Random Thoughts on the Election, What It Means, and What Comes Next

Who is to blame for the outcome? What's next for democracy? Where did the Harris campaign go wrong and did it even matter? Do Trump supporters deserve our respect and understanding? What can we do?

So many thoughts have swirled through my brain in the aftermath of the devastating election result Nov. 5, including why it happened, what it all means, and what the future may hold.

Instead of focusing this post on a particular theme or idea related to the election, I’m going to instead throw my random thoughts against the wall on various post-election questions and narratives to see what may stick. These are iterations of comments I’ve posted in notes form on Substack in response to other writers and their thoughts over the past few weeks.

I acknowledge that many of these musings are born from raw emotion, and they may change or evolve as time goes on. But I’ve also tried to base them on my understanding of facts and reality — things that sadly have become less and less a part of our political discourse. They reflect how I — and I think a growing number of Americans — feel in this precarious moment.

Here we go:

On who is to blame for the fact Donald Trump will again take the oath of office, four years after shredding his Constitutional oath by inciting an insurrection against his own government, among his many other crimes:

Our justice system (led by Attorney General Merrick Garland) failed, our political system failed, the news media failed, and, most of all, the American people failed. They failed because they normalized the abnormal, legitimized the obscene, and refused to act swiftly and decisively to uphold the rule of law and principles of basic decency — and democracy itself — in our politics.

On the notion that millions of Americans were justified in voting for Trump because of their economic insecurities and frustrations stemming from inflation and other financial challenges:

He is a billionaire (or so he claims) surrounded by other billionaires who offered no practical solutions to their economic frustrations. But even if he did, that’s no justification to vote for a convicted criminal, a clear fascist, fraudster, racist and rapist who tried to destroy American democracy and caused lives to be lost and ruined through his lies and actions. Your economic grievances don’t supersede the grievances of those Georgia election workers who faced death threats for simply doing their job during the 2020 election. Your grievances don’t supersede the grievances of hard-working Haitian immigrants in Ohio who faced death threats because of the lies he told about them eating pets. They don’t supersede the grievances of people who lost loved ones to COVID who believed his lies during the pandemic. Everything Trump represents runs counter to the fundamental values of this nation, and fundamental decency, and all 76 million Americans who cast a vote for that need to own the fact that they too betrayed our Constitution, along with the political and criminal justice systems that let him get away with things no other American would be allowed to.

On the notion that Trump/MAGA supporters deserve respect and understanding, just as any legitimate political factions in a democracy do:

Legitimate is the key word. Gaining power and the support of millions of adherents does not equate to legitimacy, especially when that support is built on a foundation of lies and cruelty. If you want to be respected, respect our democracy, our Constitution and our rule of law. Don’t reward treason and elect rapists, traitors and fraudsters simply because you think they have some magical power to lower the price of eggs. We have to stop making excuses for people whose actions run counter to fundamental values and endanger vulnerable and marginalized groups. This has never been about political ideology or the idea that any politician or party should be held to impossibly high standards (they shouldn’t, because no ideology or politician is without flaw). It’s about something much more basic. After eight years, the onus should no longer be on those of us who actually respect democracy and our Constitutional principles to explain why this is far larger than a difference of political viewpoints, and justify our refusal to respect a movement that is not worthy of it. We don’t have to tolerate any longer being gaslighted as politically correct snobs or judgmental elites for valuing the truth, standing up for the vulnerable, and speaking out forcefully about things as basic as the sanctity of our elections, individual freedoms and human dignity.

On the media narrative that the Democratic Party is responsible for this loss because it lost touch with the working class and other groups of voters.

The mainstream media want us to believe that Democrats lost this election because they abandoned the working class. The truth is that Democrats lost this election because the media and the American people abandoned democracy and decency. So much easier, though, to blame it all on “Dems in Disarray.” That’s not to say that Democrats haven’t made serious mistakes in terms of their policies and electoral strategies (see next).

