Don't Call It A Comeback!

History teaches us that we can develop possible interpretations for historical events. Currently, three theories have emerged to explain the results of the 2024 presidential election. Often, we identify with causations or interpretations that look best or cause the least pain. As a result we may error in judgement. Such mistakes lead to a revisionist interpretation becoming the more dominant or more widely accepted viewpoint.  

The first theory suggests an underestimation or a misreading of the strength of former President Trump and his MAGA movement. It argues that the MAGA secretly grew since 2021 and that more Americans embraced President Trump's policies. I find fault with this theory as it is underdeveloped and confusing. Numerically staunch MAGA has remained unchanged. It has never exceeded more than 35% of the Republican base. What did change is the empathy for the former president and a greater conversation on the border and prices, but neither of these issues necessarily mean a conversion to MAGA. 

A reconstruction of this thesis might have less to do with MAGA and more with the former president. Perhaps, as the former president was able to galvanize the same amount of media coverage out of office as he had when he was in office, his battles with the justice system and the two assassination attempts increased his popularity. In contrast, if MAGA was going to decline, the moment should have been associated with January 6th, but instead the only weak point turned out to be the failure of his candidates in the mid-term 2022 elections. Other than that, MAGA has been sailing along.

The second is another miscalculation. This was the poor choice of selecting another female candidate to run against Mr. Trump. Many Democrat and Republican voters were confused with the "abdication" of President Biden and the party's choice of Vice President Harris. While there were issues in President Biden waiting so long in the campaign season to step down, it did make sense for the party to avoid a quick primary which would have probably by-passed Ms. Harris and selected another candidate. That process would have cost the party votes in the form of a backlash. Plus, heading into October Ms. Harris had momentum and a slight lead in the polls.

The third theory posits that the Democratic party focused on the wrong themes during the campaign and as a result lost a core constituency of its voters. This thesis argues that the party overlooked bread and butter issues and tried to indict President Trump by raising reproductive rights, and highlighting the former president's crimes and flaws with the belief that common sense would encourage moral outrage and that a majority of American citizens would vote against him.  I disagree with aspects of this one as well because the vice president presented a strong economic plan with items directed towards the working and middle classes.

Since November 5th, the third hypothesis has dominated the press. It has received the majority of the coverage of most of the major networks. However, I'm certain that this one will eventually be discarded as time progresses, especially if the Trump administration turns into an authoritarian dictatorship.

From the morning of November 6th, there was a need for Democrats to find blame. That suggests that it was their election to win. I want to offer another perspective. Perhaps this was the Republicans election to win. Maybe the Republicans found the formula that appealed to most Americans.  And just maybe, it has historic roots in the mid-19th century.

Often in the search for our better angels, we overlook the devils. There are always two sides to every story and we need to consider all possibilities. This synthesis stems from the Civil War where we are led to believe that northerners thought that the Union needed to be preserved at all costs. However, looking backwards, we know that this is a myth. Many northerners would have been content if the southern states had seceded. Similarly everyone was not willing to die to end slavery. The counter to the northern myth creates the basis for the "lost cause".  This myth is the attempt to save the Old South and rebuild the Confederacy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Lost cause advocates also try to recreate slavery through peonage and debt slavery. This ideology has called for a return to the good old days, but equally a destruction of the forthcoming multi-ethnic, multi-racial liberal imagery of the United States. It was present during the Dixiecrat era of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace's segregationist runs for the presidency, but it has never captivated so many people as Donald Trump's MAGA.  This brand of populism also has its roots in the 19th century where Tom Watson, one of its leaders once an integrationist, turned into a staunch racist. 

MAGA shouts American exceptionalism, but an exceptionalism of a particular yoke.  It does not speak for all. The challenge of modern American exceptionalism - our strong belief in our people and our leaders has been on trial since the Oklahoma City bombings.  And it harkens back to the consciousness of the Confederacy. It is the internal duel, the battle of American purity set against American evil.  A "too great to fail" mindset is at the heart of traditional American exceptionalism. For us not to fail we need to believe in enduring vision of the city on the hill that the Puritans dreamed of and that Ronald Reagan helped make famous. It is the belief that America is blessed by God. What separates MAGA's brand of exceptionalism and traditional exceptionalism is that we all have the shared destiny.  MAGA has strongly proclaimed the enemy within. It has defined the "Deep State", enemies within mainstream America.  The left wants the right to reject MAGA as a part of America's dominate culture, but the opposition believes that a fusion between the right and MAGA will ultimately make America great again. 

