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Happy Veterans Day, and a tip of the cap to those who served, or who are still serving.

News of the Day

At the moment, there are a lot of post-election questions to examine. There's also a fair bit of news. For another few days, at least, we're going to stick with the "capsule" approach to the news, just so we can get to everything:

And that's the way it is. (Z)

Whose Fault Was It (Or, Welcome to the Blame Game)

Welcome to the first installment of "Whose Fault Was It?" There are going to be studies, reports, and autopsies for months, maybe years, trying to understand why Kamala Harris, armed with policies that voters like and a billion dollars, not only lost, but lost decisively, losing all seven swing states and the popular vote. While Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, it was due to the Electoral College. She got 3 million more votes than Donald Trump.

Maybe the first thing to deal with is: "Was the loss Harris' fault?" She got into the race late and was joined at the hip to a historically very unpopular president with an approval rating in the 30s. No president has ever been reelected with that kind of rating. Everyone said he was too old. In the exit polls last week, 72% of the voters felt the country was moving in the wrong direction. How could the sitting vice president run as an outsider who would change things? No candidate could do that. Inflation was high during most of the Biden administration. Incumbent parties are losing all over the world. Harris ran an almost perfect campaign. She had a vast amount of money, hundreds of thousands of volunteers, a great ground game, and a unified party. But could any Democrat have won when the voters were angry and the fundamentals were against them? Some people think a white man might have been able to pull it off. In any event, now Trump has a track record of beating two women but losing to a man. Some Democrats think there might be a clue in there somewhere. Sorry, Gretchen. Walz/Shapiro 2028?

One person who surely deserves a lot of the blame is Joe Biden. He knew a year ago that he was not up to the job. If, after the 2022 midterms, he had announced that he had saved the country from Donald Trump and was not running for reelection, the Democrats would have had a normal primary process. Maybe Harris would have won, although we have not forgotten how badly she did in 2020. In any event, the winner would have had more legitimacy than someone who parachuted in 100 days before the election and would have had more exposure all year and more time to prepare. Nancy Pelosi is a strong proponent of this view. So is Barack Obama's strategist, David Axelrod, and many others. So Joe gets part of the blame.

Next up is Dr. Jill Stein. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and got an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School. She is not stupid. In 2016, she knew very well that while Hillary Clinton was not perfect, she was infinitely better on all the issues Stein held dear than Donald Trump. In the fall of 2016, when she saw the risk of Trump winning was real and she knew how much damage he could do to the environment, she could have dropped out, endorsed Clinton, implored her supporters to vote for Clinton to save the planet, and actively campaigned for Clinton. If most of her supporters had then voted for Clinton, we would now probably be saying goodbye to Clinton after 8 years of her doing her best to protect the environment. Did Stein learn anything from 2016 and 4 years of Trump? Nope. She ran again, despite her own adult children begging her to drop out and support Harris. She didn't get enough votes to flip any states this time, but she might have convinced some Democrats to stay home. Oh, and she seems to have forgotten the planet, except for the 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip, which is 14% the size of Rhode Island, so one can even question her dedication to saving the whole planet as priority #1. She forgot she was running on the Green Party ticket, not the Peace Party ticket.

Jill Stein at an Abandon Harris panel

When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) ran for president, everyone knew what his top priority was (helping working folks) and he never budged an inch from it.

Finally comes Harris herself. Politico convened a round table with five political reporters to discuss what happened. The bottom line is that high prices were the dominant issue, with immigration second. For a lot of people, prices of eggs and milk were lower during Trump's first term than now and they somehow expect that Trump will be able to press some magic UNDO button on his iPhone and get them back down, despite imposing heavy tariffs on imported goods. College-educated voters know that is impossible, but noncollege voters never took Economics 101. (V) understands this because he took Economics 101 from Prof. Paul Samuelson himself.

On immigration, right-wing media called Harris the "immigration czar," so it was her fault that illegal immigrants keep pouring in, largely because Trump ordered Senate Republicans to tank the Lankford bill which would have beefed up the border enormously. Voters think that Trump will take a much tougher line and don't especially care if what he does is legal (see above). Given that Latinos are an important part of the Democrats' base, Harris was in a bind. If she came down hard on immigration, many of those Latinos would be furious with her. If she downplayed immigration as an issue, the many voters who want to clamp down on it would be furious with her. What could she do? The Republicans simply have it easier since their base is unified against immigrants and the Democrats' base is fractured.

