Yesterday, America moved decisively to the right not only politically, but socially and economically. This rightwards shift was evident not merely in the red states and seven “battleground” states – every one of which Trump has almost certainly ended up winning – but also in the Democratic heartland. There was a rise in the Republican share of the vote within every single borough in New York City – as well as in the state strongholds of New Jersey and New York, where (reportedly) the Republican vote was up by nine or ten points.

In 2016, Trump could portray himself as the outsider, the political maverick. He is now a known quantity, and America has chosen – in the Electoral College, in the Senate, in the House, and even in the popular vote – to mould itself in his image. Instead of being a check on presidential power, the lower House and Senate will become his enthusiastic enablers.

For some time, the Supreme Court has been the judicial arm of the Republican Party, and it is set to become even more so. During his next term, Trump will be able to appoint three more conservative justices for life, in order to replace Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the liberal Sonia Sotomayor, who has a variety of health problems. During his next term, two thirds of the court of last resort for protecting US constitutional freedoms, are likely to be Trump appointees.

Perhaps we need to stop describing the US as a divided country, split down the middle. America has chosen its path. The dissenting minority of Americans (and the rest of the world) will have to find a way to live with that choice. Masha Gessen’s comments in the NYT last night ring true:

That’s always the crushing part of elections that bring aspiring autocrats to power: It’s not just what’s coming; it’s what we learn about our society in the moment.

Exactly. On some mornings, one wonders what it says about New Zealand that relatively few people seem to be having buyers remorse after electing this bumbling, mean-spirited government into power?

Footnote One: Trump has given people around the world good reason to fear his re-election. Besides being Putin’s useful idiot, Trump has fostered a cult of personality. He has also promised to act like a dictator from day one, to jail his political opponents, to execute party dissenters, and to gut the federal bureaucracy and fill the remainder with his loyalists. If that sounds like fascism...the demonising of childless women by J. D. Vance has sounded awfully similar to the cult of motherhood promoted by Benito Mussolini, which outlawed abortion and birth control, provided incentives for large families, and set population targets intended to make Italy great again.

Footnote Two: Much of Trump’s electoral appeal – especially among young men – has been that his policies will be good for the US economy, and good for ordinary Americans. Corporate tax cuts and higher tariffs are the key ingredients in his economic policy agenda. Yet all the research evidence on his huge 2017 tax cut package shows that almost none of the benefits trickled down to ordinary American workers. In fact, workers earning below the 90th income percentile got no benefits at all from the Trump tax cuts:

In total, 81 percent of the gains from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s corporate rate cut were captured by the top 10 percent of the U.S. income distribution, with the top 1 percent seeing a whopping 24 percent of the benefits.

So much for the hopes of male voters that Trump (and his business pals) will restore the high paying jobs in manufacturing that had enabled previous generations of men to be the sole breadwinners for their families. Ultimately, Trump has no interest in making America great in the way his male supporters most expect of him.

Footnote Three. A local academic has argued that the pollsters really got it right this time. That’s true only if you ignore the fact that those poll-predicted “tight” outcomes in the battleground states were within the margin of error, and that the margin of error actually turned out to be a landslide in disguise.

Moreover, this was the exact same-sized margin of error mistake about Trump’s true levels of support as occurred in 2020. Looking back, the pre-election warning in this article on the 538 site looks prophetic:

As of Oct. 30 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, the margin between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump in 538’s polling averages is smaller than 4 points in the seven swing states....That means that, if the polling error from 2020 repeats itself, Trump would win all seven swing states and 312 Electoral College votes….

That widely ignored caution turned out to be the story. Finally...no pollster was suggesting that Trump would (handily) win the popular vote. Instead, all the chatter was about whether the Harris lead in the popular vote would be sufficient to counter the inbuilt dis-advantage routinely faced by the Democrats within the Electoral College. And what about the media falling so heavily or that rogue Iowa poll ? Anything, it seems, to escape from the tedium of saying over and over again that the race was a tossup, was deadlocked, was very, very tight etc etc. In the end, the Iowa poll promised a drama that never materialised.

Abortion Politics

One of the few positive aspects of yesterday’s vote was that in several states – including deep red states like Missouri – the ballot initiatives supporting the right to abortion were passed. The one such initiative that failed – in Florida – did so only because the threshold in Florida was set so high, at 60%. (The “yes” vote in favour was 57%.)

Theoretically at least, these successful initiatives will provide women within those states with a constitutional right to abortion. This comes after the Supreme Court had stripped away the federal right to abortion formerly protected by Roe v Wade.

Unfortunately, a right to abortion is not the same thing as access to abortion. In conservative states, the reality on the ground will not necessarily deliver the access implied by the ballot wording. This excellent article in the Missouri Beacon points out that last year, Ohio passed a similar ballot initiative to the one just passed in Missouri. Since then, anti-abortion forces in Ohio have launched a series of ongoing lawsuits to limit its ambit and frustrate its intent.

It seems that these ballot initiatives – while useful - do not necessarily override the prior legal restrictions imposed on abortion, but must somehow co-exist with them in ways yet to be established by the state courts. Also, it will remain to be seen whether a re-elected Trump will (at some point) impose a federal ban on abortion that will cancel out all the pro-abortion ballot initiatives passed by the states. Yesterday’s victory margin will encourage Trump to do so. Clearly, the Republicans did not suffer significant political damage from the abolition of the federal right to abortion.

Just as clearly, the Democratic Party had thought otherwise. The Democrats did make gains in the 2022 midterms from the widespread outrage over the loss of Roe v Wade. That’s one reason why reproductive rights were central to the Harris presidential campaign. Alas, this election has proved to be a really bad election for solidarity – whether it be between women, between Hispanics (who split 50/50) or between young voters, where a large gender gap opened up between the allegiances of young men, and young women.

Why did the abortion issue not prove to be as potent as the Democrats had hoped? Well...in many key states, the access to abortion did not appear to be directly under threat. Solidarity with less fortunate women living elsewhere only went so far. In North Carolina, there had been hope that women would carry the state for Harris. That didn’t happen. (Although they did get rid of the state’s toxic, misogynist governor.)

Also, in those states where there were pro-abortion initiatives available on the ballot, this may have – unwittingly – opened the door to vote splitting. Many women in Missouri for instance, who voted in support of the pro-abortion ballot initiative must have also voted for Donald Trump.

Footnote: Any pro-Palestinian Americans who could not bring themselves to vote for Harris, given the current administration’s US policy on Gaza and Lebanon should now brace themselves for worse. It was Trump, remember, who shifted the US embassy to Jerusalem, and recognised Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. The embattled Benjamin Netanyahu will be delighted to have his old BFF back again. In his role as a Russian asset, Trump will also hand Ukraine to Putin.

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