Thus the fight for America's soul lies in the belief that America will remain unified and a pure vision of the United States will overtake all evils. The left is symbolically channeling the mythical Union position, while MAGA is a reflection of the Confederacy.  Without question, MAGA has embraced this image and many of it members have chosen to wear Confederate hats and wave Confederate flags.  Such imagery cannot help to recast notions of racism, segregation and white supremacy.  Indeed the association of Christian nationalism with MAGA further intensifies fears of a white supremacist movement.

In order for traditional exceptionalism to prevail, the task at hand is to create the informed electorate. The American public must be well informed and educated to always make sound decisions.  Further, that Americans, while emotional, must be grounded in logic and have a firm understanding of the mission of the nation as global leaders. This logic continues stressing that most Americans are better than those on the fringes that appear from time to time and do terrible things. In essence, when it comes to electoral politics, it boils down to a belief our best are always present - that in any contest either presidential candidate could do a decent job but that one candidate is always a bit better than the other. 

However, in my historical construction, the election of 2024 marked the end of the pretense of traditional American exceptionalism. For the first time in modern history there was a feeling that both candidates had the potential of doing great harm to the nation. It reminded us of how Lyndon Johnson framed Barry Goldwater in 1964. But imagine if Goldwater had been able to do the same to Johnson? 2024 gave Americans this type of challenge. However, unlike 1964, Americans did not watch the same television channels or read the same newspapers. Their modes of information were biased by numerous factors and subject to misinformation. (For example, there is a difference between Fox News and CNN)

In presenting my own thesis, which combines elements of the three theories, I think we get closer to the truth. Yet, I realize that this truth will never get into the history books. For nearly three years, a segment of the public has labeled the former president a threat to democracy who should not be re-elected. Many scholars, including countless historians and political scientists, have outlined how a second Trump administration could destroy over 200 years of this grand experiment.  Pundits called Trump a fascist, a wanna be dictator and worse. At the same time, the Trump camp and his supporters framed Joe Biden as the head of a crime family and Kamala Harris as a communist, leftist and radical.  A clear crisis existed where neither side saw virtues in the other.

Throughout the campaign season we were led to believe that the polls were close with neither candidate seeing 50% approval. As a result, the early election results were surprising. It appeared that Trump had secured a majority of the votes. After November 5th, the data offered different conclusions.  Foremost, statistically, the electorate did not show up for this election. Fewer people voted in 2024 than in 2020. We questioned, why did this happen if this election was so important? And then why did people favor Trump over Harris?

Maybe there are some interesting things to be discovered. I have yet to see exit interviews concerning the threat to democracy argument or interviews with those who did not vote or those who selected a third party candidate.  We have hyped that President Trump received more votes than he did in 2020, but we have not acknowledged that Vice President Harris has received the third most votes of all time. What everyone has pointed to and has "surprised" experts is that Vice President Harris did not do as well with African American, Latinx, Asian, and other people of color as President Biden had done four years earlier.  This data gave support to the conclusion that the Democrats had lost touch with their base. They also noted that there was a difference between college educated and non-college educated white men and women and how they aligned with Trump or Harris and how these percentages differed since 2016. 

There seems to be a simple explanation for these outcomes. For me, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the economy, the border, local crime, unemployment, or involvement in global affairs.  Journalist Jennifer Rubin has suggested it has to do with political education, sources of knowledge and miseducation among voters. But, more likely, it has to do with Kamala Harris' identity as a female and a multi-racial woman that the Republicans decided needed to be seen more as African American than Asian American. 

