Trump was lying, but he lied 'a deeper (& darker) truth' for the majority of voters. They want the world to be different, and Trump actually presents that different world, even if it's not factual. Those facts and all the crazy things he said were superficial (and not all that relevant) for his voters. They discerned an underlying 'truth' that was convincing.
"While probably no former time tolerated so many diverse opinions on religious or philosophical matters, factual truth, if it happens to oppose a given group’s profit or pleasure, is greeted today with greater hostility than ever before." Hannah Arendt (1967)
"Since the liar is free to fashion his “facts” to fit the profit and pleasure, or even the mere expectations, of his audience, the chances are that he will be more persuasive than the truthteller. Indeed, he will usually have plausibility on his side" Hannah Arendt (1967)
"That facts are not secure in the hands of power is obvious, but the point here is that power, by its very nature, can never produce a substitute for the secure stability of factual reality, which, because it is past, has grown into a dimension beyond our reach. Facts assent themselves by being stubborn, and their fragility is oddly combined with great resiliency – the same irreversibility that is the hallmark of all human action. In their stubbornness, facts are superior to power; they are less transitory than power formations, which arise when men get together for a purpose but disappear as soon as the purpose is either achieved or lost. This transitory character makes power a highly unreliable instrument for achieving permanence of any kind, and, therefore, not only truth and facts are insecure in its hands but untruth and non-facts as well." Hannah Arendt (1967)
Sadly, recognising facts too late may have dire consequences (think climate crisis).
The absence of Joe Biden from the political stage during his presidency will have been a major reason this has happened. For most of the last two years, effectively only Trump was talking to the voters, presenting his 'alternative facts'. The Fox ecosystem made many voters unreachable for the Democrats too. Harris did what she could, but she could not come back from that. And the Democrats are less believable protectors of 'ordinary people', having supported the full capitalist free market credos that have been so important in the development of the bad situations people experience, they are a fragmented and weak coalition.
What I expect first is an attack on the fact-driven press.
Thanks so much for your reflections, Dave! Coming from the campaigning and coms side of politics I am beginning to ask myself whether we miss the main story. We are refining our messages and narratives but in a world where new and legacy media are owned by the billionaire class and Elon is sending push messages to millions of phones, none of this seems to matter anymore.
1) you meant "toe" not "tow" - yeah, I am pedantic.
2) your bullet: "The courts will provide no protection. Alito and Thomas will retire, to be replaced with younger ideological carbon copies of themselves. Conservative activist judges will have a 6-3 Supreme Court majority for at least the next couple decades. And the lower courts will be filled with Trump loyalists as well." needs to be extended. Justice Sototmayor is also likely to age out (retire or pass) so that would mean Trump gets 7 of 9 justices. That is what is horrifying.
In his victory speech Trump stated he won the popular vote in yesterday’s election.
If that is true, will he win the popular vote when the election is re-run without the bomb threats strategically placed by Russia at polling sites serving predominantly Harris voters?
I heard someone today say "I think I was wrong because I'm an optimist. And I hate the idea of being right pessimistically." Being thoughtful and empathetic regardless of how rich you were used to be a virtue; in fact, once you got rich enough, you were *supposed* to become more thoughtful and empathetic. What a quaint notion nowadays.
The dog caught the car. I am here to bear witness to what happens next. The Murdochs and Thiels and Leonard Leos of the world succeeded beyond there wildest dreams. My god it is going to be a shit show. What a mess. Reality truly is stranger than fiction.
This was a voting turnout problem. No one voted. Hardly the mandate for trump it seems at first glance. But boy will he treat it like one. He succeeded in exhausting everyone into giving up. What a strategy. Thank god we still have the filibuster. For now. I imagine that will be gone quickly.
You said much of what I was thinking. But I'm not likely to be here for decades. (I'm a good bit older than you.) Realistically we're talking about the rest of my life. I can look at the Civil Rights Movement and see how many decades it took to get some results for Black people, and this undoes much of that. Be easier to deal with things that take decades if we lived for centuries.
Despite my reaction to decades (and I know you're right), your words were just about the only ones I could face today. Keep doing this newsletter. Your thinking is valuable.
