Flashbacks on Election Night...

 

Well – the 2024 election is over and I thought I would bring it to a close with this final post on the issue.  As previously stated, I am a small “I” independent and have never registered as a Democrat or a Republican.  Except for Barack Obama and Joe Biden - I have voted for Ralph Nader in nearly every other Presidential election that I have voted in.  As you can see from recent posts, I absolutely did not want Trump or his minions anywhere near the White House again.  It is astounding that it has happened.  To make sense of it – sometime last night the media started to spin it as Trump being some kind of genius or popular hero.  That lacks any real explanatory power. The media has done an incredible job during this election making Trump seem to be a normal Presidential candidate when he is far from it. It was quite a spectacle this morning watching the morning TV gang falling all over themselves making this seem like a miracle – when they essentially staged it.

You do not have to be a psychiatrist to see the obvious problems here but apparently it helps. I have listened to Trump voters interviewed and during those interviews they can provide no rationale for their vote.   I have listened to young voters interviewed and it was not clear that they knew anything about how voting works in the United States.  Young voters are criticized for being ideologically self-centered as if older voters are not.  The only voters that made sense were self-identified Republicans who could not vote for Trump based on his attempt to overthrow the elected government of the United States.  You would think that would be a hard stop for any law-abiding citizen.  Back in the day when I took civics, I think it was referred to as treason.  Beyond that small problem, nobody seems to recall all of the other the legal problems that would keep the average person from getting an interview just a few years ago.  Somebody posted that Americans need to stop pretending that they are superior to everyone else when they put a guy like Trump in the White House.  Trump could not get a job at Piggly Wiggly and he is now President of the United States.  That personifies everything that is currently wrong with the United States.

There has been no discussion of the rhetoric used in this campaign particularly Trump's.  To cite one example, in a previous post about the initial debate with Biden - Trump suggested Biden had “destroyed” the country (he used the word destroy 22 times) and he is the “worst” President – (he used the word worst 22 times). All that despite the fact that Trump produced no useful content on policy and did not respond to Biden's comment that in a scholarly ranking of presidential achievement - Trump was dead last (Biden was 14 out of 45 and that has probably improved).  This has been Trump's strategy in every speech.  No content and irrational personal attacks.  He attacked Harris' ethnicity and called her a "bitch" several times (2-4) as well as many other derogatory names and insults.  And there was no criticism of this by anyone apart from Biden in the debate, who was characterized instead as old and feeble by the press.

Of course, Trump opponents are also issuing conciliatory statements acknowledging the win and wishing him the best.  They are doing everything he would not do and ignoring all his vicious name calling along the way. I have not heard the usual platitudes about how he is the President for all Americans yet – but it will be coming.  Let’s face it – he is not the President for all Americans.  He is the President for the powerful and the gullible.  OK - I will acknowledge that maybe there are still a few loyal Republicans caught in the headlights who don't realize the party of Reagan has been transformed into a cult. 

He was described as a transactional President by the BBC today (3).  In other words what does he get out of what he gives in negotiations?  It came up in a conversation with a Ukrainian Prime Minister Kira Rudik reminding everyone that Trump said he would solve the war in Ukraine in one day.  And later that he would solve the war in Ukraine before he was in office.  Those are the first of many failures that I will be looking for and pointing out.  Trump is completely disingenuous and I expect to see a long list of failures.

One major point that seems to be missed about this election outcome is that it is a textbook example of how rhetoric alone can carry the day – even when there is a complete lack of substance.  This is a critical point that I have not seen analyzed by anyone. If anything – the press is still reacting to Trump’s rhetoric as though it is true. The economy is a clear example.  Trump has described it as a disastrous failed economy due to Biden and Harris. The press still accepts that despite the recent edition of the Economist pointing out it is an outstanding economy as far as economies go.  There is the other reality piece that Presidents don’t have that much of an effect on the economy anyway – but the economy persists as a top explanation why Trump won.  It really wasn’t the economy – it was false rhetorical ideas about the economy. 

The second most common narrative to explain the results is that Trump sold himself to the commoners as someone who would attack the “elites” and either burn the system down or take them all down a notch. I heard Mark Cuban on Sam Harris’s podcast describing the elites as basically anyone Trump wanted to criticize – generals, doctors, etc. So the elites are basically the rhetorical targets of Trump. They don’t really meet any unique definition of elites.  And the definition of elites is quite wide ranging from people with special abilities to the wealthy class. Is a general concerned about Trump’s treatment of military veterans and war casualties an elitist?  What about the billionaires all circling around Trump and Trump himself?  What about the richest man in the world giving over $100M and intensive media coverage on his social media site to the Trump campaign and other MAGA candidates?  What about people who are clearly above the law compared with the rest of us? Any application of the elitist explanation must leave out the fact that Trump is one of the biggest elites of them all.   

