Though the outcome of America’s upcoming election is a foregone conclusion, not all is lost. Either Trump or Kamala will inherit an economic slowdown, a voting population at turns radicalized and ambivalent, and a degraded country stuck in frozen conflict—with only some of it abroad. Neither Trump nor Kamala have the tools to deal with insoluble problems, while the freakish nature of this cycle’s independent candidates suggests how little can be produced through the miasma. And yet, the Democratic Party’s latest crisis provides a rare glimpse into political power, down to the brazen discussion of how Joe Biden was forced to give up his re-election campaign. Insiders are accused of plotting a ‘coup’, but this word suggests something out of the ordinary. In reality, both parties are financed by corporate bribes and beholden to special interests. If funding dries up, the campaign is over—a fact that, to quote Nancy Pelosi, can be impressed upon the candidate “the easy way, or the hard way”. At the time, I suggested the Party lean into its undemocratic principles, such as calling for a fake primary (if there should be a primary at all) ending with Kamala Harris’s anointment. Now that this has transpired, it is instructive to reflect on why. For, despite Kamala’s decision to run on “joy”, there is no real happiness here—just levity. It is the lightness of fantasy and of impermanence. It is the lightness of the airhead and the superficiality of skin, which is as much a snipe against Kamala as it is a comment on the ugliest (and the fattest and most profligate) presidential ticket in American history. After all, Trump managed to turn his own assassination attempt into just another headline, suggesting some radical incompetence in American politics. This is, in the end, the lightness of predestination—of accepting that which has become intractable.
But let us step back for a moment. Like many Americans, I was surprised at Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, and while liberals doubled down on stupid, I realized just how insulated my life had become. There was no intentionality here—the Obama years were amiable, and so I’d slipped into a comfortable rhythm. This was an odd feeling as I rarely vote for either of the two parties and had long recognized the reasons which made Trump possible. And yet, I could not ‘feel’ (even though I ‘knew’) that in Middle America, white men saw their lifespans crater, and that black wealth had never really recovered from the Great Recession. In the US, segregation is operative, whether racial, or of the city/rural divide, or competing media ecosystems and cultural signifiers. Once Hillary Clinton encouraged voters to doubt the election results, it was forgotten that we had a perfectly good reason for voter attrition. This occurred at rates far exceeding that of Green Party ‘theft’ or of Putin’s machinations, yet accepting responsibility entailed cataclysmic changes to how the Party operates. Bernie Sanders showed one way out—a $100 million campaign based exclusively on small donors, which gained disproportionate support relative to its limited funding. In other words, although campaign finance is largely determinative of electoral success, there is a saturation point. Recall that not even Hillary Clinton’s $1+ billion price tag was enough to counteract depressed turnout and grassroots enthusiasm for Donald Trump. By 2020, both parties were flush with cash, setting turnout records and barely eking out a Democratic win. In 2024, turnout will almost certainly be lower, hurting Democrats just as Trump implements the vote-by-mail system he once tried to kill. Anecdotal signs are no better, with Democrats and media headlines adopting the same flippant language they used in 2016. Muslims once thought to be dependable one-party voters are now disgusted with Trump and Harris, marking the first time in recent history that a major voting bloc is leveraging its political power in disciplined fashion. Meanwhile, the self-serving, vibes-based ‘analysis’ which predicted a Red Wave in 2022 is catching up with reality—albeit for reasons these same analysts do not understand.
Shortly before the midterms, my co-director, Joel Parrish, asked what I expected to happen. I responded that, even if Republicans win a few seats, there would not be the much-touted Red Wave. Back then, Democrats had even started to pepper social media with “electoral interference” claims to preempt disaster, but why? Yes, inflation was high and the stock market was crashing right in time for November, yet there was little evidence to suggest that the economy had slowed. The Fed rate hikes were meant to cool things down, but served as net income transfers after many years of pitiful yields. Businesses with cash on hand could compound annually while those who mismanaged the bull market were chopped up and reconstituted. Older Americans on fixed income not only found more money, but were shielded from certain downsides, such as rising mortgage expenses. The labor market was tight and while minimum wage remained unchanged (these days, Kamala Harris is not even attempting a wage hike as virtue-signal), some of the worst-off, such as fast-food workers, saw real bargaining power. COVID-era deficits were shrinking, yet generated savings which outpaced inflation. None of this, of course, is an argument for rate hikes. They are stimulatory, though among the most regressive—and least creative—forms of stimulus government can undertake. They are also quick to run their course before pain sets in. Today, savings have dried up relative to assets, housing is much less affordable than during the Trump years, and while the stock market is at an all-time high, it is now a game of hot potato as money seeks fresh vacuums and escalating narratives. Nvidia, for example, has seen massive revenue growth due to advances in AI, yet sell their chips to companies which struggle to profit from this technology. [9/4/24: Nvidia has just received a DOJ subpoena as part of an antitrust investigation.] The next just-so story is a near-universal belief that rate cuts will drive stocks as well as the economy higher. Unfortunately, a rate cut in the absence of fresh spending will, if anything, lead to a correction in the long term. Even white-collar layoffs have accelerated, with a chunk of the Biden coalition more ambivalent about the future. Add to this the fact that job growth between 2023-24 has just been revised down by almost one million jobs with a substantial number of Americans looking for work, and Kamala Harris’s campaign is at the mercy of timing. In short, this is not 2022, for 2022, from rate hikes to the Ukraine debacle to yet another US veto of Palestinian statehood, was a turning point which we are now on the other side of.
