Naturally enough there is already an enormous volume of commentary on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election. Yet assigning motives and influences to millions of voters has too many plausible aspects to be framed tightly enough for articles, interviews and in this case - blog posts.
For example, it was always possible that Kamala Harris was there to lose the election, isolate the Biden era as an aberration of the past and quite possibly make money and build opportunities on a Trump presidency.
We might back this up by pointing out that the absurdity of the Harris candidacy became too obvious too quickly to have been entirely unforeseen by wealthy Democrat backers.
If so, perhaps Kamala Harris was too useless and inauthentic to be plausible as a genuine candidate and the political establishment always knew it. Maybe, but this angle is merely one among many, a possible aspect of a complex event with many other viewpoints.
But she was an absurd candidate.
8 comments:
I’ve pondered the Republican and Democratic election methods. I’ll suggest (using a very broad brush) that Democrats are much more concerned about reputation than Republicans. This has a positive side in that the Dems are more likely to be concerned about 'nice' things - equality, racism, and ‘fairness’ and thus signal their virtue – but the downside is that all the attacks on the personality of Donald Trump and the ‘deplorables’ do not manage a palpable hit (which puzzles the Dems).
The Republicans, and especially Donald Trump, are far more motivated by policies and actions and were given no reason to expect any from Kamala Harris.
Trump is absurd, too, in an entirely different sort of way. It would have been difficult to imagine such a person getting elected only 30 years ago. Both Vice-Presidential candidates seemed to be more in line with how we expect an American politician to be. I wonder what future historians will make of both of them. But they won't be able to estimate their essence - what they actually made the public feel at the time.
DJ - yes, Republicans seem more inclined to demand authenticity while the Democrats have drifted away from that with their supercilious obsession with abstractions such as equality, racism, and ‘fairness’. These abstractions are not at all authentic because they change depending on who is pointing the finger. Trump supporters appear to see that biased finger very clearly.
Sam - in public Trump is a showman, but it seems to be his way of distancing himself from Washington, its media acolytes and their disdain for ordinary working people which they hardly trouble themselves to disguise.
It's a brash technique which may not have worked as well 30 years ago, but from what I see, Washington brought it into the US political arena just as much as Trump.
It's clear to me that a lot of people, including Sam V, don't understand Trump at all. He is not absurd, but a very different character who happens upon the political stage and it's very fortunate that he is, seeing the lamentable performance of the professional political class over the past decades. Most people seem to be unable to winnow out the baleful effect the media has on his description and many other things besides. Almost all 'great men' have decidedly flawed characters, but that is not the determinant of their special abilities, Trump's are to be superior to career politicians, and that they can not forgive, if they have any realisation or perception of it.
Tammly - I agree, flawed but we all are and it is necessary to look through the propaganda and pay attention to what he did and what he proposes to do. You are right, Trump clearly saw the lamentable performance of the professional political class and knew he could do better. He had to distance himself from that performance with a very distinct style and he did.
I don't think the Democrats see what we see in their candidate or policies. They seem to have this moral superiority complex that enables them to just expect to win, because they are right in all things. They don't mind calling people who disagree with them racist, garbage or many other names, because they believe it and believe all people must eventually come round to their way of thinking, because why wouldn't they.
As for Trump, his appeal comes from not being a traditional politician. Both here and over there, traditional politicians have degraded into a cesspit of self interest and control frekery. The fact that his is different stands him out
I cannot recommend highly enough, this very lucid account of the meaning of the new leftism in America and by extension, the UK. It explains so much of the (to us), baffling actions of the left liberal elite in recent years.
https://tomklingenstein.com/a-response-to-my-liberal-neighbor/
Bucko - I agree, there is moral superiority complex and it oversimplifies far too many complex issues in terms of right and wrong. Yes, traditional politicians have degraded the art of politics so that there is no art, it's all one way.
Tammly - yes that's very lucid, I don't envy the chap and his social circumstances though.
"My neighbor is very intelligent, but his thinking has become very lazy "
This seems to be the key, there are many intelligent people who do not spread their intelligence far enough, they opt for lazy answers and will not engage with the complexities doubt and scepticism.
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