This was a mood election; It was not a referendum about Kamala Harris. Nor was it a referendum of Donald Trump’s character.
Immediately after an election journalists such as me write analysis and commentary explaining the result and what it says about the mood of the electorate. In many cases, such as Tuesday’s triumph for Donald Trump, the readers know that the reporter was a fairly enthusiastic advocate for one side, in the course of which they made many statements about what people thought and felt, or ought to have thought or felt. The postmortems are to explain why this didn’t turn out to be true, why some factors or issues, which the journalists had considered very important, had not seemed to weigh at all. We are always open to the charge that if we failed to see the mood before the day, how come we can write about it, in some cases so elegantly, immediately after?
This was a mood election; It was not a referendum about Kamala Harris. Nor was it a referendum of Donald Trump’s character. Trump won it because he and his advisers harnessed the mood to their own purposes, and shaped their campaign in clever ways to make sure it pandered to the mood. One could at times see the power of the mood harnessed as a political idea from the way that supporters, from elderly women to college boys seemed transfixed by the opportunity, and from the tears of joy when Trump’s election was clear. The election of Harris would have caused an outpouring of relief (there and abroad). But not any sense of a second coming.
The mood was primarily about disillusion with and disappointment in government. It was a lot less about the government of the moment, than about government at all.
Many Americans, and by no means only Trumpites, or Republicans, or white Americans, feel disconnected from government, and see it as unresponsive to their needs. They feel, not without reason, that governments have become hostages to and corrupted by vested interests. They feel that elite groups – and Trump’s team skilfully conflated that with Democrats in the political class – were dominating the political agenda. Old institutions in government or in broader society no longer seem to exemplify what they see as fundamental culture or values, particularly in relation to sexual mores, and the established order (which is to say, the traditional precedence of the rights and values of the white Americans who had, apparently, been given the US for their own purposes by God. ) The arts, Hollywood, and the mainstream media reflect the values and the snobberies of the coastal elites. As many saw it, they did not show back to the American people their society as they recognised it. It is a part of the grievance that the enemy – call them for the moment Democrats – don’t get it. And, indeed, many leading Democrats, including Harris and Biden don’t seem to get it. Or even to accept the fact of this alienation, whether they agree with it or not.
Creating a mood of dissatisfaction and disappointment with government
Not all Republicans are thought to understand the mood. Republicans have long been abusing each other about people being RINOs – Republicans in name only. These are people, perhaps conservatives but certainly not radical ones – who see the function of achieving power as to preside without doing novel things or blowing the budget. Trumpites, and some of their populist predecessors such as the Tea Party, see themselves as radicals. They want government so that they can transform it. That includes stripping it of some functions, a few of which will go to the states. But it also includes using the coercive power of government to prosecute a social agenda, such as reproductive rights, and to punish their enemies. And reward their friends, including their big donors.
The Trump agenda is not about some bold actions capable of being reversed by a new administration. It is about a permanent transformation of the structure and idea of government. Its laws. Its functions. Its reach into business, the family and the economy. To make any change too difficult for future activists to bother. But one cannot yet see what, actually, Trump will do to achieve this agenda. Many of his followers, and funders support the broad vision, but once arguments get to the nitty gritty there will be wars between interests, libertarians, social conservatives and the pressure of events. Trump’s own commitments, beyond revenge upon his enemies, are fluid.
The Trump campaign attached to the mood an argument that the prime cause of the imbalance in the cosmos was “liberalism.” To Americans this is a synonym for what many Americans call socialism, collective action organised by government to achieve what government thinks to be socially or economically worthwhile ends. This idea of socialism is also held to be intimately tied with bureaucracy, duplication, over-regulation, rules and prohibitions, and the enforcement of “politically correct” or “woke” agendas on “social justice,” discrimination, human rights, and equity programs advantaging self-proclaimed disadvantaged groups.
Indeed, it was said the Democrat Party was increasingly organising itself around establishing new coalitions of such pressure groups, rather than old groups such as unions and the Democratic establishment. Around ambitious activists engaged in social crusades designed among disadvantaged community groups, intending to upturn the social order and undermine traditional systems of social cohesion. The victims were particularly the white working class, but Trump was also making signals to the black and Latino working classes that they should identify with his populist crusade, rather than with racial solidarity in victimhood.
In the modern day, according to the critique being sold, government has become more and more focused on enforcing interference in markets, and by official bossiness and coercion. Government, it is said, is getting involved in too many things that are none of its business.
In another day, classic American Republicans seeking less regulation might have been small and middle-size businesspeople and women. These have ceased to dominate the Trump republican establishment as the rhetoric about interference, political correctness and smaller government has been refashioned to being a working-class crusade against endless petty interferences with a citizen’s right—or “freedom” — to without being constantly told what to do.
Of course, cynics might note that the sort of regulation the campaign was actually focused on – environmental controls, climate change and entrenched poverty – were the bane of the billionaire class of donors that stood behind Trump. Or they were for the benefit of the least well off, like heath care insurance, which also has an uncertain future. That the big donors would benefit was hardly a big secret in the Trump camp. Their greed and self-interest were muted by the idea that they would create industries and jobs for working Americans. Not robber barons and self-aggrandisers like Trump.
The bread on which this mood was buttered was the state of the American economy
Actually, the economy is doing well, particularly by comparison with its state during Trump’s first presidency. But Trump provided images of rising household prices, business on the ropes, jobs being destroyed, particularly by the effective export of jobs to China, or Mexico, and of deep job insecurity. He promised, without much in the way of detail, high tariffs against China and other sources of “unfair” competition. Vague suggestions about tax cuts suggested a day where there would be no income tax at all. He was going to give American industry a big lift, and provide incentives to make America a bigger economy, if necessarily, a more isolated one.