Another thing outside Harris' control was the assassination attempt on Trump. It lit a fire under Trump's supporters and got them all to the polls. His response under pressure was seen by many people as true bravery. The campaign used the iconic photo of him with the bloodied ear and raised fist in its ads the final week. In fact, that is why Trump went back to Butler, PA—to remind people of it.

This said, there are things Harris could have said to gain votes and things she could have avoided that cost her votes. The key takeaway is that she should have known that winning over some working-class white men was crucial. Given that high prices were a leading issue, she could have gone full Bernie and blamed big corporations. She could have argued for new and much tougher antitrust laws to break up many big companies to create more competition that would force prices down. Four companies control almost all beef and pork production. She could have talked about splitting each one into four smaller companies to increase competition. Poultry is almost as concentrated. She could have talked about tax cuts for people making under $100,000 to be financed by tax hikes on people making over $1 million. She could have talked about a new law forbidding interest rates on credit cards to be above 10%. She could have talked about changing patent laws to allow cheaper generic drugs to come to market faster.

Another piece of the economy is jobs. She could have made Going Green a big part of her campaign on account of its creating millions of new jobs manufacturing, installing, and maintaining solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear reactors, electric vehicles, more efficient appliances, and much more. She could have pushed for a law giving people a subsidy to junk inefficient cars and appliances, which would have created factory jobs making new, energy-efficient ones. She could have talked about retrofitting houses to be more energy efficient. She could also have thrown in some patriotism and talked about beating China in this area.

Of course, other strategists have said she should have moved much more sharply to the center and rejected some of the things she said in her 2020 run for president. She could have said that as vice president she has talked to many people and learned a lot and realized her earlier views were off base.

Since Harris' problem was always with working-class men, she should have ditched all the culture war stuff early on and said she is not woke and intends to stay that way (however, without implying she is asleep, like her boss). Trump ran $65 million worth of ads condemning government funded gender-confirmation surgeries for prisoners (of which there have been two so far). She could have come out four-square against that, saying that people who are in prison for committing a crime lose some of their rights as a punishment for their misdeeds and that is one of them. She probably also should have come out against (former) boys on girls' teams except where strength is not an advantage, like chess teams or debating teams. Many prominent Democrats have said this, including Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Seth Moulton (D-MA). This issue really angers a lot of working-class men who have traditional ideas about gender. If she is one of those people who would rather be right than be president, she shouldn't have run for president.

Harris had a lot of A-list female celebrities endorse her, including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, and Cardi B. Some people question whether palling around with exceedingly wealthy (female) megastars was the best way to impress working-class men that Harris understood their lives and problems. This might well have backfired and made her look even more elite than she already was. She did get Bruce Springsteen, but maybe she should have tried to get (male) stars who are popular with working-class men and whose music relates to their lives. If she felt she needed endorsements, famous football or basketball players might have worked better with working-class men, especially Black ones. She did get a few Pittsburgh Steelers, but it was too little, too late.

Harris ran a great campaign, but a conventional one. The days where that gets it done are gone. Trump focused on social media and podcasts. She did a bit of that, but should have done more in order to address young voters (and see below). There was a ton of disinformation out there and she barely attempted to deal with it. She could have called J.D. Vance a baldfaced liar and racist bigot (about the cats and dogs) and that's why Trump picked him. She could have had more simple signs, like: Trump is a criminal/Harris is a cop.

Did any Democrat come out of this smelling like a rose? We think there is one: Rep. Dean "Cassandra" Phillips (DFL-MN). He gave up a job he could have kept forever in a vain attempt to convince Democrats that Biden was a couple of decades past his use-by date. He could have been the new Bernie. He was right, but nobody listened. Now he has to go back to making ice cream. (V)

The First Exit Polls Are Out

NBC News has posted the initial take on the exit polls. Here are a few of the highlights.

What stands out to us?