Honestly, it is about the ideology of identity and the politics of race and gender. The progressive beliefs of race, class and gender are critical in seeing America as a great nation. Without them, post 1950s America is a failure. Hence Harris' defeat is not just the loss of an individual and a political party, but rather a larger image.  In reality, America continues to disappoint the world as its beacon of democracy continues to flicker.  Multi-racial America is not better than South Africa, Brazil, Israel, or the United Kingdom. Similarly, if other major nations can elect a female leader or have had female rulers at some point in their histories, why can't the United States?  And in terms of race, both Harris and Obama were bi-racial in their identities not solely African American. (Obama was raised by his white mother and Harris was raised by her Indian mother.) The American media, more so than the candidates, needed to emphasize their non-white racial identities. So, the fear of race, particularly blackness, is clearly the reason for the downfall of Harris' candidacy. 

I'm not alone in my thoughts. Within 24 hours of the results academic Eddie Glaude Jr. argued that race and gender played a major role in the outcome. He was highly critical of Democrat apologists on MSNBC and placed the blame on white women. In other interviews and commentary, he focused on split-tickets in down voting patterns. In an interview with Juana Summers of NPR he stated: "So if Democrats were being punished for policies that harmed working-class folk or if they were being punished for inflation and the like, one would think you would see that across the board. But we saw, instead, split-ticket voting not only in relation to senatorial candidates, but in terms of the abortion rights initiatives, 7 out of the 9 that passed. So we had American voters voting for a Donald Trump - right? - voting for a Democratic candidate and voting for Donald Trump. We had American voters voting for abortion rights and voting for Donald Trump. Now, how do we understand that?"

In my mind, in a predominately white nation, the election, as all elections in the western world, are largely won or lost based on the white vote. The votes of people of color, often gerrymandered and marginalized, can be turned into an accessory. We need to accept that white Americans and the varying segments of the white population are responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Therefore when analyzing the election from a non-racial perspective, the additional fact that many Americans, of various stripes, voted against their economic, social and personal issues and cast their votes for Trump is quite alarming when it cannot be reasonably explained. 

However, why are we divided about whether this election is about race, class or gender? Countless experts kept trying to make the point that if all classes and races voted for Trump, the election could not be about race or class. In essence it had to be about other qualities like leadership and knowledge. Such points make me chuckle knowing that economists and the Wall Street Journal denounced the former president's economic plans including the tariffs.  And we all remember Trump's statement about "a concept of a plan" in reference to health care or his medical remedy for COVID!

While the mass declarations failed to capture the public's attention, the volumes of negative comments by military personnel, cabinet members and Republican politicians about former President Trump's leadership was impressive.  So, if Americans overlooked Trump's flaws, 30,000+ lies, criminal indictments, security lapses, Covid policies and deaths, January 6th and even Project 2025, how could they discount that he was going to be a lame duck president?  Was it so clear to post-election analysts that Harris was such a bad candidate that the election could not have been about race and racism?

As Eboo Patel wrote: "Trump insulted Native Americans by sneeringly referring to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” and still improved his standing in Native American-majority counties by ten points compared to 2020. Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists, promised a border wall, threatened mass deportations, hosted a rally at Madison Square Garden in which Puerto Rico was called “a floating island of garbage,” and did better (again, compared to 2020) in Hispanic-majority counties by 13 points. Trump regularly called Black leaders “lazy,” derided Black majority cities, feuded with iconic Black figures like Representative John Lewis, faced a Black candidate in the presidential race — yet he gained nearly 3 points in Black-majority counties."

There is a tangent but I think the answers for some of these behaviors can also be found in the 1860s. W.E.B. DuBois in Black Reconstruction reveals how poor southern whites voted with the planter class and agreed to be disenfranchised to limit black freedom. He and other historians also provide evidence of the former slaves supporting their former owners for no concessions. Equally important is the development of tactics that can be deployed at a later date. Historians found that the former Confederates tried different methodologies of attacking blacks from 1865 to 1900 until they found the most effective ones. Most of their victories occurred in the courts that ultimately supported their legislative actions. The result was a silencing of black power and liberalism throughout the South.

If one considers the recent House inquiries on campus protests following Hamas' attack on Israel, this parallel is more obvious. The college administrators summoned to Washington represented elite and liberal institutions, the majority led by women.  Republicans, falsely using antisemitism as a weapon when not agreeing with their answers, called for the presidents to be fired.  The aftermath of the hearings led to the resignations of a generation of white female college presidents. Included in the casualties were Claudine Gay, the first African American president of Harvard University and Jonathan Holloway, the first African American president of Rutgers. 