On what the Harris campaign could have done better or differently:

While I think Harris ran a good campaign by traditional standards, I felt it was too focused, as usual, on not upsetting conservatives and on skirting controversial positions, when there’s no such restraint by MAGA folks when it comes moderating their positions and language. They get special delight out of “triggering the libs” with offensive (often disgusting) language while we have to walk on eggshells. Kissing up to the gun fanatics with the “I own a Glock” schtick was particularly annoying and didn’t win her any votes. I would have preferred Beto O’Rourke’s “Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15.” Maybe a better strategy for Democratic politicians would be to simply tell voters what they truly believe, and why, and let the chips fall where they may, instead of basing their messaging on focus-group-tested narratives that many voters ultimately see as inauthentic. The Harris campaign also should have done a much better job of explaining to voters the root causes of inflation/high prices and the important efforts the Biden/Harris Administration made to curtail and curb it, rather than trying to distance her from an economic record (which included record job growth) that she was intricately involved in as vice president. I came across this quote from the actor John Lithgow (who knows something about storytelling and is now starring in the gripping movie “Conclave”) that summed it up perfectly: “Well, there was a simple story to tell there that never got articulated: inflation was substantially a result of the huge crisis of Covid and it had been coming down steadily for months. The Biden administration was doing a very good job at handling an inflation crisis, but that story never got told.” When I would phonebank to voters in swing states and explain all of Harris’ plans for lowering prices, one response I would sometimes get is why she hadn’t done all this already. I knew the answer, but it wasn’t in the talking points. Telling voters “I’m not Joe Biden” was tantamount to acknowledging that his economic initiatives had failed, when the reality was actually much more nuanced. Would any of it have mattered in the end? Most likely not. Harris lost all seven swing states. There may not have been anything she or the campaign could have done to change the political winds of this election.

On relationships with family and friends who support Trump and the MAGA movement:

Everyone should do what they feel to be best for themselves and their own mental and emotional well-being, but no one should feel obligated to maintain relationships with people who don’t share their core values, particularly when those values are as basic as respecting norms of democracy and decency in public service and the rights and welfare of the marginalized and vulnerable. In fact, maintaining such relationships may only serve to continue to normalize the abnormal and legitimize the obscene, putting more innocent lives at risk. It’s time for us all to stop placing relationships ahead of our values and mental health, and the safety and health of people we care about. That said, relationships in life end for all sorts of reasons, some of them much more trivial reasons than political values or respect for democracy, and such endings don’t have to be accompanied by ill will and bitterness. Sometimes, it’s just best for all involved for people to go their separate ways and build new relationships with the people whom they feel safe with and connected to through their values and belief systems. There’s been an effort in receive years to stigmatize those who choose to sever relationships over political differences, but when political differences involves issues of life and death, and basic freedoms and principles you hold dear, such severing is understandable. Those who severed relationships over slavery in the 1860s or Jim Crow segregation/racial oppression in the 1960s had nothing to feel ashamed about, and neither should anyone who severs such relationships today with a movement that is clearly built on hate, lies and a disdain for fundamental democratic principles.

On the role of the mainstream media and traditional journalism in protecting democracy and holding the incoming Trump administration accountable:

It’s time to stop looking at the corporate-run, mainstream media and traditional journalism as the answer. They're not. They've failed us one too many times and have become increasingly irrelevant among huge swaths of the public. They played a disastrous role in normalizing Trump and his movement over the past eight years, making it palatable for millions of voters to support something insidious that is a grave threat to the principles upon which this nation was founded. As a news story, the Jan. 6 insurrection should have been treated with the same gravity of the 9/11 attacks or other assaults on American democracy throughout history; but because the attack came from within by white nationalist citizens rather than foreign adversaries who could more easily be dehumanized and vilified, it was trivialized as just another “political” topic of debate. The media have shown themselves increasingly ill-equipped to engage in serious reporting on real issues as they pertain to the current crisis of democracy, or even interested for that matter. We need to focus on elevating journalistic platforms, particularly in the nonprofit space, that truly care about the issues surrounding the fight for democracy and the principles embedded in our Constitution, not just at the national level but at the state and local levels. The mainstream media have largely decided that politics should be covered as a sporting spectacle (i.e. the proverbial horse race coverage), where the competition supersedes the stakes, where who wins the game supersedes how the game is played and what it all means for regular people. We need to counter that with a journalistic ecosystem that once again elevates the stakes in political coverage, particularly as they relate to basic rights and freedoms and the issues at the heart of the American experience, including democracy itself.

