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When she was the nominee I expect Vice President Kamala Harris will win the 2024 presidential election.
Moreover, I expect former President Donald Trump will lose.
What did I do wrong?
My expectations are based on three observations and one belief.
Observation One: Inflation Is Controlling in 2024 Personal Income increase faster than the price throughout the year When interest rates peak and begin to decline consumer confidence climb up– When asking about personal finances Americans expressed concern that yes. But the number who rate their personal finances as excellent or good is solid. 46 percentThat’s higher than the year President Barack Obama won re-election. The same voters complain about the country’s economy. Rank Their local economy has greatly improved.
This is not good news for the incumbent party, but…
Observation two: Throughout the 2024 cycle, most Americans express Trump’s unfavorable comments almost one third The Republican Party is either unenthusiastic about his candidacy or outright hostile. Harris is also hugely unpopular. But if the survey results are correct, she will have enough. no less popular Than Trump
Harris’s cornerstone popularity advantage is…
Third observation: In the 2022 midterm elections, abortion is a powerful anti-Republican voting issue. That year in Michigan Abortion rights campaign Helped to choose again Governor Gretchen Whitmer flips both houses of the state’s chamber to Democrats. That same year, nearly a million Kansans voted. 59 percent to 41 percent to reaffirm state constitutional protections for abortion; Democrats posted strong results in other states. Many places as well They have a majority in the United States Senate. While Republicans won only the narrowest majority in the House of Representatives, in 2024 abortion rights measures appear on ballots in 10 states, including must-wins Arizona and Nevada. These initiatives appear to have helped motivate many Americans to Might as well throw it. The vote was against Trump for president.
If that isn’t enough—and it probably won’t be enough—I hold this belief:
Humans are good at seeing through fraud. Not good at all Not always as fast as it should be And not everyone But sooner or later a sufficient number of us will spot a scam.
The Trump campaign is trafficking in fraud. Haitians are eating cats and dogs. Foreigners must pay taxes. The Trump years are the good old days, if you forget about the coronavirus pandemic and the crime wave that unfolded on his watch. Lying can work, up to a point. I believe the issue is to be found on the right side of the line between election and defeat—and not on the other side, as it has instead.
my mistake
In one of the closest elections in modern American history Trump won the Republican popular vote for the first time in 20 years. His margin was about a third the size of President Joe Joe’s margin. Above him is Biden in 2020 for that matter. When the votes are counted Trump’s popular vote margin over Harris was smaller than Hillary’s. Clinton above him in 2016
Even though it’s narrow But it was a victory—and a very different victory from 2016. That time, Trump won according to the rules. But it goes against the expressed preferences of the American people. This time he won both normatively and with a majority vote. Trump’s overwhelming victory challenges many beliefs and biases. It starts with your own beliefs and biases.
From Trump’s first administration Critics like me can reassure myself that his presidency was something of an anomaly. Trump’s party repudiation in the 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022 elections appears to confirm this comforting assessment: The 2024 results are reversed. Trump has no detours or deviations. There were no mistakes or stupidities.
When the next generation of Americans Go tell the story of the nation. They have to make Trump the center of the story. And that means the story has to be rethought.
Trump diverts millions of dollars of public money to his own businesses. And somehow he was sent back to his position.
He has been proven in court to have committed sexual assault. and was sent back to take up the position.
He was impeached twice. and was sent back to take up the next position
He was convicted of a crime and returned to office.
He tried to overturn the election. However, He resumed his position.
For millions of Americans This record is disqualifying, however, for many Americans it is not, the latter group being victorious. And the United States will be a different country because of this.
American politics has no shortage of crooks, crooks, and criminals. But their numbers dwindled. and their wrongdoing is monitored by strong public institutions. Trump has waged a relentless campaign against any regulation. that prevents him He doesn’t always win. But he scored a total of three key successes. First, he scared the Biden administration’s Justice Department from holding him accountable in a timely manner. Second, he persuaded the court itself. Including the Supreme Court. to invent new doctrines Regarding presidential immunity to protect him, third, he destroyed all opposition within the Republican Party to his illegal actions. Republican officeholders, donors and influencers who have previously denounced the Jan. 6 coup attempt as permanent and lasting discrimination. One by one, Trump brought them down from office.
Americans who favor constitutional democracy are left relying on the results of the 2024 election to protect their institutions from Trump. It’s not enough Elections are often concerned with many different issues, first and foremost often concerning economic well-being. When compared The integrity of U.S. democracy It often seems distant and abstract to most voters.
Early in the American Revolution Alexander The young Hamilton wrote to his friend John Jay to denounce vigilante violence against pro-British newspaper publishers. Hamilton sympathizes with the vigilante’s feelings. But even in revolutionary times, he insisted, feelings must be guided by rules, otherwise people will be left to their own impulses. Which is a recipe for success. “It’s not safe,” Hamilton Already warned.“To trust in whose morality?”
The election results must be respected. But its wisdom can be questioned. If any divine authority gives orders regarding human affairs Providence may send Trump to the United States to teach Americans humility. It can’t happen here. It was a famous name in the 1930s. novel about an imagined future in which the United States Following the path to totalitarianism Because it didn’t happen then. So many Americans think it can’t happen right now.
Perhaps Americans need sometimes to escape the complacency of learning from their most fortunate history. The country that ratified the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 is, in important ways, the same country that enacted the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. The countries that selflessly sent Marshall Plan aid after World War II were compensating for the selfish, shortsightedness of their pre-war neutral actions. Americans can be proud of their national story because they make the right choices more often than they make the wrong choices. But bad choices are also part of the story. And now there’s another bad choice.
“There is no such thing as a lost cause. For there is no such thing as an acquired cause.” T. S. Eliot notice In a 1927 essay (here he is writing about the arguments between philosophical utilitarians and their critics (But his words apply much more generally.) “We fight for a lost cause. Because we know that defeat and disappointment can be a prelude to successor victory. Even if that victory is only temporary. We fight more to keep something alive than to expect it. will be victorious.”
Thus the ancient struggle resumes: progress against reaction. dignity against domination Trade and plunder anti-destructive care Global responsibility for nationalism There is no break up.