The failure to see Trump as the character and intellectual failure that he is seems matched by rationalizations that equate him to your eccentric old uncle who shows up once a year at the family gatherings.  During the past months where his style was equated to autocracy (which it is) and Naziism (which it is not) – several excuse makers came out and said that Trump could not possibly be a Nazi because he is only interested in himself and not promoting any long-lasting ideology. So, if he moves on the dark cloud will go with him.  In another case, the Wall Street Journal stated: 

“We don't buy the fascism fears, and we doubt Democrats really do either. Our own concern is whether he can successfully address the country's urgent problems. Most second presidential terms are disappointing, or worse, and Mr. Trump hasn't mapped out a clear agenda beyond controlling the border and unleashing U.S. energy production.”

And

“The authoritarian rule that Democrats and the press predicted never appeared. Mr. Trump was too undisciplined, and his attention span too short, to stay on one message much less stage a coup. America's checks and balances held, and Democrats benefited from the political backlash.”

Yes – they really are suggesting that we can rest reassured that their candidate's cognitive limitations and complete lack of an agenda should be reassuring that he can sit in the White House and not try to fashion an autocracy with staying power when he has a raft of Mini-Mes at his disposal.  He has after all demolished the Party of Lincoln to the point where it is no longer recognizable as a legitimate political party and rendered it into a cult.

The other problem with all of this is that there is an expectation somewhere that all Americans will accept this atrocious set of affairs, reconcile with the people who voted for this man, and we will all be one big happy family.  That is very unlikely to happen.  What is likely to happens is that Trump and his cronies are likely to “double down” on all their intrusions into private life, functional government, and public safety.  Even today we are hearing about how Kennedy wants to eliminate FDA departments and Musk wants to impose a new austerity standard on all Americans. The Rolling Stone quoted several proponents of Project 2025 saying that they no longer must pretend that there is distance from Trump and they can now own the connection.  All of that translates to direct harm to the people who voted for Trump thinking that he is somehow interested in them.

There needs to be resistance to this at every level.  When the harm occurs it needs to be documented whether that is maternal mortality because some politician thinks they know how to manage pregnancy or increased infant mortality due to vaccination limitations or worsening asthma as a direct result of lax air quality standards.  I think that violence, gun violence, and violent crime will increase just because it is part of the MAGA culture.  Their standard response that they are the law-and-order party no longer applies – because they are not.  There is a long list that I will record over time.  Expect a PowerPoint.

As all of this was churning in my brain last night – I realized that Trump getting elected was just like me working on my acute care unit just before I quit.  I was lying in bed wide awake and feeling like an electric current was running through my body. It was impossible to relax.  My heart rate was elevated. It reminded me of why I can never go back to that kind of work again. Although I did it for 22 years, at the end it was intolerable.  I did not mind when the stress was due to trying to help people resolve severe psychiatric problems.  It was very problematic when the environment became politicized and I was one of the targets.  It also reminded me of the current danger, a dangerous man, and a dangerous party and why it is more important to be loyal and true to the idea of a country than a candidate.  Stay vigilant and don’t let this extremely bad turn of events get you down.

In the most basic final analysis – a vote for Trump was a vote for lawlessness, resentment, dishonesty, greed, corruption, and disrespect. It was a vote for big business managers and CEOs, misinformation, income inequality, climate change, pollution, government intrusion in your personal health care, and autocrats worldwide. 

How can that possibly end well?  

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

References:

1:  Bensinger K, Yourish K, Gold, M.  Failing to Provoke Harris, Trump Turns to Tried and True: Vulgarity.  New York Times.  August 31, 2024.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/politics/trump-crass-imagery.html

2:  Haberman M, Swan J.  Inside the Worst Three Weeks of Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign.  New York Times.  August 10, 2024.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/us/politics/trump-campaign-election.html

3:  BBC News Hour November 6, 2024:  Interview of Ukrainian PM Kira Rudik (starts at 19 min 27 second mark): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172zb96nbcppzq

4:  Lu C.  Trump Wields Sexist Insults at Final Campaign Rally. The Republican nominee has a long history of misogynistic rhetoric.  Foreign Policy November 5, 2024.  https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/05/trump-sexist-insults-remarks-pelosi-harris-gender/

And all of the post-election spin claims Trump is not a misogynist.

Graphics Credit:  Thanks to Tyler Black @tylerblack32 for allowing me the use of one of his election graphics from X(formerly Twitter).   See the entire sequence for his statistical commentary on the election dynamics.