I hate to sound Donald J in 2020 but this was rigged by Russian, China and Musks help. I have felt Donald hasn’t taken any of this seriously because he knows hoe rigged it is and that no matter what he’d win. I’m sick I’ll never vote again it is over for our democracy. Thanks to a shitty press, attention general, a country that can not get over racism, equality. Greedy Billionaire s . All delivered to us wrapped in an American flag with a Cross on Top. Sickening
I think all of this is spot on. I see lots of suffering, but also some internecine conflict: evangelicals and conservative Catholics do not always agree, the tech bro viewpoint which is not religious. All said, we will hasten climate and ecosystem destruction, damage our food supply, and remove safety from products. Getting rid of Obamacare as well will make us sicker and have shorter lifespans. Can't imagine loyalists regulating nuclear power and managing nuclear waste. And that's just a short list. Women and minorities will continue to suffer. Transgender people will need to hide or leave the country. The suffering will be immense and really no one is exempt.
Thanks for writing this. As you say we can't run history twice and there is not much point in "what-if" thinking. However, one thing that really baffled me in Kamela Harris campaign was that she decided to not go on Joe Rogan's podcast. She desperately needed to reach young males, and even though Rogan agreed to have her, the negotiations didn't fall through.
Trump had the opportunity to present himself as a relatively sensible person to the center-right leaning audience on Joe Rogan's podcast, Lex Friedman's podcast and others. If Harris had made an appereance on these podcasts, millions of listeners could get her perspective too. Not saying it would have flipped the results, but I think she squandered a huge opportunity to reach the exact audience she needed to reach to win.
Biden should have resigned half way through his term because it was obvious that he was seriously senile. Maybe then more people would be convinced that she was a good choice.
"If only, if only, if only.": Having had the misfortune to grow up among American "conservatives", I strongly suspect the "if only" that matters most is the one I commented on here in July: "Kamala Harris is 'a woman with dark-tone skin', as the presumably robot-generated alt text of an image I saw today put it, and the USA is still a deeply misogynist and racist country." Yes, Barack Obama was Black, but he was also male and running against people about whom most "conservatives" weren't enthusiastic. (John McCain and Willard Romney were mere politicians, whereas Donald Trump is a hero - as David Roth put it, "an aspirational brand to the worst people in the United States".*)
Much as I expected Harris would lose, I expect you're correct about what will follow. It's going to be dysfunction and violence, probably on a scale that will make the first Cheetolini regime look tame by comparison. If I were you, I'd be preparing to leave. My partner and I left in 2018, and we're very glad we did. (E.g., the per-capita death rate from COVID-19 was around three times higher in the USA than in Canada, which is where we were then and are still, for now.) Of course, most people who might like to leave can't readily do so, but as a successful academic, you most likely could, somewhat as Albert Einstein left Germany in 1933. (And Cheetolini probably wouldn't dispatch thugs to murder you, as Hitler may have done to Einstein.**)
If you choose to stay and fight in some way, good luck - you'll need it. Keep in mind, you're up against not a cabal but a mob. This is what Americans are, en masse. If there were any doubt about that, yesterday's outcome should put it to rest.
The democratic party is responsible for everything to come. Their failures are obvious to everyone who isn't inside DCs hermetically sealed bubble. i despise joe biden. i despise kamala. i despise the billionaire donor class. i despise the punditry. i despise the constant capitulation to increasingly far right policy. i despise the feigned powerlessness. i despise the cowardice, the empty promises, the inability to even PRETEND they are doing this for anyone but themselves. the lesson will stick with everyone who isn't them--blame racists, blame minorities, blame misogynists, blame americans--not us! ask not what power can do for you, but what you can do for power. they will come back 3 years from now, again unscathed, and begin the process anew. truly pathetic
davy Downer. always fun to read your shallow analysis, your grossly negative perspective and your mischaracterization of Trump's silly verbiage and shaky actions-that appeal to his folk while your nihilistic DEI driven drivel supporters act out in hysterical disgust, while they worry that they too will face a future as dire as the blue collar, gun and Bible clutching Deplorables. All the while the censorious legacy media with its 37 % approval rating back you up to help convince you n yours are right with their self-righteousness. thanks for the laughs. take heart- Gabbard and Kennedy in '28. It's not too late to jettison Hilary and Obie. BTW Why is he the only ex-President to remain in D.C. after his last term? Asking for a friend
In all of this you missed the odds of us going to war with Iran. It was zero under a Democratic administration (outside of defending Israel from missiles), but stands a decent chance of happening under Trump/Vance. There could be consequent Iran/Hamas aligned terrorist attacks against US citizens that Trump/Vance could use both to strengthen the Republican grip on power (e.g. Bush II), *and* demonize the Democrats with (e.g. blaming it all on Biden's border policies that Trump/Vance have claimed allowed so many terrorists into the US).
- "And he’s going to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. What do you think they are going to do when liberals start marching?"
- "The economy will take a bad hit, but only in ways that impact normal people."
