Australia and the World Past and Present

The wild ride continues with Donald Trump beating Kamala Harris in the 2024 United States presidential race.

Trump had Elon Musk cheering him on. The cynics will say Elon is just throwing his lot in with the candidate who offered the best chance for a low-regulatory environment for his business interests. Others might say he likes what he sees in Trump more than what he saw in Harris and he is free to have and express his opinions.

Choosing JD Vance as his Vice President was classic Trump. Trump didn’t want someone who would round out the ballot. He wanted someone who was more like him. White and male. Yet Vance is not a carbon copy of Trump. He was a ‘Never Trumper’. But he changed his tune as he realised that Trump was the only game in town inside the Republican Party. Trump wants someone who can carry on with his agenda when he finishes his second term as President. This will be Trump’s final term as the American system prohibits a President from serving more than two.

There are a few crucial differences between Trump and Vance. Vance grew up in poverty while Trump did not. Trump is ultra-combative. Vance is a smoothie. Some worry that he might be a little too smooth and polished. In his debate with Tim Waltz, Vance was not super aggressive and did not present as someone who was off-the-wall crazy. We know that Trump does not like people who challenge him. Vance seems to have the capacity to begin building upon his position as VP, gain more publicity for himself and build support among more Republicans, the media and the general public. But he is going to have to be careful. If his boss gets the idea that he is not showing enough loyalty or is becoming too independent, Trump might move against him. So Vance will be walking on eggshells.

Harris’ running mate – Tim Waltz – was meant to draw more voters to the Democrats. Harris made a classic ballot choice. On paper it seemed like the right thing to do. Her running mate was many things that she was not. She chose a man. White. Not from California. The demographic segments all seemed to be there. But it just didn’t work.

It has become cliche to say that the US is divided. But it is true. Trump won all of the battle ground states.

He won the popular vote.

Republicans will have control of the Senate and it looks like they might hold Congress too.

It seems that the Trump will administration will move to increase tariffs on imports into the United States.

It appears that much of Trump’s support come from those who have lost out from the Globilisation of the last few decades.

Trump supporters are more likely to be working class.

He has a lot of support in middle America. Main Street America, the Rust Belt States, the Midwest. Whatever you call it, in these parts of the US factories have closed down, job security has dwindled, hope for the future has taken a dive and the cost of basic items has gone up.

Perhaps the two most prominent themes of the election were the the economy and the border.

For Trump, Biden and Harris ‘opened the border’. There has certainly been much illegal immigration into the US in the last few years.

The scale of illegal immigration into the US is large. Especially when viewed from here in Australia. Australia is an island-continent and so it is not that easy to just hop over the border.

The US has a huge land border with Canada and a land border with Mexico. Despite efforts to control this border, it is one that many people are able to cross.

Many Democrats try to dismiss calls to control illegal immigration as either racist or uncompassionate.

However, one of the fundamental responsibilities of a government is to be able to control its own borders. Certainly in the last few years the Biden administration has seemed completely ineffectual at administering this critical function of the state. It has fed a narrative that the Biden administration was simply not up to the job and couldn’t control events.

Trumps likes to say that he is a businessman. Many of his ventures have not gone incredibly well. You could point to his casinos in Atlantic City or the Plaza Hotel.

In fact, what Trump excels at is marketing and brand management. In particular – his own brand.

Trump is the businessman who doesn’t believe in free trade. He believes in tariffs and protectionism.

The world and the US have been on a free trade ride for the better part of a century. But the pendulum has swung back the other way in the US. Enough Americans believe that they have not gained enough from this economic experiment and they are tired of it. Trump’s ascendancy may be interpreted as a big middle finger to the ‘Establishment’ in Washington D.C. that have overseen this free trade agenda.

American voters seem to want a strongman. Americans have now had two opportunities to elect a woman president. They could have elected Hillary Clinton when she ran. Hillary had been a lawyer, a wife (albeit to a Governor and later US President). In later years she was a Senator and Secretary of State. In times gone by, one would expect that these achievements would work in her favour. But they didn’t. She became associated with the ‘Establishment’. Each position she got became an albatross around her neck. Trump has high success rate when it comes to beating female opponents. He beat both Hillary and Kamala.

Trump has been more influential in American politics than most people ever thought possible.

He has changed the nature of the Republican Party. It used to be the party of the Bushes. It is now a populist party.

Trumps has a self-belief very few individuals possess.

His ambitions knows no bounds. He loves to fight. The assassination attempt on Trump during his presidential campaign became iconic. Shot in the ear, surrounded by secret service agents, with blood streaming down his face he raised his fist and told people to fight, fight, fight. Trump was also fighting various legal cases. The now convicted felon came to be seen as the fighter, the scrapper, the battler.

Harris’ campaign wasn’t perfect. For part of her campaign she wasn’t engaging with the media.

America is divided. The two coasts are Democrat-blue. California, Oregon and Washington are Democrat is as Colorado. Perhaps the most interesting result of the 2024 election was New Mexico. A border state, it is effected by the immigration issue. However unlike many of the other border states, New Mexico was won by the Democrats (51.8%) to 45.9% (Republicans). A blue swathe runs from Virginia to Maine on the east coast.

Trump has picked up all of the battle ground states. His best result here was in Florida where he has his Mar-a-Lago resort. His vote in Florida was 56.1%. His next best result in the battleground states was in Arizona – 52.3%.

Trump took 312 of the electoral college votes while Harris got 226.

Trump also took out the popular vote (50.5%) which is more than 74 million people.

That bastion of Democrat support, Massachusetts gave Harris 61.3%.

New York was 55.9% Harris, 44.1% Trump.

California was 58.2% Harris and 38.1% Trump.

The Democrats will be in some kind of mourning right now.

The key takeaways are these: Trump is a fighter. He has managed to resonate with a huge part of America. There are those who feel deeply that America is not on the right track – that the economy is flatlining and opportunities are not there. Trump has changed the Republican Party more than Reagan, George Bush Sr or George Bush Jr ever did. So many Americans have voted for him for so long that it can’t be dismissed