Idiocracy and the Electrolytes of the Masses
Four reactions to the 2024 election.
This article contains four short editorials. When you reach the end of one, scroll down for the next.
What Will a Re-Elected Trump Mean for Europe?
By Johan Pregmo
My reaction to Trump’s staggering victory — shared by many in small-l liberal circles — was one first of shock and then of horrified resignation. Back when I first wrote about Kamala Harris’s revitalization of the Democratic campaign, there was an upsurge of optimism. Even as the election day neared, there was a large degree of hope. Everyone expected the election to be close, but there was a sense that Kamala might just win this. We knew Trump could win, but did not see such an electoral blowout coming. The notion that Trump might actually win the popular vote — a feat not achieved by a Republican in 20 years — was not on my bingo card.
The reasons why Trump won, and won so decisively, will no doubt be combed over meticulously in the years to come. How that question is answered will have implications for the future of the Democratic Party. For me, however, the most pressing question is what a second Trump term could mean for Europe.
As a Swede, Trump’s election has severe implications for my country. Trump has famously told Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” with Ukraine and has been hostile to NATO and America’s European allies in the past. At minimum, I expect him to support Russia keeping all its gains in Ukraine. At worst, I fear he might pull the US out of NATO entirely. Russia has threatened Sweden since before I was born, and Putin has shown how ready he is to throw hundreds of thousands of lives away to keep his imperialist dreams alive. Given the rise of isolationist attitudes in America and the decline of its global leadership, the message to Europe is clear: we can no longer rely on our long-term ally to keep us safe. Perhaps it will be the push we need to dramatically increase our own defense apparatuses. Even so, a more militarily muscular Europe is still far weaker and more vulnerable than a complacent Europe backed by the full might of the US.
The implications aren’t only geo-strategic. Trump’s insane tariff plans would devastate the US economy with inflation. And as the biggest player in today’s globalized economy, this would affect the whole world — both US consumers and foreign exporters alike.
Trump’s election and now re-election is the ugliest thing to have happened to any Western country in my generation. This con man with no respect for the law or democracy, who has found a way to flout every rule everyone else has to play by — is now set to steer the direction of the greatest superpower in human history. Again. Only this time, surrounded by crackpots and sycophants instead of handlers, his second term promises to be an even more nauseating offense to liberal democracy than the last.
There is a spiteful part of me that hopes Trump will get his way, that America gets exactly what they voted for: mass deportations, rampant price inflation, chaos, embarrassment, incompetence, and mismanagement. In other words, the leopards eating people’s faces party treatment. If that sounds a little too bitter, it is. Cooler heads must prevail. All we can do is grit our teeth and soldier on.
Even Now, Things Could Always Get Worse
By Timothy Wood
For those of us who prefer our leaders to be more than a hollow, amoral shell of a human, it’s been a rough ride recently. But let me assure you, things can always get worse. Whatever you’re thinking of right now, however insane it might have seemed 20 years ago, there’s more. The balm that even the most pessimistic and dejected seem to be applying is that if we get through the next four years and run out the clock, the Trump era will finally be over. Not necessarily. Mind-blowing as it is to type these words, Trump could run for and win a third term.
As you may know, for a long time, the limit of two-terms per president was merely a norm and not a codified law. George Washington — revered as a latter-day Cincinnatus and near-demigod — stepped down after two terms. He likely could have been fashioned into a king, but by all accounts didn’t even want to be a president. He had to be begged by those close to him just to serve a second term. When the national hero and first leader of a new democracy voluntarily steps down and rejects any power or privilege that has the slightest monarchical whiff, it sets a powerful precedent.
Everything changed when Franklin Roosevelt successfully overcame all this “norm-stuff”, because whipping both the Depression and the Nazis makes for an impressive résumé. Shortly thereafter, the US went on to ratify the 22nd Amendment in 1951, making it official that presidents only get two terms, or two-and-a-smidge if you’re vice president when the president leaves office mid-term. However, what can be done can also be undone.
Article Five of the US Constitution provides two methods for enacting amendments. The first requires two-thirds of both chambers of Congress. That’s not going to happen at the moment. Congress can barely agree on the time of day. The second method is an Article Five convention. This requires 34 states to call for a meeting to propose amendments, which must then be approved by 38 states to become part of the Constitution. This has never actually been done, but has been seriously threatened several times going back more than a hundred years. An Article Five convention doesn’t come with a lot of rules, since it’s never happened. “Things that haven’t happened” don’t tend to be heavily litigated. In theory, someone in an Article Five convention could propose basically anything. The Constitution could be rewritten entirely. You could certainly repeal a single prior amendment. We’ve repealed one before.
