How Trump forced his way back into the White House

Why did Trump win? It’s simple, really, writes Sean O’Grady – ‘the economy, stupid’

He’s back – and the guard rails are off. Like it or not – and there are all kinds of psephological caveats – it is now certain that Donald J Trump will be running the United States for the next four years. If I were a Ukrainian, I would be very worried indeed.

Why did Trump win? “The economy, stupid”, to use the cliche. To use the most lurid claims of his opponents, America has re-elected a man branded by Kamala Harris as a “fascist” to the White House. If democracy itself was on the ballot, then a depressingly large number of Americans chose to reject it.

To be fair, you can see why. The economy was indeed also on the ballot – and the voters answered the question Trump put so often: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” with a devastating “no”.

Fairly or otherwise, the Harris campaign had no defence to the inflation of the last few years – and, putting it at its most brutal, gas prices trumped abortion rights. Barack Obama argued that the reason gas prices were so low before was that no one was driving during the pandemic. That was true – and the same goes for energy bills and groceries, but the sense of economic malaise in those “swing states” in the Blue Wall – Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – was too deep seated; and their disillusion with the Democrats too deep for Harris to overcome it.

The Democrats also underestimated the fear factor over the southern border and immigration. Border czar or not, Harris had to shoulder the blame for that too.

The Harris-Biden administration actually has a strong record on jobs and growth and has got inflation down – but Kamala Harris wasn’t able to “sell” it, because the cost of living crisis, including the cost of housing, has been hurting too many Americans.

Trump saw that the economy was the key issue and he pushed it. He had a plan, of sorts, to bring back the jobs and prosperity: protectionism. So did Harris, for investment, but she wasn’t able to win the argument. The Trump campaign told lies about flood relief money going to illegal migrants – and Elon Musk didn’t exactly contain the tsunami of misinformation on social media, much of it apparently maliciously from abroad; but it was the lived experience of American families that stymied the Democrats.

Maybe, if Harris had had longer to introduce herself to the American people – and Joe Biden had withdrawn earlier – the outcome would have been a little different; but then again maybe Trump wouldn’t have made the same progress he has reportedly recently made among younger Black men and Latino voters.

Maybe if there’d been time for a proper Democrat race for the nomination, then a stronger candidate without the baggage of the Biden-Harris administration could have prevailed over Trump. It’s far from certain though, considering the likely margin of victory and the context of the last few years. The yearning to get Trump back in was strong and dissatisfaction with Biden’s record virtually irrecoverable.

Cast your mind back. After the events of 6 January 2021, the felony conviction and all the other pending legal activity, it felt very much like the Trump era was over. Yet he’s now performed the biggest comeback since Lazarus (or at least since Grover Cleveland in 1892). Nor was his campaign particularly edifying – the “jokes” about Puerto Ricans, the “low IQ” jibes at Kamala Harris, the claim that “they’re eating the pets” in Springfield, Ohio.

Americans lived through Trump’s first term. They know him well – he’s been in politics since 2016 and a high-profile celebrity for decades. Harris said early in her campaign that she knew Trump’s “type” – well, so do most Americans... and, as it turns out, they don’t mind it.

A man who is an autocrat by nature, it looks like Trump’s Republican party – or rather his personal MAGA cult – will also control the Senate and the House of Representatives, given the progress that they have been making. We also know that, as a result of a series of self-interested appointments in his first term to the Supreme Court, he has already even been granted “qualified immunity” from prosecution for acts committed by him that could be construed to be in the course of his executive duties. It feels very much like he’ll be able to evade punishment for the various outstanding cases against him.

It won’t just be Trump running America, either. We will see Elon Musk (“we have a new star in Elon”, Trump claimed in his premature campaign victory speech), RFK Jr in charge of health (and, so, women’s bodies) and JD Vance stoking the hate. The way will be open for what they call Project 2025, a truly terrifying agenda for an elective dictatorship.

The reproductive rights of American women have already been attacked and there will be much more of this to follow – voter suppression, erosion of hard-won civil rights, more packing of the courts, more bullying of the media and more visceral contempt for fellow Americans. There won’t be a second civil war, but there will be a continuing grinding degradation of the American constitution; and, if he keeps his word, millions of forced deportations. There will be chaos, fire and fury, as in the 2017-21 term.

When the time comes for the 2028 selection, one wonders how free and fair that will be. It is likely to be one where freedoms taken for granted will no longer be so complete; a nation under an authoritarian nationalist government. Nativism, protectionism and populism are not the hallmarks of a mature, healthy democracy.

The terrible irony now is that Trump’s policies, with import tariffs and seizing control of the Federal Reserve at the centre of them, will boost inflation, cost jobs in the long run, and weaken the dollar. Any country around the world that trades with America and holds dollars as a reserve currency will also be worse off – a trade war with China and global trade recession are the most miserable outcomes of that. Trump will abandon Ukraine to Vladimir Putin in the most shameful episode of wilful appeasement since the 1930s.

In the Middle East, perhaps to the dismay of Arab Americans who,voted for him, Trump will give Benjamin Netanyhu a free hand – and that might even include war by proxy on Iran. The relationship with Nato allies will hit a new low, even if they pay their bills for Western defence. Trump, in the end, won’t fight for some obscure country in Eastern Europe he can’t find on a map. The great Atlantic alliance will be, at best, transactional. In East Asia and the Pacific the tensions with China are bound to become more intense – even as the bizarre bromance with Kim Jong Un is renewed.

In short, Trump will make the world a poorer, more unstable place – and there will be more wars. Not mentioned enough, by the way, is the fatal damage about to be inflicted on world climate change agreements.

It is a grim vista that Americans have chosen. That of course is their business, and it’s insufferably condescending for foreigners to tell them what to do. Fine. But the rest of the world is deeply affected by what happens to the United States – and it is difficult to see it ending well. Four more years of Trump and we may not have much peace and security left.