Less discussed is the attention was given to the relationship between unions and the Harris campaign and the print press and the Harris team. Unions are critical to the Democratic Party and liberal leaning papers in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Boston, and Chicago tend to favor Democrats. This time was different. The Teamsters, a prominent union, refused to support Harris and the ownership of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post did not allow their papers to endorse Ms. Harris. Several prominent corporate leaders friendly with the vice president also declined to endorse her. Such actions are indications of the fear of retaliation and anti-black racism, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim bias.

Let's explore this a bit further.  Through legislation, intimidation and bribery the forces that would have voted for Harris were pushed out of the electorate or into supporting Trump. Many of the traditional players in Democrat politics were visible before and during the convention but did not make a strong showing at the polls. Members of the rainbow coalition of Democrat voters (Asians, Latinos, African Americans, Muslim Americans, and liberal white women) either did not vote for the Harris ticket or did not vote at all. Why? I think the last two weeks of the campaign were telling. When the newspapers did not endorse Harris it was a sign that she might lose. Also that Bill Clinton needed to speak to the Muslim community and the Obamas needed to chastise young and working class black men to encourage them to vote revealed the impact that the Trump campaign had gained in some Muslim and black communities in battleground states.  But the final piece was the advertisement of men with beards in dresses described as trans wanting to play basketball with young white girls. Above all, this established the call to liberal whites that their children were in danger from the leftist agenda. It was a throwback to the 19th century pictures of white women with black men.

Patel recently wrote: "According to an Echelon Insights poll published in the Financial Times, 75 percent of white progressives say “racism is built into our society.”" Yet, where were these white progressives on November 5th?  Their views were muted by those advertisements and neighbors. Unlike 2016, fewer people actually discussed the election with friends and relatives. 

Thus, the historic lost cause connections were re-established. The former slaves defended their racist masters and the northern liberals were attacked for allowing their women and children to associate with radical people of color and leftist ideas. By gaining the attention of enough white voters, the key points are: Trump was largely victorious due to voter apathy, an uniformed and undereducated electorate who looked at single issues, and sexism. However, the greater conclusion is that the election was decided by his appeals to racism and racial fear. 

In the African American community the blame is directed towards those who did not show up. (The old Civil Rights groups and black women, particularly, felt betrayed.)  As a result, African American scholars and their allies have argued that the Harris campaign was sabotaged by racial bias, gender bias and media bullying. (This supports parts of Jennifer Rubin's thesis) Clearly by examining the language used by pundits on Fox News and social media platforms, there was an excess of foul language used to describe the vice president and parts of the electorate. Recent claims of dirty tricks waged by Elon Musk have also been uncovered further highlighting antisemitism, racial bias, and anti-black politics. 

Kimberle Crenshaw, director of the African American Policy Forum, offered the following analysis: "The 2024 Presidential Election was one marked by soaring highs and crushing lows. Black women, 91% of whom turned out for Vice-President Kamala Harris, once again proved to be the most engaged, progressive and resilient voting bloc. We also witnessed an election campaign where rampant sexism and racism was directed not only at the major party candidate —but at Black women more broadly— yet this misogynoir is already being written out of the analysis of what actually happened."

For African Americans, the perception that racism is the key reason for Ms. Harris' defeat is central to understanding all of the prevailing theories.  Yet, race has been discounted by comments by Kevin Dowd, Gail Collins and others. For instance Mr. Dowd wrote "Somehow this racist dictator was able to assemble a new coalition of Black, Hispanic, middle class and working class voters."  Gail Collins argued all of the prevailing theories before touching on race.  In commenting on the election outcome Ms. Collins wrote: "Cannot help, people, from believing that this also had to do with race. I know we elected Barack Obama twice..." Such statements belie the heart of the problem when the societal construction of racial identity for Obama and Harris is very different, gender is an issue in the Obama election, and whites choose to solely blame Latinos and African Americans for the Trump victory. In contrast, most political consultants are quick to reveal that the majority of all poorer and working class people voted for Harris.  Hence, as Keith Boykin highlights race matters as 60% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump. 

