And it’s a big enough victory that we shouldn’t expect Lawfare to overturn it.
I thought Harris would pull it out based on abortion, but I was wrong. (I’m terrible at election prediction, as I warned.) What happened is that people voted for abortion at higher rates than for Harris. The numbers below aren’t final, but they’re indicative:
It seems that running on:
- I wouldn’t do anything different than Biden did;
- I’ll keep the genocide going;
- Cheney and other neocons are wonderful;
- I’ll appoint Republicans to my cabinet.
wasn’t a winning strategy.
I suspect that we’ll find out it mostly came down to the economy, because no, people aren’t wrong that prices are too high.
I find it hard to be entirely certain what Trump will do as President because he’s, ummm, inconsistent and senile, but I’m sure it won’t be pretty. We’ll see how serious he was about huge tariffs, using the national guard against immigrants and ending the Ukraine war.
We’ll also see whether he leads the US to war against Iran. The Resistance would be well advised to use the next two months wisely.
The biggest obvious loss will be Lisa Khan no longer leading the FTC. Anti-trust will take a big step backwards. Elon Musk has proved over the last few years that he’s an incompetent ideologue, whether he was sane and competent in the past or not, so that’s bad too. And RFK shouldn’t be in charge of anything.
Don’t expect Trump’s policies to improve the economy. Tariffs can work, but they require industrial policy and other steps he won’t take, as we’ve discussed often on this blog.
(This blog is for understanding the present, making educated guesses at the future, and telling truths, usually unpleasant ones. There aren’t a lot of places like this left on the Web. Every year I fundraise to keep it going. If you’d like to help, and can afford to, please Subscribe or Donate.)