US President elect Donald Trump. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)
Back in November 2022, after the Republicans underperformed in the midterms, I confidently declared Trump to be done. Not so fast. After all, this is the person who has survived numerous disqualifying scandals in the past.
Going into the election as a convicted felon with a track record of misogyny, xenophobia, being comfortable with support from white supremacists and his disastrous mismanagement of the Covid pandemic, who would want him back?
As far as I can tell from exit polls (which can’t be super accurate as they don’t catch all the early voters), inflation and scare stories about the border figured strongly in the Trump side of the vote. Abortion rights was a clear divider, with a big majority on either side of the issue — very opposed to abortion rights on the Trump side, very much in favour on the Kamala Harris side.
Foreign policy was not a major factor — the threat of losing Michigan by alienating the Arab-American vote over Gaza, for example, couldn’t have been a factor if you look at the numbers.
The economy, stupid — remember that? Attributed to Bill Clinton strategist James Carville, it’s about emphasising issues voters feel directly. The US economy is, in fact, one of the world’s strongest, having bounced back well from the Covid downturn. But part of that was stimulus spending that temporarily drove inflation up. Even though US inflation is now 2.4%, having peaked at 7% in 2021, some are still feeling the pain — particularly those whose wage increases did not keep up with inflation.
Why inflation matters is that it is overly simplistic to treat it as a single number — it can also accompany restructuring the economy so the inflation rate seen by some is not the same as the effect seen by others.
This means it is likely that a big weakness in the Democrats’ campaign was a failure to identify demographics who were struggling and who would not buy the message that the US economy was doing really well.
The border story is heavily amplified by repeated lies on ex-Twitter. Owner Elon Musk has taken to reposting (“retweeting”, in the old language) anything he approves of, including the highly contentious claim that there are 15 million “illegals” in the US. This figure is highly inflated by factors such as counting those stopped at the border and turned away (including multiple such encounters of the same person).
That sort of xenophobia is more powerful when economic times are hard. Even though the US economy is objectively doing well, there are enough people who aren’t for this to resonate.
Trump has no solid economic policies that will turn things around. High tariffs will increase prices. Closing the border will shut the tap for cheap farm labour.
If he rounds up huge numbers of alleged “illegals” and deports them, that could also result in many who are legally in the country being targeted — unless the US implements something like the late, not lamented, South African pass laws.
How many people in the US carry around proof of citizenship? A South African ID number includes a digit that indicates citizenship or permanent residence; the US has no national ID system. Most people use a driver’s licence as ID; you can get a non-driving version purely for ID.
These differ from state to state; not all require evidence of citizenship or residency rights. If you are in Texas, for example, which does require proof of legal residence status but you have an out-of-state ID or licence that doesn’t, how will law enforcement know if you are a citizen or not?
I foresee numerous people being unlawfully deported and the whole thing getting mired in lawsuits. While food prices soar.
Reproductive rights is obviously a big issue as many abortion-rights measures (effectively referenda) did well, including some in very Republican states such as Missouri. Strong support for this issue did not translate into votes for the Democrats.
Similarly, they failed to capitalise on angst over healthcare. In the past, Democrats have been able to use the threat of terminating Obamacare to good effect. Not this time.
At time of writing, Trump has won the presidency and control of the Senate; the House of Representatives is still up for grabs but, if wins that, he will be in a strong position to nuke Obamacare.
Obamacare is not a great plan — it was a deep compromise to attempt (in vain, as it turns out) to win Republican support. Its key strength is that it prevents denial of cover based on pre-existing conditions. Since the overwhelming majority of the US population has had Covid, that is a pre-existing condition that has unpredictable long-term consequences.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Trumpism presents several hazards. The obvious one is economic. If the US goes full-protectionist, it will be a major disruption of other economies.
The US car industry risks being isolated to its detriment just as the transition to electric vehicles is picking up pace. Only Tesla — run by Trump’s favourite Bond villain, Elon Musk — is well-placed to grow in this sector. If, as Trump threatens, he removes subsidies on electric vehicles, while slapping huge tariffs on imports, Tesla would have a massive advantage over its slower-paced US rivals without having to worry about up-and-coming imported rivals such as China’s BYD.
This would, however, leave the bulk of the US industry in the precarious position of selling increasingly-outdated technology that other developed countries don’t want. Or trying to catch up to Tesla without the benefit of the government subsidies Tesla has had for more than a decade.
The biggest foreign policy conundrum is Trump’s attitude that both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin can do whatever the hell they like.
This policy meets in the middle at Iran, which Trump treats as Public Enemy Number One because of Netanyahu’s antipathy to Iran and its hostility to Israel. But Iran is a Putin ally, and one of his major foreign weapons suppliers. If Israel, with Trump’s blessing, goes all in against Iran — at the moment restrained by Joe Biden’s administration — would Russia stand by and do nothing?
Ukraine is less of a conundrum; the government has for some time been aware of the risks of a Trump win and has been building their non-US supply chain. Should the US exit the picture, Ukraine will be less restrained in hitting targets deep in Russia. As with the status quo, much depends on Russia’s capacity to continue a war of attrition with massive losses.
The final mystery is why some believe that Gaza is better off without Biden or Harris in charge. True, the Biden administration has not paid attention to solid evidence of genocidal intent and action by Israel. But they at least have some capacity to be embarrassed by Israeli excesses. Trump has no such constraints.
Over the campaign, Trump has shown signs of cognitive decline. Whether this will be a factor in his presidency will be interesting, if a bit scary. Will he have “guardrails” in the form of a cabinet who will control his worst impulses as he did before? It seems unlikely as he has now had time to work out what sort of people he wants around him.
The one member of his cabinet he can’t fire is his vice-president. That will be JD Vance, a person who has completely reversed many positions to win Trump’s favour. Exactly what the dynamic between them will be in government is hard to predict.
In short, this is a bleak time for US civil and human rights; internationally for Palestine even more bleak, a little less bleak for Ukraine and unnervingly uncertain for the rest of us.
Philip Machanick is an emeritus associate professor of computer science at Rhodes University and a Makana Citizens Front councillor.