Trump's desire to eliminate payroll taxes for tipped workers would have two impacts: 1) Finally fulfilling, for tipped workers to start, the historic Republican desire to eliminate social security and medicare; and 2) Signalling to the landlords of tipped workers who rent that their tenants will be getting more income, and thus can absorb a rent increase. Put these together with tariff-driven stagflation and you can expect that many tipped workers will no longer be able to retire. Even the older tipped workers will only qualify for SS under their most recent pre-Trump income (i.e. the last time they paid into SS).
- "Housing prices will keep rising"
Yes, what many miss with Trump's "deporting the illegals will make housing more affordable" is that immigrants make up a fair share of housing construction crews.
- "What progress we have made on confronting the climate crisis will be undermined."
A natural solution to climate change is probably completely out now. The tech companies will be paid handsomely in the coming decades for multi-trillion dollar technological solutions.
- "Democracy is fragile, then we should also bear in mind that autocracy is fragile as well."
Yes, but as we've seen historically, there's even odds of going from a right-wing autocracy to a left-wing autocracy (or vice versa) as there is from going from autocracy to democracy.
- "And I am despondent today, because I do not instinctively believe we had that time to spare."
It’s okay emo boy. You’ll still have your hug box here on Substack and in your university. Reddit is always a place of comfort for the emotionally sensitive. Cheer up! It’s only 4 years and last time the incompetent old fart didn’t even close the border or lock her up, so you’ll still have your cheap nannies and ethnic food, but most importantly you will still have a comfortable feeling of superiority over the masses of your fellow countrymen- rednecks and other plebes. That is important! 😁
Some people crave the boot, because they imagine it will only fall on people they fear and hate. Then they tear their hair and cry 'but I only thought it would be THEM who were punished' when they have to pay the cost of getting what they want.
Inflation was caused by the tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term (once imposed it's hard to reverse tariffs) and it's going to get so SO much worse now.
Trump was lying, but he lied 'a deeper (& darker) truth' for the majority of voters. They want the world to be different, and Trump actually presents that different world, even if it's not factual. Those facts and all the crazy things he said were superficial (and not all that relevant) for his voters. They discerned an underlying 'truth' that was convincing.
"While probably no former time tolerated so many diverse opinions on religious or philosophical matters, factual truth, if it happens to oppose a given group’s profit or pleasure, is greeted today with greater hostility than ever before." Hannah Arendt (1967)
"Since the liar is free to fashion his “facts” to fit the profit and pleasure, or even the mere expectations, of his audience, the chances are that he will be more persuasive than the truthteller. Indeed, he will usually have plausibility on his side" Hannah Arendt (1967)
"That facts are not secure in the hands of power is obvious, but the point here is that power, by its very nature, can never produce a substitute for the secure stability of factual reality, which, because it is past, has grown into a dimension beyond our reach. Facts assent themselves by being stubborn, and their fragility is oddly combined with great resiliency – the same irreversibility that is the hallmark of all human action. In their stubbornness, facts are superior to power; they are less transitory than power formations, which arise when men get together for a purpose but disappear as soon as the purpose is either achieved or lost. This transitory character makes power a highly unreliable instrument for achieving permanence of any kind, and, therefore, not only truth and facts are insecure in its hands but untruth and non-facts as well." Hannah Arendt (1967)
Sadly, recognising facts too late may have dire consequences (think climate crisis).
The absence of Joe Biden from the political stage during his presidency will have been a major reason this has happened. For most of the last two years, effectively only Trump was talking to the voters, presenting his 'alternative facts'. The Fox ecosystem made many voters unreachable for the Democrats too. Harris did what she could, but she could not come back from that. And the Democrats are less believable protectors of 'ordinary people', having supported the full capitalist free market credos that have been so important in the development of the bad situations people experience, they are a fragmented and weak coalition.
What I expect first is an attack on the fact-driven press.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-need-protect-truth-much-more-than-free-speech-gerben-wierda-rewbe
Thanks so much for your reflections, Dave! Coming from the campaigning and coms side of politics I am beginning to ask myself whether we miss the main story. We are refining our messages and narratives but in a world where new and legacy media are owned by the billionaire class and Elon is sending push messages to millions of phones, none of this seems to matter anymore.
Spot on. two points:
1) you meant "toe" not "tow" - yeah, I am pedantic.
2) your bullet: "The courts will provide no protection. Alito and Thomas will retire, to be replaced with younger ideological carbon copies of themselves. Conservative activist judges will have a 6-3 Supreme Court majority for at least the next couple decades. And the lower courts will be filled with Trump loyalists as well." needs to be extended. Justice Sototmayor is also likely to age out (retire or pass) so that would mean Trump gets 7 of 9 justices. That is what is horrifying.