  1. Inflation was a huge issue. Harris should have rolled out more plans to prevent it going forward.
  2. Only a quarter of the electorate is liberal; maybe what's left of The Squad should tone it down a bit.
  3. Harris lost men badly, along with white women, but won Latinas.
  4. Trump narrowly won the suburban vote, 51%-47%
  5. Half the voters are single. How do you appeal to that large demographic?
  6. A majority of voters think Trump could handle a crisis better than Harris? Maybe we need new voters.

The link above contains far more information than this, including partisan breakdowns on everything. For example 72% of the Protestants and 61% of the Catholics voted for Trump, but Harris carried the Jews, others, and nones easily. Of the people who feel the economy is poor, 87% voted for Trump, despite his only prescription for fixing it being imposing tariffs (which increase inflation). We're no doubt going to come back to the exit polls later, but you get a first cut at the link above. (V)

Arab Americans in Dearborn Feel Good--for Now

Arab American leaders in Dearborn, MI, which has a very high percentage of Muslims and Palestinians, are happy with the election results. They pleaded with Kamala Harris to separate herself from Joe Biden's Middle East policies and she did not or could not. Michael Sareini, president of the Dearborn City Council, said: "Now, many Arab American residents in Dearborn feel like they've been redeemed. They wanted to send a message and they did. This stance on endless wars and killing of innocent women and children has got to end."

Trump won Dearborn with 42% of the vote, Harris got 36% and Jill Stein got 18%. In 2020, Biden got 69%, so Harris did 33 points worse than he did. In one Dearborn precinct with a very heavy concentration of Muslims, Trump got 51% and Harris got 13%. However, downballot, Democrats did very well in Dearborn. The message was specifically aimed at Harris. Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, said: "They didn't vote for Trump because they believe Trump is the best candidate. No, they voted for Trump because they want to punish the Democrats and Harris."

Mission accomplished. Trump won Michigan by about 81,000 votes. The Muslim population of Michigan is about 240,000 people. It could be that Muslims defeated Harris, although she had a lot of trouble with young Black men as well, and there are many young Black men in nearby Detroit. Even if Harris had won Michigan, she would have fallen below 270 EVs, so her failure to win the Arab American vote is not what did her in. She had other troubles elsewhere, especially with Latino men. Also, the exit poll data from Michigan show that 45% of voters said their personal financial situation was worse than 4 years ago. In 2020, only 15% said that.

Have we ever pointed out that you should be careful what you wish for? You might get it. Trump has promised to revive his ban on Muslims entering the country, only this time done so it passes legal muster easily. Last time, it was very controversial, but ultimately the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the president has control of who may enter the country. On his first day in office, Joe Biden revoked Trump's Muslim ban. Apparently word of that never made it to Dearborn. Trump has promised to reinstate the Muslim ban on Day 1. Perhaps word of that will make it to Dearborn quicker. It is not a secret that he hates Muslims, since he campaigned on it.

It is also well known that Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are great buddies. What Bibi wants, Bibi gets. Also, in Trump's transactional world, his policy on the Middle East is something like: Rich Arabs, good; poor Arabs, bad. He can comfortably do business with murderers like Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud because MBS has lots of money, but the Palestinians have nothing to offer Trump, so he will act accordingly. We hope some reporter from Politico goes to Dearborn in a year to update the story linked to above and check out how much joy remains. (V)

Action In the Senate

There are two new developments concerning the new Senate, in which the Republicans will probably have 53 seats (54 if Kari Lake pulls an upset victory, though her odds are not good, and some media outlets are already projecting that she lost). First, the second most hated person in the Senate, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), is running for majority leader. It's tough to run for leader when the best thing most of the people who can vote for you say is: "He's not as bad as Ted Cruz." Still, yesterday he got some good news.

First, the Almighty Tucker Carlson (R-Fox)—oh wait, (R-?)—has endorsed Scott. He said: "Rick Scott of Florida is the only candidate who agrees with Donald Trump. Call your senator and demand a public endorsement of Rick Scott."