His big selling point, as with so many things he was campaigning about, was the failure of the Biden Administration to defend itself, to promote its policies and successes, and to argue serious policy ideas in the public domain. The election was scarcely about rival policies at all. When they were, Trump went vague on the detail while continuing to pile on “mood” – about how the nation was in a slump, about how something had to be done and how it was obvious that the present administration was incapable of doing what was needed. On big issues, particularly immigration through Mexico, allegedly by millions of rapists, murderers and cat and dog eaters, the Democrats scarcely tried to counter him at all, even as he was threatening mass roundups, and deportations. (in true Australian Labor Party style, it was arguing that ignoring the rights of refugees was an acceptable cost of being in government, where it might be able to “do good things,” and that any deviation from the coalition would be political suicide.)
The Democrats didn’t seem to get the “mood” any more than Yes vote activists, including Labor, missed the skill with which the No campaign was mobilised as a test of whether “ordinary” Australians were comfortable with this effort to elevate Indigenous Australians above all others. Or with how, in preparation for next year’s election, Peter Dutton has been trying to construct images of a do-nothing government shirking threats from within and without. Labor thinks they can pin him down with an alleged need to provide details and costing of policies. Dutton, with only a few signature policies described broadly will instead focus on broad approach, trust and instincts. And as with Trump, attacks on his character—much as they give satisfaction among the true believers – will probably fail to move voters. Albanese and Labor may well find Dutton impossible to grapple with.
The vagueness of policy details can make obsolete the idea of “campaign promises” as if some holy pledge carved in stone. The coalition can give any number of official indications, including from their own record in government, of their broad dispositions in conducting the general business of government. They can give impressions – “strong” defence, “firm” law and order, “caution” with China – without committing themselves to anything much. Yet they remain alert for the capacity to make almost any event a matter of deep concern –- whether it be a High Court judgment on detention of asylum seekers, for example, or alleged Labor cronyism in airline, gambling and media policy, without their own alternative being clear.
Trump has always given the idea of being undisciplined, often not completing sentences. Journalists have complained about the effort of translating a rambling incoherent speech, with frequent asides, to ordinary English. He can read a script, and his speeches have been scripted, even allowing for digressions. The evidence is that all the messages, including ones contained in his cheerio calls and ad hoc anecdotes, have been well thought out, and carefully scripted in, both to the particular audience and to the broad constituencies. Often critics and professionals see mere asides. They do not contain specific promises so much as indications of his broad disposition or attitude of mind. Sometimes they were contained in controversial words that are calculated to bait their critics, as a result further broadcasting them.
It is not that Trump is habitually loose with the truth (though he is). It is that nothing much he says is literally true, but almost all he says has meaning, has messages, and is well understood by the target audience. As often as not, the fact that statements are clothed within a joke, or a sentence that doesn’t have a verb or a full stop, inhibits the capacity of American journalists – a very literally focused lot – to say what he meant.
Trump has unlimited options and few firm commitments. It is too early to predict his active agenda
Likewise, some of what seemed ethical and verbal atrocities in his campaigning, including his bombast about crowd size, his regular array of falsities about his record, his sufferings and the character deficiencies of his enemies, were deliberate distractions. He would know about the outrage they would excite among particular groups. They would focus on this, to little political gain, while missing points on which he was scoring. In particular they would distract the Harris team, who would find them convenient pegs for fresh attacks on his character. It had already become clear that the electorate knew of Trump’s character and had a broadly adverse view of it. But willy-nilly, he had become a symbol of political discontent, of disappointment with the existing government and the economy, and an apostle of the idea that something had to be done to make government responsive to the people again. What that something is was not clear, and Trump gave only vague ideas. But he could be seen as committed to radical action, while his opponent seemed focused at best on incremental change.
His supporters knew and disapproved of his character but were prepared to overlook it and vote for him. It speaks volumes that in the face of broadly accurate general knowledge of sexual assaults, infidelities, felony frauds, bankruptcies, hush money payments and lying, the greater qualification of Kamala Harris conveyed no advantage. What does that say about popular views of politicians, given Harris’s general reputation as a cleanskin, and certainly not out of the Washington swamp?
She was not short of resources or time. Presumably, she had the best brains on the centre left of politics assisting her. She had a bigger advertising budget than Trump. She had all the power of incumbency. But she misread the electorate. For example, all of the efforts intended to acknowledge the power and rights of women seemed to fail. Electors, at state level, rejected abortion laws, but she failed to make it a seriously strong national issue. To the extent that she did, many people assumed to support her, including white women and college level students failed to support her – indeed may have been said to have endorsed the existing (post Roe v Wade) national status quo.
The nightmare for Labor is preparing for an election with generous well-costed policies, including ones carefully designed to build coalitions of extra support. And to lose because of a change in the public mood. A mood of disappointment with government. A feeling that government, including this government, is not delivering things. That the cost of living, even after interest rate cuts, if they occur, has made life a serious struggle, affecting their optimism for the future. That things are worse no matter what the economic commentators and the politicians pretend. That the politicians on either side are hopeless, and possibly corrupt, and that they dance to the tune of various mining companies, businesses, and ideological ideas. That what is needed is a fresh approach to government.
Australians are different from Americans. But it is not hard to see our next election hijacked by emotion, not facts, by a mood and a vibe, not by a considered calculation of our or the nation’s best interests.
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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