In his victory speech Trump stated he won the popular vote in yesterday’s election.
If that is true, will he win the popular vote when the election is re-run without the bomb threats strategically placed by Russia at polling sites serving predominantly Harris voters?
Will future demonstrations against the Supreme Kangaroo Court, be quashed by US military?
I heard someone today say "I think I was wrong because I'm an optimist. And I hate the idea of being right pessimistically." Being thoughtful and empathetic regardless of how rich you were used to be a virtue; in fact, once you got rich enough, you were *supposed* to become more thoughtful and empathetic. What a quaint notion nowadays.
The dog caught the car. I am here to bear witness to what happens next. The Murdochs and Thiels and Leonard Leos of the world succeeded beyond there wildest dreams. My god it is going to be a shit show. What a mess. Reality truly is stranger than fiction.
This was a voting turnout problem. No one voted. Hardly the mandate for trump it seems at first glance. But boy will he treat it like one. He succeeded in exhausting everyone into giving up. What a strategy. Thank god we still have the filibuster. For now. I imagine that will be gone quickly.
You said much of what I was thinking. But I'm not likely to be here for decades. (I'm a good bit older than you.) Realistically we're talking about the rest of my life. I can look at the Civil Rights Movement and see how many decades it took to get some results for Black people, and this undoes much of that. Be easier to deal with things that take decades if we lived for centuries.
Despite my reaction to decades (and I know you're right), your words were just about the only ones I could face today. Keep doing this newsletter. Your thinking is valuable.
I hate to sound Donald J in 2020 but this was rigged by Russian, China and Musks help. I have felt Donald hasn’t taken any of this seriously because he knows hoe rigged it is and that no matter what he’d win. I’m sick I’ll never vote again it is over for our democracy. Thanks to a shitty press, attention general, a country that can not get over racism, equality. Greedy Billionaire s . All delivered to us wrapped in an American flag with a Cross on Top. Sickening
I think all of this is spot on. I see lots of suffering, but also some internecine conflict: evangelicals and conservative Catholics do not always agree, the tech bro viewpoint which is not religious. All said, we will hasten climate and ecosystem destruction, damage our food supply, and remove safety from products. Getting rid of Obamacare as well will make us sicker and have shorter lifespans. Can't imagine loyalists regulating nuclear power and managing nuclear waste. And that's just a short list. Women and minorities will continue to suffer. Transgender people will need to hide or leave the country. The suffering will be immense and really no one is exempt.
Thanks for writing this. As you say we can't run history twice and there is not much point in "what-if" thinking. However, one thing that really baffled me in Kamela Harris campaign was that she decided to not go on Joe Rogan's podcast. She desperately needed to reach young males, and even though Rogan agreed to have her, the negotiations didn't fall through.
Trump had the opportunity to present himself as a relatively sensible person to the center-right leaning audience on Joe Rogan's podcast, Lex Friedman's podcast and others. If Harris had made an appereance on these podcasts, millions of listeners could get her perspective too. Not saying it would have flipped the results, but I think she squandered a huge opportunity to reach the exact audience she needed to reach to win.
Biden should have resigned half way through his term because it was obvious that he was seriously senile. Maybe then more people would be convinced that she was a good choice.
"If only, if only, if only.": Having had the misfortune to grow up among American "conservatives", I strongly suspect the "if only" that matters most is the one I commented on here in July: "Kamala Harris is 'a woman with dark-tone skin', as the presumably robot-generated alt text of an image I saw today put it, and the USA is still a deeply misogynist and racist country." Yes, Barack Obama was Black, but he was also male and running against people about whom most "conservatives" weren't enthusiastic. (John McCain and Willard Romney were mere politicians, whereas Donald Trump is a hero - as David Roth put it, "an aspirational brand to the worst people in the United States".*)
Much as I expected Harris would lose, I expect you're correct about what will follow. It's going to be dysfunction and violence, probably on a scale that will make the first Cheetolini regime look tame by comparison. If I were you, I'd be preparing to leave. My partner and I left in 2018, and we're very glad we did. (E.g., the per-capita death rate from COVID-19 was around three times higher in the USA than in Canada, which is where we were then and are still, for now.) Of course, most people who might like to leave can't readily do so, but as a successful academic, you most likely could, somewhat as Albert Einstein left Germany in 1933. (And Cheetolini probably wouldn't dispatch thugs to murder you, as Hitler may have done to Einstein.**)
If you choose to stay and fight in some way, good luck - you'll need it. Keep in mind, you're up against not a cabal but a mob. This is what Americans are, en masse. If there were any doubt about that, yesterday's outcome should put it to rest.