Among actual Republican senators, only Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) support Scott. To win, a candidate needs 27 votes, so only 23 more to go. However, Scott has a serious problem. The election is by secret ballot, so cowardly senators, of which there are many, can proclaim allegiance to Scott but then vote for one of the Johns, Thune (R-SD) or Cornyn (R-TX). If Trump tries to push the senators around, it could backfire. Senators don't like being pushed around, and with a secret ballot, no one can tell how they voted. Of course, if Scott gets only five votes, it will be obvious.

Scott thinks his background as a businessman who made deals will help him. He was once CEO of one of the nation's largest for-profit hospital chains. He was ousted by the board after the company was convicted of 14 felonies and fined $1.7 billion, then the largest fine for Medicare fraud in the country. Despite his background in health care, when he was running for president a few years ago, one of his platform planks was to end Medicare unless Congress voted to renew it every 5 years. That didn't go over well and partly explains why his fellow Republican senators are not all buddy-buddy with him. But his abrasive personality also plays a role.

The new Republican senators from Utah, Montana, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia will be new to town and probably don't know any of the leadership candidates. Their votes might be up for grabs. Pigs can't fly, but pork can.

The other news involves recess appointments, which have basically gone the way of the dodo in the last 15 years. Barack Obama made aggressive use of the technique, got sued by Senate Republicans, and lost a unanimous Supreme Court decision. This decision has allowed both chambers of Congress to hold pro forma sessions every 3 days, even when most members are not in Washington. Consequently, Congress is never officially "in recess."

Donald Trump would like to bring recess appointments back, presumably so he can stack his Cabinet and the executive agencies with folks too radioactive to be approved the normal way. The President-elect is trying to get the three leading candidates for Senate Majority Leader to commit to giving him what he wants. On his boutique social media site, yesterday, Trump truthed: "Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner."

Immediately thereafter, Scott tweeted: "100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible." Elon Musk chimed in: "Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader." Cornyn and Thune, for their parts, have said they would make sure to process appointments quickly, while not committing to giving Trump a blank check to do what he wants.

If Trump manages to effectively bypass the specific constitutional requirement that the Senate vote to confirm all high-level appointments, Trump will have started down the road to dictatorship. The founders understood how kings worked and very specifically described Congress in Article I of the Constitution, because they expected Congress to be the most important of the three branches. If Trump can effectively sideline the Senate, he is halfway there. (V)

What Happens to All the Legal Cases against Trump?

Donald Trump has been indicted in four jurisdictions, two federal and two state. Jack Smith understands that DoJ policy for over 50 years is that a sitting president cannot be indicted or tried and since there is no way to finish Trump's D.C. or Florida cases before Jan. 20, he is bound by this policy to try to wind down the two federal cases in the best way he can. Trump was lucky. He landed on a "Chance" square and drew a "Get out of Jail Free" card. Smith may try to merely suspend the trials until Trump is no longer president, but even if this succeeds, the new AG could kill that deal.

The state charges are different. Trump was scheduled to be sentenced in New York on Nov. 26, but his election could change that. Judge Juan Merchan could just throw up his hands and abandon the case, although there is no legal reason for that since Trump was duly convicted for a crime that happened before he was president. Certainly, Merchan would be within his rights to pronounce a sentence. A prison sentence is unthinkable, but a fine is possible, even if it is symbolic. Suppose Merchan fined Trump $1,000 on each of the 34 counts, for a total of $34,000. We doubt the Supreme Court would overturn that as unreasonable and it would embarrass Trump to no end if he had to pay up. Plus, he would remain a "convicted felon."

Then there is the Georgia case. DoJ policy does not apply to state cases. Assuming Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis wins the current appeal and is allowed to stay on the case, a likely outcome is that she drops the indictment against Trump but pursues all the other defendants, including Rudy Giuliani. There is no conceivable reason for them to get a pass on this. They can't claim presidential immunity and Trump can't pardon anyone on state cases. Willis fully understands the implications of letting lawbreakers off the hook just because they are buddies with the president. Willis is a real pitbull and has pursued felons even if it takes years. She was reelected last week so she is safe for 4 more years.

