, or both. We now know how important inflation – or more accurately, a sharp and sudden increase in prices – can be. But I’m old enough to remember when recessions hurt incumbents too. Then there are low probability but much more catastrophic outcomes, such as a massive cyberattack on US infrastructure, water and/or electricity systems. If either of those happened, we’ll have a lot more to worry about than political outcomes two or four years hence.

Second, putting aside real catastrophes, if the US uses conventional military force (albeit souped up with latest gee-whiz technology) in any part of the world, it matters for political purposes how quickly a result in our favor is achieved, or whether any commitment turns into a quagmire. One lesson from Vietnam and later the second Gulf or Iraq war, quagmires hurt incumbent parties (Republicans now).

The one thing that both Biden and Trump share in common, however, is that both abhor committing US ground troops to combat abroad, so long as the US mainland is not attacked, physically or through cyber means – which of course we all hope doesn’t happen. But if it did, one would hope there would be at least substantial bipartisan support, even in our polarized society, for an effective military response. In that scenario, Republicans would benefit from a rally around the flag effect.

Political Wild Cards: Relative Unity (Disunity) in Both Parties

Although party unity is declining within the electorate, party unity remains important for elected representatives, especially when Congressional chambers are both narrowly controlled by the same party. Witness the problems that President Biden had when he needed Senator Manchin’s and Senator Sinema’s votes to get anything through the Senate. Trump will have a bit more breathing room than that with a 53-47 Republican margin in the Senate, but potentially only a one or two vote margin in the House after special elections are held early in 2025 for seats to be vacated from three of his appointees.

The recent budget bill fight in the House even before Trump takes office shows that Trump is already facing fractures in the House. He may lose more appointed nominations than Gaetz in the Senate, meanwhile, if four Senators defect. As for the Democrats licking their wounds from November, they, too have a deep split that so far hasn’t broken fully out into the open: the historic division between moderates and progressives.

Ironically, seemingly the most powerful, and certainly richest, man in America, Elon Musk can generate party unity about both Rs and Ds, at least for as long as he stays interested in politics. For now, Musk is not only “first buddy” for Trump, but as I’ve noted, his insurance policy against being viewed as a lame duck. That’s because Musk seems all too ready to play the role of Trump’s enforcer, threatening to bankroll primary challengers to Congressional members who don’t toe the Trump line. He could even continue to play that role once he’s finished with his DOGE mission. As for the Democrats, having Musk as a foil, papers over any disunity over what should be the future policy direction of Democrats.

But Musk’s political engagement may not last. Or, as I suggested at the outset, MAGA House members have less to fear from Musk’s primary challenger threats, and thus less to fear from Trump himself, if and when they vote differently than Trump wants on any issue. So, disunity in the House poses the largest immediate threat to Trump being able to fully deliver on his campaign agenda. Longer-term, as Trump’s second term winds down, the cracks in the MAGA majority (non-MAGA Republicans having been effectively run out of the party) – between those more ideologically committed to free markets and the more nationalist ideology of Trump/Vance, as well as the many Republicans who will want to claim Trump’s mantle in 2028 and beyond – could spoil Trump’s plans to crown a successor before he leaves office. That successor may not necessarily be Vice President Vance. Trump, or his son (if he himself doesn’t lobby to be the anointed successor), could pick someone else. In any event, brace for a fight over “MAGA after Trump” even before Trump leaves the scene.

As for the Democrats, eventually they, too, will have to confront their ideological divisions, as well as go through another round of multiple individuals wanting the presidential nomination in 2028. The big challenge Democrats have, in my view, is not limited to a fight over policy and personalities. Democrats have a culture problem with swing voters, not just suburban soccer moms, but with workers without a college education, euphemistically called “working class” voters. The problem is underscored by the fact that Biden arguably was the most pro-working class president since FDR – strongly pro-union, favoring tax cuts for working class voters, backing industrial policies designed to generate more manufacturing jobs, and continuing the anti-free trade policies ushered in by Trump in his first term – and still lost half or more of the working class vote, including many minorities. Senator Bernie Sanders’ diagnosis that Democrats would have won with even more progressive policies is simply wrong, because working class voters who went for Trump didn’t trust Harris, or Democrats generally, because to them, the Democratic party is the “elite” against whom they have revolted. Under these circumstances, promising even more goodies to working class voters wouldn’t have changed working class minds.

So, sit back and enjoy some peace and rest over the Holidays. Try to ignore the fact that it won’t last after the new year, certainly after Trump takes office, and for the next four or more years after that. You may be exhausted from the last eight years, but unfortunately, US politics and geopolitical developments don’t care.

I’ll see you on the other side, eventually with my third post-election post with “way too early thoughts” about the issues that I believe will be central in the 2028 campaign, and those that should be but may continue to be swept under the rug.

Best of luck for the new year, we’ll all need it.