On how our broken political system helped to enable the rise and return of Trump and his movement:

Lots of people don’t vote because they believe our political system is fundamentally broken (which in many ways it is), controlled by special interests with deep pockets and outsized influence. That’s not an excuse for allowing a fascist criminal/rapist/fraudster to regain power, but much of the disillusionment is justified, and it helps explains Trump’s return to power. As an example, we had a local supervisors race in my county where around $2 million was spent by competing special interests in mailers relentlessly attacking each candidate, often with outlandish falsehoods or outright lies. This was a nonpartisan race where both candidates identified as Democrats, but it shows just how broken our political system is when it comes to groups on all sides constantly trying to manipulate, mislead and deceive voters, and possessing vast financial resources to do so. Another example: I donated consistently to multiple Democratic campaigns this year, and my generosity was rewarded with a never-ending stream of texts and emails trying to browbeat me to give more, often with misleading or deceptive messages about polls, the campaign, etc. It not only grew annoying, but I was truly offended that political campaigns I supported would sink to such deceptive behavior. I believe these things illustrate why a lot of voters are able to justify not voting (or voting for Trump) by saying “they’re all the same,” when, of course, what Trump/MAGA represents is far, far worse and more dangerous.

On what needs to change with political campaigns to regain public trust:

We need to be more honest with voters about what politicians can and cannot do. Politicians on both sides during campaigns act as if they can wave a magic wand and bend the economy, and individual circumstances, to their will. Even to the extent that they can pass meaningful legislation that impacts people's lives, it often takes many years for that impact to be felt, and it's likely that the credit or blame for one president's actions land at the feet of the next president (look at how Biden got absolutely no credit for the infrastructure bill). Biden wasn't to blame for inflation or the housing crisis, the foundations for which were laid prior to his presidency. But when you run for office saying you're going to do this and that to make people's lives better, without squaring with them about the forces outside your control (like an obstructionist Republican Party or corporations that only care about enriching shareholders), you're also going to get the blame when you're unable to deliver, or things go sideways.

On what regular people should do to try to make a difference in our politics:

A lot of the change that most impacts people's lives can and should start at the local level; we need to find ways for those who are struggling and in survival mode to get involved politically in their communities to try to bring about the change that will make their lives — and by extension our communities — better and stronger. When the only people who show up to City Council meetings or take part in local campaigns are people of privilege, you're going to get public policy that largely benefits the privileged, regardless of whether you live in a blue or red town. I spend a lot of time in my liberal California town castigating local politicians for not focusing on the needs and challenges of our young people, who are often treated as an afterthought (no wonder we have a nationwide youth mental health crisis). NIMBYism run amok, largely in blue states such as my own, has stripped many young adults of any hope of finding affordable housing, let alone achieving the dream of homeownership. Is it any wonder that many of these people feel disconnected from the political system and drawn to demagogues skilled at channeling their frustration and resentment? Many of the same privileged political forces that most loudly express disgust with Trump and the MAGA movement are also responsible for laying the foundation for that movement to thrive with the help of their own self-interested, narrow-minded agendas.

On what the future may hold for the Democratic Party and those of us who believe in rebuilding democracy and decency in politics:

There’s understandably a lot of doom and gloom right now, but I won’t lose hope. Twenty years ago, the mainstream media were painting the same doom-and-gloom picture of the Democratic Party after George W. Bush's re-election amid the chaos of the Iraq War, making strategist Karl Rove sound like some magician who had cemented Republican power for generations to come. Four years later, Barack Obama was president and had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The postmortems were in many ways every bit as bleak in 2004 as they are today, but two years later, the Democratic Party swept to control of Congress for the first time in over a decade. Much like Trump today, Bush and his party in 2004 were filled with overconfidence and arrogance, convinced that Americans had vindicated their prior actions despite clear evidence of wrongdoing and incompetence, claiming a mandate that they didn’t have. His second term was a colossal failure, and he left office discredited and historically unpopular. History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often at least rhymes. But nothing is preordained in life, or in politics. While we are sometimes victims of circumstances beyond our control, we should never lose sight of our own ability, each in our own way, to shape the course of human history. In the immortal words of Doc Brown at the end of “Back to the Future Part III” when Jennifer Parker asks him about a notebook she brought back from the future that is now erased: “Of course it's erased! It means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one…”

And neither is our political future written…or the fate of our democracy. It can still be what we choose to make it.