On Dec. 5, which happens to be Sinterklaas, a Georgia appellate court will hold a hearing to see if Willis may continue on the case. If the court chastises her for hiring her then-boyfriend as lead prosecutor, but rules that while it had bad optics, it did not violate any law or rule, then she will probably keep going, but without Trump. Locking up all his cronies would definitely send Trump a message. If she is kicked off the case, it is unlikely any other Georgia prosecutor will take it up.

Could Trump pressure Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) to pardon his cronies? Sure, but it wouldn't work. The governor of Georgia does not have the pardon power. That is entrusted to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Could Trump pressure them? Sure, but under current law they are not allowed to pardon felons until they have been out of prison for 5 years and have met certain other conditions.

In a related case, Arizona AG Kris Mayes yesterday affirmed that she has no intention whatsoever of dropping her criminal case against the 11 fake electors and a few others a grand jury has indicted. These include Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows. Once again we may see a situation in which Trump gets off scot-free but everyone around him ends up at Club Fed. If Giuliani is convicted in both Georgia and Arizona, does he get to pick which prison he prefers? How does that work? Maybe first come, first served?

Finally, we come to the civil cases in which Trump has been found liable. A jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $88 million for calling her a liar when she said he raped her. NY AG Letitia James sued him for $450 million for defrauding New York banks and won. Both cases are on appeal. There is no legal reason why those cases have to be terminated. Presidents cannot be sued for actions taken as president and based on their constitutional authority. Defaming someone is not one of the president's constitutional duties. Neither is defrauding banks. The clear precedent here is Clinton v. Jones, in which Paula Corbin Jones sued Bill Clinton in 1994 for allegedly sexually harassing her while he was governor of Arkansas. The Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the Constitution protects a president from civil lawsuits while they are in office. And Trump's case is even weaker, because the acts named in James' case all took place before he was president and the trial and adjudication both took place after he left the presidency. For the Supreme Court to let Trump off despite this ruling would mean that the Court has simply gone rogue and doesn't care about the Constitution, the law, or precedent any more. (V)

Ballot Measures Had a Mixed Day Last Week

Many initiatives were on the ballot last week. The results were decidedly mixed.

Various kinds of election reform were on the ballot last week. They didn't do so well. There were initiatives in various states to eliminate partisan primaries and go with some kind of open primary and/or ranked choice voting (RCV). Proponents say that then candidates have to fight for second-place votes and if they go way out to the fringe, they won't get any of the second-place votes from the other party. In theory, this should moderate candidates. Opponents say that in California, which has a top-two open primary system, often both candidates in November are Democrats, so Republicans feel disenfranchised. They feel that only Democrats should pick the Democratic nominee and only Republicans should pick the Republican nominee. There were also some other election-related issues on the ballot in some states. Here are the major results:

State Proposition For Against Result
Alaska Repeal the top-four open RCV primary system 51% 49% Not called
Arizona Eliminate partisan primaries and use open primaries 42% 58% Defeated
Arizona Eliminate judicial elections and freeze the current Republican-dominated Supreme Court 23% 77% Defeated
Colorado Clone the Alaska system for state and congressional offices 46% 54% Defeated
Connecticut Allow the state legislature to provide for no-excuse absentee voting 58% 42% Passed
D.C. Allow independents to vote in primaries and use RCV for all elections 73% 27% Passed
Idaho Clone the Alaska system 30% 70% Defeated
Iowa Allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 by Election Day 77% 23% Passed
Missouri Prohibit all elections from using RCV 69% 32% Passed
Nevada Create a top-five open primary with RCV for general election 47% 53% Defeated
Ohio Create a citizen-led redistricting commission to draw the maps 46% 54% Defeated
Oregon Use RCV for federal and state elections 42% 58% Defeated
South Dakota Clone the California top-two primary system for all elections 34% 66% Defeated

There were also initiatives on abortion and other reproductive health matters on the ballot. They did fairly well. Here are the results:

State Proposition For Against Result
Florida Provide a constitutional right to abortion before viability 57% 43% Defeated (needed 60%)
Maryland Provide for a right to reproductive freedom 75% 25% Passed
Missouri Provide an extensive right to reproductive freedom 52% 48% Passed
Montana Allow women to make their own decisions about pregnancies 58% 43% Passed
Nebraska Establish a right to abortion until viability 49% 51% Defeated
Nebraska Prohibit abortions past the first trimester except in special cases 55% 45% Passed
Nevada Allow abortion until viability and allows state law to govern afterwards 64% 36% Passed
New York Create broad rights relating to gender, healthcare, and more 62% 38% Passed
South Dakota Create a right to abortion using a trimester framework 41% 59% Defeated

