If we’re serious about.

Election 2024

While there will be post-mortems (post-morta?) ad nauseum over the next few days, months, and, probably years for those who particularly enjoy the sensation of pouring ashes over one’s head while dressed in sackcloth, a few things are patently obvious, if not entirely clear.

1) It’s still the stupid economy or the economy, stupid. While the Administration and the Federal Reserve are crowing loudly about having reduced the posted inflation rate to nearly 2% over the last couple of years, the other 240 million voting age Americans see prices going up 2% or more every year whether their income goes up or not. What they want to see, which neither party appears to understand, is prices coming down. Deflation causes heart palpitations among the extremely wealthy and those who play money games, but for everybody else, gas at under $2/gallon, eggs for under $2/dozen, and an orange or grapefruit for under $1 that isn’t the size of a tennis ball would represent real progress. The major government contribution to such would be the elimination of the federal deficit, price supports and tax policy that subsidize major corporations and monopoly ‘marketing associations’, and the ridiculous tariffs that the former and future President put in place and his interim replacement kept. 

2) Elections are about turnout. Kamala Harris ran as good a campaign as I can remember but, referring back to point 1, didn’t connect with even a plurality of eligible voters. The 66,356,895 votes she got were only 500,000 more than Hilary Clinton got in 2016, and over 14 million fewer than Joe Biden got 4 years ago. While Trump’s total was down 2.8 million from 2020, showing that he did, indeed, turn more than a few people off, it is completely unclear that they followed the Cheneys into the Harris camp and clearly, a lot of Democrats weren’t motivated to get out and vote and didn’t tell many friends either. We all misread the heavy early vote as a sign that people were fired up and it looks like they just got voting out of the way.

3) The Democrats clearly aren’t a party as much as they are a coalition of small interest groups who, on rare occasions, get together to elect someone without making a supportive commitment for the future. Like it or not (and I don’t) the Republicans have figured out at least one way of keeping enough voters in line to win elections and that’s something the Democratic consultants, candidates, party muckamucks, and the rest of us will have to do over the next 2 and 4 years if we’re to get past the current situation. 4) Freedom of choice in reproductive health did get back to the states, and women did express their support which led to a lot of solid wins. Even in FL, the majority of voters supported Amendment 4 and should have won. The problem with basing a multi-level campaign on a single issue, is that women, no more than people of color, people of a particular sexual orientation, or any other notional grouping, don’t think that way and don’t vote that way. A winning strategy must include all levels of government in all 50 states and be directed at every potential voter. Reproductive health freedom hasn’t been resolved and won’t be as long as there are those who prefer women to be submissive, obedient, and pregnant but it will never again be an effective foundation for an overall campaign any more than a single wall will support a house.

Whether by operation of law, act of God, or some other means, Trump will be gone in 4 years and, like most autocracies, there is no effective successor in sight; those of us who prefer freedom to outside control, a clean and thriving environment to increasing pollution and degradation, and civil interaction with our fellow citizens are responsible for ensuring that there is a group of candidates who are effective, practiced, and organized to take the place of the Trumpistas who will populate our government for the near term. This too shall pass, and, if we learn from the next 4 years as much as we should have from the last 8, we’ll be better and stronger for it even though it doesn’t feel that way right now.