All you need is 34 states for a convention, not far off from the 31 states Trump won. Those don’t all have GOP control of state government, but this election was a bit of a sea change. It may seem far fetched at first, but Trump has a history of pursuing wild legal avenues to retain power. An Article Five convention is arguably more sane than many things he or his allies have attempted already. Some of these, such as granting presidential immunity, have been successful.
In 2028, baseless election conspiracies just won't cut it — get creative or GTFO. Removing term limits for the executive is the coup de grâce of authoritarians. There is a non-zero chance Trump might try it. It would be brazen, undemocratic, norm-trashing, cult-like behavior, but that’s never stopped him before.
It’s not necessarily helpful to be alarmist, but uncharted waters have a way of making a thousand predictions seem stupid while making a few people seem like Casandras. I hope I’m the stupid one in this case, because the alternative is much, much worse.
No One Wants To Say It, but the American Electorate Is Decadent and Depraved
By Jacob Bielecki
If you gave Americans the choice between high gasoline prices but no mass shootings or free gas but with daily massacres, we’d be getting free gas. The American electorate professes a great many values. When push comes to shove, however, there’s only one thing they care about: More cheap stuff.
Trump attempted a coup, stole classified documents, was found guilty of sexual abuse, was convicted of 34 felonies, trafficked in abject racism and xenophobia, and lied as easily as he breathed. None of it mattered. The American electorate only remembers when things were cheaper.
This is a lesson the Democratic Party and the American left sorely need to learn. Joe Biden was a historically progressive president. He added much-needed consumer protections, championed unions above and beyond, capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, ended the 20-year war Americans claimed they no longer wanted, canceled $175 billion of student loan debt, brought manufacturing jobs back to the US, invested in infrastructure, and brought unemployment down to historic lows. These were the nuts-and-bolts kitchen-table issues that were supposed to win over the electorate. But Biden achieved them while committing the unforgivable sin of being an 81-year-old man. So he had to go. And rather than voting for his vice president and inheritor of his accomplishments, the American electorate chose the 78-year-old man who spends his rallies standing in a trance listening to music instead of addressing his audience.
Every policy position Democrats stand for has been thoroughly rejected by voters. When Biden canceled a portion of student loan debt, for example, he was met with scorn from all sides. Scorn from the left because he wasn’t canceling enough debt, scorn from the right and independents who saw it as a handout, and scorn from those who don’t have college degrees. Voters saw Vice President Kamala Harris as too progressive and Donald Trump as comparatively moderate. That’s where we are. Americans do not view themselves as part of some moral collective, they see themselves as consumers.
Only two things matter to the median American voter: Inflation and Immigration. When the price of gas and other goods and services went up after the pandemic, it outraged Americans more than anything Trump could ever do. Explain the fact that inflation was a global phenomenon, and therefore uncaused by any lone actor, and their eyes glaze over. Point out that wages have outpaced inflation, and it makes no difference. Show them evidence that Donald Trump’s tariff policies, not to mention deporting many of our agricultural and construction workers, will result in skyrocketing inflation, and they won’t believe you. Mention the actual data indicating a strong economy and you are called out of touch and elitist. The truth doesn’t matter. Only vibes. The American voter believes that if gas is under $3.00 a gallon, the economy is good, and if prices for gas and goods increase, the economy is on the verge of collapse.
When Donald Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote in 2016, it could be said that his election did not reflect the will of people. This time, however, Trump won the electoral college and the popular vote — irrefutable proof that Americans agree with his vision. Donald Trump himself said that Americans won’t have to vote again if he wins. I don’t think the median voter would mind all that much. In fact, polls have shown that voters either don’t know much about the Republican Party’s policy positions, or don’t believe that they’ll actually carry them out. Trump’s re-election shows that voters still don’t take his policy proposals seriously, even after the Republican-appointed Supreme Court stripped abortion rights. In other cases, voters simply agree with Trump. 54 percent of America, the country of immigrants, wants mass deportations, for example.
Things like democracy, civic responsibility, helping our allies, and civil rights don’t matter to the American electorate, at least not compared to their prime directive: they just want things to be cheap. They don’t care if they have to crawl over a mountain of dead bodies to buy a Big Mac. That Big Mac better be there — and at no more than five bucks. Trump won voters making less than $100,000 a year. They wanted to Make America Cheap Again. And the customer is always right, or so they claim. This obsession with keeping everything cheap means that everything becomes cheap, including human life. On May 24, 2022, 19 children and two teachers were gunned down at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. One party wants to do something about this violence, the other sees it as an acceptable cost for “liberty.” Donald Trump won 66 percent of the predominantly Hispanic Uvalde County vote. Uvalde voted 13 percent more Republican than it had in 2020.