In addition, there were numerous other ballot initiatives in various states. Here are some of the most noteworthy ones:

State Proposition For Against Result
Alaska Set the minimum wage at $15/hr and require paid sick leave 57% 43% Passed
Arizona Allow tipped workers to be paid less than the minimum wage 26% 74% Defeated
California Set the minimum wage at $18 and index it annually 48% 52% Not called yet
California Repeal Proposition 8 and legalize same-sex marriage 62% 38% Passed
Florida Legalize recreational marijuana 56% 44% Defeated (needed 60%)
Massachusetts Gradually increase the tipped minimum wage to the normal minimum wage 36% 64% Defeated
Missouri Raise the minimum wage to $15/hr in steps and require paid sick leave 58% 42% Passed
North Dakota Legalize recreational marijuana 48% 52% Defeated
South Dakota Legalize recreational marijuana 44% 56% Defeated

In many states there were initiatives forbidding noncitizens from voting. These were written by politicians grandstanding. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting. These amendments all passed but simply make the state Constitutions longer but have no other effect. (V)

What Should Democrats Do Now?

Democrats will soon be faced with a dilemma. What should they do when Donald Trump proposes something that would be disastrous for the country, or at least for some group of people? There are two battlefields: public opinion and the Senate.

In the battle for public opinion, Democrats can either oppose bad stuff or not. In many cases, opposing it will give them some credibility when it goes south. There is not a lot of downside there.

Republicans are likely to capture the House and if they stick together, can ram anything they want through on a party-line vote. But the Senate is different. If Trump proposes, say, a 100% tariff on all imports from China, the Democrats can choose to either just vote against it or filibuster it. In the former case, it will pass on a party-line vote. In the latter it will be defeated.

Jonathan Last over at the Bulwark argues: Let Trump be Trump. In other words, warn people that what Trump wants will have disastrous consequences, but then say: "The American people voted for this, so they are entitled to get it. That is how democracy works." For example, as soon as Trump imposes tariffs on China, China will impose the same tariff level on soybeans. American farmers sell $35 billion worth of agricultural products to China every year, half of that being soybeans. Once American soybeans are priced out of the market, Brazil will pick up the slack. Then many American farmers (a.k.a. Trump's base) will discover that nobody wants to buy their product. Trump will try to blame China, and some farmers may believe it, but they will still be hurting. Trump could try to give them free money, but there are Republicans in the House who don't like giving anyone free money. It might not work out so well. If Trump puts a tariff on German cars he may be surprised when the Germans put the same tariff on Boeing airplanes, making them much more expensive than Airbus planes. And on and on.

Last also makes another case. The public clamor about immigration forced Joe Biden to ask Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to do something. So, McConnell assigned a very conservative Republican, Sen. James Lankford (R-OH), to write a border bill. Lankford put in everything on the Republicans' wish list. Democrats got nothing. Nevertheless, Democrats said they would vote for it. However, Senate Republicans refused to pass Lankford's bill on orders from Trump. Were the Democrats rewarded last week for trying to cooperate with Republicans to solve a serious problem? No way. The lesson here is: "Do not expend political capital trying to protect Trump's voters from Trump."

Consider yet another case: Ukraine. If Trump wants to stop helping Ukraine, Democrats should not try to block him. This will allow Putin to capture Ukraine and the little Baltic countries and then get into a serious war with Poland. NATO will fracture. Global markets will be spooked and people's 401(k) portfolios will crash. Democrats should then say: "You voted for him, now you get the consequences. Enjoy."

Similarly, if Trump tries to arrest and deport 12 million people, many of whom have jobs, Democrats should not block him. If this is what the people want, they have the right to get it. The logistical, legal, moral, and economic catastrophe will be monumental. In 2026, Democrats can say: "You wanted to know what electing Trump and giving him a trifecta meant. Now you know. You can't get rid of him but you can get rid of the trifecta. Vote carefully."