-------
*https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-president-of-blank-sucking-nullity-roth
**https://time.com/5684504/einstein-england/
The democratic party is responsible for everything to come. Their failures are obvious to everyone who isn't inside DCs hermetically sealed bubble. i despise joe biden. i despise kamala. i despise the billionaire donor class. i despise the punditry. i despise the constant capitulation to increasingly far right policy. i despise the feigned powerlessness. i despise the cowardice, the empty promises, the inability to even PRETEND they are doing this for anyone but themselves. the lesson will stick with everyone who isn't them--blame racists, blame minorities, blame misogynists, blame americans--not us! ask not what power can do for you, but what you can do for power. they will come back 3 years from now, again unscathed, and begin the process anew. truly pathetic
davy Downer. always fun to read your shallow analysis, your grossly negative perspective and your mischaracterization of Trump's silly verbiage and shaky actions-that appeal to his folk while your nihilistic DEI driven drivel supporters act out in hysterical disgust, while they worry that they too will face a future as dire as the blue collar, gun and Bible clutching Deplorables. All the while the censorious legacy media with its 37 % approval rating back you up to help convince you n yours are right with their self-righteousness. thanks for the laughs. take heart- Gabbard and Kennedy in '28. It's not too late to jettison Hilary and Obie. BTW Why is he the only ex-President to remain in D.C. after his last term? Asking for a friend
Is this what brings you joy? Let go of your grievance and conspiracies. You won. The future is yours now.
In all of this you missed the odds of us going to war with Iran. It was zero under a Democratic administration (outside of defending Israel from missiles), but stands a decent chance of happening under Trump/Vance. There could be consequent Iran/Hamas aligned terrorist attacks against US citizens that Trump/Vance could use both to strengthen the Republican grip on power (e.g. Bush II), *and* demonize the Democrats with (e.g. blaming it all on Biden's border policies that Trump/Vance have claimed allowed so many terrorists into the US).
- "And he’s going to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. What do you think they are going to do when liberals start marching?"
At least one family has more immediate concerns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYEmQifgf4A
- "The economy will take a bad hit, but only in ways that impact normal people."
Trump's desire to eliminate payroll taxes for tipped workers would have two impacts: 1) Finally fulfilling, for tipped workers to start, the historic Republican desire to eliminate social security and medicare; and 2) Signalling to the landlords of tipped workers who rent that their tenants will be getting more income, and thus can absorb a rent increase. Put these together with tariff-driven stagflation and you can expect that many tipped workers will no longer be able to retire. Even the older tipped workers will only qualify for SS under their most recent pre-Trump income (i.e. the last time they paid into SS).
- "Housing prices will keep rising"
Yes, what many miss with Trump's "deporting the illegals will make housing more affordable" is that immigrants make up a fair share of housing construction crews.
- "What progress we have made on confronting the climate crisis will be undermined."
A natural solution to climate change is probably completely out now. The tech companies will be paid handsomely in the coming decades for multi-trillion dollar technological solutions.
- "Democracy is fragile, then we should also bear in mind that autocracy is fragile as well."
Yes, but as we've seen historically, there's even odds of going from a right-wing autocracy to a left-wing autocracy (or vice versa) as there is from going from autocracy to democracy.
- "And I am despondent today, because I do not instinctively believe we had that time to spare."
Ditto.
- "This is an ending, but not the end."
https://www.the-sentinel-intelligence.net/the-worst-time-to-be-alive/ - "A Real Apocalypse Takes a Long Time: The world has ended before." A short history lesson on the century following the volcanic eruptions beginning 536 AD.
It’s okay emo boy. You’ll still have your hug box here on Substack and in your university. Reddit is always a place of comfort for the emotionally sensitive. Cheer up! It’s only 4 years and last time the incompetent old fart didn’t even close the border or lock her up, so you’ll still have your cheap nannies and ethnic food, but most importantly you will still have a comfortable feeling of superiority over the masses of your fellow countrymen- rednecks and other plebes. That is important! 😁
I hate that we’re just going to become a nation of hostile trolls like this guy.
Great job, buddy. I hope you get everything you deserve.
Some people crave the boot, because they imagine it will only fall on people they fear and hate. Then they tear their hair and cry 'but I only thought it would be THEM who were punished' when they have to pay the cost of getting what they want.
Inflation was caused by the tariffs imposed by Trump in his first term (once imposed it's hard to reverse tariffs) and it's going to get so SO much worse now.