A week after the Trump victory, there is much discussion in progressive circles as to what went wrong with the Democratic Party’s campaign.
At the last possible moment, when the party finally managed to get Biden to step aside, Harris was thrust into the job of leading the party with almost no time to prepare. While she performed masterfully and flawlessly throughout, she had the disadvantage of having spent the last four years of her life in the role of vice president, a notoriously low-profile position where the incumbent is deliberately kept under wraps so as not to steal any limelight from the name that is assumed will appear on the top of the ticket. Her biggest assignment was the impossible and thankless job of handling the border security file, a no-win proposition.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, had been curating his name to be a household word since long before he ever entered politics. Untethered to any official party position on any issue, he could say anything that came into his mind, however unrelated to reality or facts. Harris also had the impossible challenge of trying to distance herself from Biden and his administration, of which she was, and still is, a part. Netanyahu’s weaponization of the word ‘antisemitic’ to handle anyone who dared criticize how he was prosecuting his war against Hamas appears to have worked to his advantage. At risk of losing the Jewish vote, and therefore possibly the election, it appears the Democratic leadership made the disastrous calculation that it was better in the big picture to accommodate Israel, for now.
And, of course, there was the question of how the polling could have once again gotten it all so wrong. Up to the very last minute, it was being called a neck-and-neck race, with possibly a shade of advantage for Harris. Turned out to be far from the case. Yes, it was close but, in the end, Trump won the popular vote, even in the heavily-contested swing states.
While these and other such factors may have played into the party’s loss, they cannot account for the sweep made by the Republicans. As Vermont senator Bernie Sanders believes, it has much more to do with the Democrats’ failure to address the fact that many Americans feel the promise of a great life is passing them by, whether due to the high cost of everything, the lack of meaningful employment or increasing advantages for the ultra-wealthy and decreasing quality of life for everyone else. He has argued for years, and even campaigned on it in his bid for the presidential nomination, that the Democrats have abandoned the working class, a traditional constituency for the party.
Trump has seen the embers of discontent of the working class and fanned them into flames of fear and anger that have propelled him to victory. Ironically, his supporters have voted for an ultra-wealthy man with an inherited fortune who has probably never held a minimum wage job and, despite all his privilege and opportunity, has a scandalous record of committing fraud and felonies to advance his own selfish aims. His plans to place tariffs on all manner of imports are predicted to make goods sold in the US even more expensive for the very people who voted him in.
Of interest closer to home is what all this means for Canadians. What will happen to Canadian industry and jobs if massive duties are slapped on our exports? Will supply management in the dairy industry survive another Trump term in office? Will there be waves of immigrants clambering to avoid deportation from the US by finding their way into Canada? Will governments in Canada or anywhere in the world have any willingness to do their part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions if the world’s most voracious consumer of fossil fuels is not doing its part?
And what of our political future here? At the moment, the Conservatives are poised to win the next election. The Liberals are following the Democrat example of keeping an out-of-touch leader in place well past his best-before date. Will the Liberals panic at the last minute and swap him out for someone else who, like Harris, does not have enough time to build a relationship with the electorate? Will our future include videos of Pierre Poilievre singing When Irish Eyes are Smiling with a grinning Donald Trump?