If a future HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to allow states to ban vaccines and thousands of little children die of measles in Alabama, well, that's Alabama's problem. Just wait until polio makes a comeback in Texas and 1950s iron lungs are back in fashion. The photo below is a man in an iron lung. He has probably been in there for 50 or 60 years because he can't breathe on his own. Now imagine vast rooms full of people in iron lungs in clinics all over the country.

Man in an iron lung

Most people living now cannot believe that the announcement that Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine worked got roughly the same amount of attention as the Japanese surrender during World War II. Having a vaccine was that important.

In short, Last thinks that the brunt of Trump's program will fall on Trump supporters. California, Illinois, New York, and the other blue states will offer free vaccinations to anyone who wants one. Red states will ban them. They can use the money they save on vaccinations to buy iron lungs. Put in other words, until Trump's supporters are exposed to the full consequences of Trump's decisions, they are not going to budge, so expose them. (V)

You Want to Leave the Country? Where To?

After every election, people on the losing side threaten to leave the country. But where should they go? The Internet to the rescue. There is now a website Whichcountrytomoveto.com that can help you pick a country. It asks questions like: "Which continent do you want?" and how important that factor is. Then it asks if you want a liberal or conservative country, and how important that factor is. Then it asks about your language skills, climate preferences, cost of living/tax preferences, health care preferences, and more. At the end, you get to learn where you should head.

Now a potential specialty choice. If you happen to be (or know) a university senior majoring in computer science and are looking for a cutting-edge English-language masters program in computer security taught by some of the top security experts in the world, you might consider (V)'s university, the VU. Here is a link to the Computer Security masters program. You don't need to speak Dutch in the Netherlands. Virtually everyone speaks English. See you in September in Amsterdam. (V)

In Conversation: Be Careful What You Wish For

Several items above address the general notion that the people who voted for Donald Trump are likely to be among the main victims of his policies. This has occurred to many of our readers, too:

M.P. in Portland, OR, writes: Obviously, like the bulk of your followers, I lean pretty heavily left and except for 7 years in childhood Midwest misery, have always lived in deep blue states... and I'm less than thrilled this morning and will grant some of the other outlets I follow, in hindsight, when I stated "we're so screwed" back in July when Biden dropped out, I was correct (and did Harris really have a clear path, ever?).

That said, I have a few takeaways:

  1. Many, if not most of the people who voted for Trump are going to be precisely the ones who will suffer the most. It's obvious if they don't like inflation NOW, they truly have no idea what we'll be looking at in about a year. Honestly can see us full bore in a recession, too—and that's assuming he doesn't di** with oil prices.

    I am, also, mean enough to actually find comfort in this.

  2. Your pieces on blue states pre-emptively Trump-proofing themselves—and Trump might be a creepy cult fascist, but he's an incompetent one—also gave me a great deal of comfort, then and now. I keep sharing them with others. As you note, lots of decentralization/states' rights in terms of power, as well as people who WILL riot, protest, forge their own path, etc.

  3. Naturally, I agree with your views on Gavin Newsom, who, given how capricious our electorate is, could very likely not just win, but win in a walk in 2028. Interestingly, The Bulwark, through Wonkette, was wailing just this morning, "Dems need their own DeSantis"....umm, we have that, but way better, in Newsom (with a few runners up in Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, still Mayor Pete, potentially Wes Moore...). I'm just gonna quietly retreat to my corner, do some resisting and muse who his running mate might be, so as to keep me warm at least until 2026.


D.M. in Delray Beach, FL, writes: Looks like my predictions of an overwhelming Trump victory were not far off (and I'm an Independent who voted Harris but could see the writing on the wall a mile away). Today the commentariat blamed Harris's appearance on The View as the source of her failure. Frankly, this Monday morning quarterbacking is bunk. That moment was a blip. Meanwhile the list of otherwise-political-career-ending moments from the Trump side of the ledger were legion. The difference? Trump's followers will walk on a lake of fire for him and have done so since the beginning. They see a world that has left them behind and they blame the government for doing so.