It is hard to say how Kamala Harris will respond to increased scrutiny, but she is at least a bit shrewder of a candidate than her treatment suggests. Though the insecure Joe Biden was happy to flash her as a token around his neck, it should have been obvious that she would be a Party frontrunner by 2024. Kamala’s VP pick of the likable Tim Walz over the blatantly racist and inauthentic Josh Shapiro expanded the appeal of her ticket, while her relative youthfulness has turned the GOP’s main line of attack into a liability. As of this writing, Harris has outraised Trump $754 million to $575 million and expanded Biden’s poor digital footprint as a proxy for voter enthusiasm. She lacks some downside risks of Trump, such as the abysmal JD Vance, or the possibility (however slight) of a worse-than-expected Trump sentencing. She has closed the gap Joe Biden re-created with union voters and is willing to copy Trump’s populist appeals. And although a market correction will come, this might only happen after indices make new highs in time for the election. Yet this is where the advantages end. Kamala’s first sit-down interview was unpersuasive, clocking in at under 28 minutes (with several taken up by Walz) and alienating voters concerned about Gaza, inflation, Ukraine, her ever-shifting positions, and perceived ill-preparedness for office. Yes, Harris has gained with young voters, women, nonwhites, and independents who refused to vote for a senile and historically unpopular Biden, but this has only removed the certainty of a Trump win. Several data points—such as the Party’s overperformance in special elections—are in Kamala’s favor, but these geeky fixations go both ways, with any number of bellwethers (such as failing to secure Biden 2020 levels of Latino support) just as significant. Ominously, the right-wing AfD’s win in Germany, the erosion of Modi’s support in India, and the ascent of France’s left-wing New Popular Front suggest an anti-incumbent bias and the repudiation of failed policies.
Put another way, the honeymoon is about over, and Americans are being reminded of why they rejected Kamala Harris in 2019, when she was polling at 3% despite key endorsements. Trump, for his part, continues to pick off blacks and Hispanics relative to the past two elections and trails Harris by two points nationally. As comparison, Biden was ahead by seven and Clinton by four in early September, with unknown and underappreciated variables in favor of Trump. This time, Kamala’s inroads with women may or may not be balanced by Trump’s inroads with men, while voters without a college degree lean Trump in unprecedented fashion. I called JD Vance ‘abysmal’, as he is putrid in both appearance and person, but the Party is being dishonest about Trump’s satisfaction with him, as well as his advantages with voting bloc(s) the campaign is targeting. Trump, Vance, and Kamala are all net unfavorable, and although Trump’s numbers are worse than Kamala’s in this regard, they are still better than Joe Biden’s and that of many other political figures. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who draws disproportionate support from Latinos, has dropped out and is now campaigning for Trump, Cornel West has beaten back the Party’s attempts to kick him off the ballot, and Muslim voters are tied (yes, tied) in their support for Jill Stein and Kamala Harris. Indeed, “brat summer” is officially over and the anti-genocide campus protests are starting up again. After the administration’s unqualified support for Israeli war crimes, Israel continues to escalate in the Middle East, and it is possible that Democrats will be repaid for their gutless submission to AIPAC with Netanyahu throwing the election to Trump. Alarmingly, some of the dumbest people in the world have given up on a Trump win, or write vapidly—and poorly—on Kamala’s ‘new’ style of politics. Needless to say, this doesn’t take into account underreported stories, such as the fact that long COVID has disabled over a million Americans with no acknowledgement from ‘the Party of Science’. Yet liberals are temperamentally disloyal, punishing leaders who stray from their values. Does a black woman running as a ‘top cop’ prosecutor signaling openness to Republicans in her Cabinet fit this description, or have voters been sufficiently disciplined to fear Trump? Even technical advantages hide immanent risk, as Kamala’s fundraising edge has culminated in roughly equal amounts of cash on hand for both candidates. A late spending blitz might very well push Trump over the line just as it did in October 2016—a fact which remains unappreciated relative to the blame placed on the Comey letter. And while it is true that many of Trump’s actions were unpopular when he was in office, Kamala Harris is now tied to an incumbent who generates nostalgia for the Trump years.
Putting all this together, my best guess is that the election now stands 55/45 (or higher) in favor of Trump. It is still a coin toss, but a subtly loaded one whose outcome being so thinly decided will not teach the losing party any lessons. In some ways, this is the eschatological goal: commit to making so many mistakes, whether in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, or feeding the delusions of an archaic fool until the last possible moment, that the process of wrongdoing is hidden by scapegoats. Will Democrats blame a financial meltdown, a war, or a Gaza-adjacent terrorist attack they ‘couldn’t possibly’ have prevented? Or Republicans an unearthed video of Vance sniffling menstrual pads? Or maybe it will be racism and sexism, whether in the ‘inability’ of a black woman to compete, or that of a DEI-fueled (or CRT-fueled, or…) backlash against two white men who ‘only wanted the best’ for these United States? It is, at any rate, a race to the bottom in competency, ethics, and the misuse of resources. America has been lucky to have a lot of everything, expanding while Europe is contracting, drilling while the rest of the world is buying, ensconced between two oceans as it puppeteers its zombie vassals. But there is a thin line between ‘a lot’ and ‘much too much’, with every outcome, no matter the outcome, filtered through the haze.
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