While it is clear that the Trump campaign's tactics impacted people of all races its main target was whites. The fact that white voters could not justify their votes for Mr. Trump outside of weakened claims that his economy was better than Mr. Biden's (which was not true) or that Mr. Trump kept the nation out of war (also not true) signaled that Trump voters often parroted what they heard on Fox News, social media and in campaign advertisements rather than making sound judgments. 

African American scholars have pointed to the appeal to whiteness as the renewal of another lost cause. From Project 2025 to the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, there has been a constant call to dismantle structures to save America from its ultimate "browning" by 2045. This systemic abuse and cultural brainwashing has been directed to all parties to stress that the only way to be a good American is to overlook race and support whiteness. For example, exit interviews with Latino men have shown Trump backers downplayed his negative and often racist comments about Latinos and have supported his massive deportation schemes even if friends and relatives are removed from America. Similarly interviews with Arab and Muslim voters indicate they have excused Trump's Muslim ban and think he will end the Israeli conflicts largely because Trump's daughter Tiffany married the son of prominent Middle Eastern businessman. Such logic overlooks the President-elect's strong relationship with Israel's prime minister or that he has a Jewish daughter, son-in law, and Jewish grandchildren.

Studies have shown that often abused people fall in love with their abusers. These psychological observations have advanced the idea that once patterns of abuse become routine that a normalization of behaviors can easily take place. Even when encouraged or assisted in leaving the abuser, a certain cohort will attempt to or will return to the "comfort" or "security" of the violating party.

In contrast, in a similar manner, political cycles, studies reveal that people will continue to vote for corrupt politicians even when their misdeeds have been exposed. Voters will excuse the behavior of candidates for a variety of offenses even when the evidence is conclusive. The attraction of modern day dictators and strongmen clearly fit somewhere between the pathologies of abusers and corrupt politicians. We know that they are doing wrong, immoral and illegal things, yet for a variety of reasons we don't want to abandon them. 

Within this paradigm lies Donald Trump. His celebrity is what initially made him popular, but it is his vocalization of a brand of ideas that has maintained his national appeal. Yet one must continue to ask, does this popularity mean that he can continue to draw a national audience across the political spectrum?

I think the answer to this question is yes. We have been exposed to Donald Trump more than enough to know something negative about him. Yet the appeal is still there. It doesn't matter if Trump is personally a racist or not as he speaks the language of racists and his campaign went out of its way to degrade people of color, black women and Ms. Harris. Race first and gender second were the defining aspects of this campaign. It was not about policy or common sense.  But when will Americans admit this about their nation?

As the vote is further analyzed we can see the margin of victory is less than 3 million votes. The defection of African Americans, Asians and Latinos might not have made a difference in most of the battleground states. This was not a landslide. Trump did not receive a mandate and we cannot call it a comeback! 

What we can say is that America is not too great to fail. Buyers remorse is already sinking in as cabinet choices are being announced. Note few persons of color have been announced for this cabinet.  Project 2025, the plan that Trump claimed not to be associated with, is starting to take center stage and people will see how far the administration will venture from its campaign promises. 

The real tragedy is that President Trump and his monied supporters need/needed to save white America. They needed parts of the Democratic coalition to achieve this goal.  And they got them through technological threats and intimidation.  In forging a "better America", it means going back to the 1940s complete with second class citizenship for women and minorities. 

The battle for the soul of a nation has entered its next phase!

Post-discussion

A conversation on American and race is truly needed in the public square. The contrasts are important.  Trump and Republicans argued that Ms. Harris just turned black! This statement became normalized throughout portions of the nation. Even popular entertainers like Janet Jackson were drawn into this conversation on racial identity. 

However, if Ms. Harris argued that she was solely Indian would the outcome been different? Would it have mattered if she was married to a non-Jewish white man like Nikki Haley? Did race impact the Hailey campaign?  Was it significant to many that Ms. Hailey a woman of Asian/Indian heritage also has a black son-in-law and multi-racial grandchildren?  Is gender more important than race? For example, there was some MAGA and white supremacist blowback towards J.D. Vance who has an Indian wife and multi-racial children but it did not derail his election. Will it stop him from being a future president?