Well, I got that wrong. Really wrong. But I was in good company.
As best I can figure, here’s where we are and how we got here.
Trump’s main appeal has always been his open racism and misogyny. MAGA is nothing more than a pledge to return to a time when women and people of color knew their places and white men controlled everything–a social order that has been slowly eroding for many decades. Some of us, myself included, have been shocked to learn just how racist and sexist our fellow Americans really are. But, I have also learned that this brand of politics isn’t quite popular enough to win without an assist. In 2016 Trump got that assist from Comey and Putin and he won. In 2020 there was no assist of that magnitude and Trump lost. In 2024 that assist returned in the form of post-pandemic inflation which voters wrongly, if predictably in retrospect, blamed on the incumbent administration.
Trump’s victory in this election has given seemingly everyone an excuse to trot out their favorite hobby horse issue and take it for a ride. But, no. Harris didn’t lose because she didn’t Bernie hard enough. She didn’t lose because she campaigned with Liz Cheney. She didn’t lose because she didn’t go on Joe Rogan’s podcast. She didn’t lose because of Palestine. She didn’t lose because there was no primary. She didn’t lose because Joe waited too long to drop out.
She lost because prices are noticeably higher than they were just a few years ago.
So, now what? I don’t know, friends. But I think we’d better brace ourselves for what the next four years will bring. It’s not going to be pretty. I should shy away from making predictions given my track record, but what fun would that be? I can virtually guarantee a humanitarian crisis involving the round up of undocumented immigrants. I think we’re going to see a shocking dismantling of federal agencies. We may be in for some shocks at how ineffective the other two branches of government are at reigning in Trump’s fascistic tendencies.