You scoffed earlier this year about Trump bringing up NAFTA. There's a reason it is called the "Rust Belt" and that all swung heavily Trump's way. While globalization ultimately made individual Americans insanely richer, vast swaths of America were decimated and they know who to blame: gub'mint.

If Trump and the Republican agenda actually DID something for these people (other than pay them amazing lip service), I might not feel so terrible about the election result. The sad part is that none of these people will be helped by this decision. We are all about to suffer (save the millionaires and billionaires). And it had nothing to do with a flubbed sentence on The View. There are 30 years of rage that are bottled up. Trump was just the person willing to tap into it.


J.T. in Charleston, WV, writes: The thought I keep coming back to is: When Donald Trump won in 2016, there was a very common attitude among liberals of "the US has lost its mind, this is a deviation we need to return to the mean from." Biden campaigned, essentially, on that idea and eked out a win in 2020, seemingly validating the "temporary insanity" viewpoint and heralding a return to rationality.

But now Trump comes back in 2024, doing better than ever (against a candidate who by all rights should have done better than Biden did, but didn't), winning in an election that, pollsters aside, wasn't even really that close. What if Biden's win in 2020—a year blighted by a global pandemic and with a candidate still very much benefiting from the afterglow of Obama at the time—was the deviation and Trump is the new mean? Maybe in a timeline without COVID, Trump was "supposed to" win in 2020—maybe we would have had President Pence in 2024. As things stand the odds now look good for a President Vance in 2028 (if not before due to succeeding Trump early in some fashion).

The main thing that gives me some measure of hope that this is not just the default mode of the U.S. forevermore is that the country survived 6 years of Nixon followed by the one term of Biden-like Carter, then 8 years of Reagan, who had (and still has) a Trump-like cult of personality. But Reagan's own proteges didn't have the charisma he did and one more term of "Reagan lite" gave us two terms of Clinton when the Reagan enthusiasm faded. There was still damage done but at least it had an end point.

Maybe a second Trump term was necessary all along to get back to business by just letting the infection run its course—which is no comfort at all to those harmed along the way, but maybe there was never any way to avoid that harm given the electorate that exists.

And, maybe the lesson for the Democrats and Democrat-leaning centrists is that charisma and personality (like Bill Clinton's and Obama's, even a repugnant charisma like Trump's, as long as it resonates with enough voters) carry the day over qualifications and experience like Hillary Clinton's and Kamala Harris', and they should bear that in mind when casting primary votes from here on out.


A.S. in Black Mountain, NC, writes: The shock and awe America is about to experience in the next 4 years is unimaginable for me. The dream of the America I thought existed is gone. And the worldwide effect will be enormous. The anxiety is just beginning. I need to look up the stages of grief.


B.G. in Palo Alto, CA, writes: I can't help but wonder if Biden's biggest mistake of the past 4 years wasn't inflation, or stepping down too late, or not refusing to step down, or whatever, but instead simply re-normalizing normality. Making many Americans forget how dysfunctional, erratic, incompetent, and crazy Trump was as president. Enough swing voters therefore weighed economic or other concerns higher, giving Trump his critical edge.

It seems we're all going to re-learn that lesson again over the next 4 years, and probably more so, with the guardrails removed and an administration of mostly yes-men and crazies. I can only hope: (1) we somehow manage to avoid World War III, and (2) the crazy is so strong this time that people remember in a way we won't forget again.


D.E. in Lancaster, PA, writes: I want to share two responses with you.

First, from someone famous, Jimmy Kimmel, whose voice broke with tears while saying this: "It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for the poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth and democracy and decency. It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him. And guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him, too. You just don't realize it yet."

Now from someone not famous, one of the sales reps where I work (unfortunately not his words verbatim but damn close) on why he was choosing not to be devastated by the results: "I refuse to give any more power to that orange fu**ing a**hole and serial rapist!"

I'm not there yet. Don't even have a map on how to get there. Don't know if I can even try.

All we can add to this is that, in his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln's main argument was that the Civil War was unavoidable, something the United States had to go through. Maybe, as J.T. in Charleston observes, the only way the Republican Party (and, with it, the American political system) will bounce back to something normal is if Trumpism is taken to its logical conclusion. (Z)


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