What if American voters are just, well, bad? What if George Carlin was right when he joked that the problem with politics isn’t politicians, but the public? “If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.” When this many voters are not only ill-informed, but willing to be misinformed, democracy paves the way for its own erosion. I hope those who voted for Donald Trump get their cheap prices again. Just remember though, if people you love, care about, or rely on are deported, this is what you voted for. If you voted for Trump and get your health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and have it taken away, this is what you wanted. The Americans who voted for Trump will get exactly what they voted for. The tragedy is that the rest of us are going to pay dearly too.
Idiocracy and the Electrolytes of the Masses
By Jamie Paul
Throughout the course of the 2024 election cycle, Donald Trump supporters, alongside the intrepid freethinkers of the “heterodox” commentariat, assured those of us for whom liberal principles are non-negotiable that a second Trump term wouldn’t be so bad. After all, we made it through the first one without societal collapse, right? Putting aside the burning cities of 2020, the global pandemic whose response was bungled in those critical first months, and the January 6th US Capitol Riots, then sure. We have not regressed into roving clans of gun-toting leather daddies tearing through the auburn dunes of a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of Texas tea.
But what every apologist neglects to mention is that during President Trump’s first term, he was surrounded by old-school Republicans and normie institutionalists — squares with crew cuts and tie clips who iron their underwear. At every turn, they checked his overreaches, resisted his asinine orders, and reined in his mad impulses. Donald Trump governed, if indeed it could be called that, with one hand tied behind his back and his shoelaces knotted together. We can already see that’s not how things are going to play out this time. Trump 2.0 looks indistinguishable from Mike Judge’s prescient 2006 film, Idiocracy.
Long gone are the minders, the handlers, and the adults in the room. Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be heading the Department of Health and Human Services. Matt Gaetz, who was investigated for sex trafficking of a minor by the Justice Department, will now be leading it as Attorney General. Tulsi Gabbard will be the next Director of National Intelligence, which is a little like tapping a hunter-gatherer to run the Department of Agriculture. There is no person at the helm of the Department of Education, which Trump wants to disband entirely. Heading a new Department of Government Efficiency (intentionally acronymized to the internet cryptocurrency meme DOGE) will be the clown world tandem of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. And Trump’s new vice president isn’t a small-government Reagan conservative like Mike Pence — J.D. Vance is a radical post-liberal integralist.
When Trump says “jump”, he won’t have a bunch of bean counters breaking out measuring tape to ensure that the ceiling is OSHA regulation height for indoor jumping, he’ll have loyalists who’ll ask “how high?” Trump 2.0 will be Trump unchained, unbridled, and unchecked. With full control over his administration and party, and with GOP control of both houses and Congress, the majority of the states, and a stacked right-wing Supreme Court, the US is as close to a one-party and one-man state as it’s ever been. It saddens me that this is where we are, but after 15 years of off-and-on flirtations with right-wing populism, perhaps this is what we need. Warnings about the dangers of populism have clearly been unpersuasive. Perhaps seeing it in action, without guardrails, will make the dangers real enough to wake people up. Some folks can be told not to touch a hot stove. Others have to get burned before they understand. Afterward, they can salve their singed hands with Brawndo — it’s got electrolytes, what skin craves!
See also: “The QAnon-ification of the World”
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I'm still saying Dems should take a lesson from Reagan/Trump and run something like Tom Hanks. Foreign policy? He's fought in WWII ten times. Science? He was on Apollo 13. Environment? He was stranded on a desert island. If we want the first black woman president, run Oprah. She's a celebrity, a self-made billionaire, and a mononym.
What have you got to lose other than an election (because that's going so well already)?
The average American isn't a nerd, and doesn't read legislation or Supreme Court decisions for fun. Many people vote on what feels comfortable and familiar. At the very least, I don't expect that Hanks or Oprah would assume they're the smartest person in the room...all the time...in every room.
Interesting perspectives, and validating in regards to the attitude found in the decadent and depraved piece. Validating in the sense that it demonstrates what I’ve been seeing in the immediate aftermath of this election from MAGA friends and progressive friends, in terms of their perceptions. Because indeed there seems to be a trend among at least some Democratic voters to have a fundamental distrust (and now outright disdain) for half the electorate as human beings. Conversely, the celebrating MAGA types—who seem to have no problem with the outlandish and cringe developments leading into 2025, much less the objectively stupid/insane tariff ideas that Pregmo mentioned—have demonstrated and acted upon their knee-jerk distrust of our institutions and any who they see as carrying water for them. Some people see the former condemnation as somehow being worse than the latter (and thus see me as a “MAGA/fascism apologist”, whatever), but the truth is I see them as equally bad in the broader context of democracy being in peril. Because it is. Not because of a specific person—Trump or Harris—but because the fundamental pillars of democracy (that is, the institutions of it and the people who participate in it) are hated by a not-insignificant portion of the electorate. Obviously plenty of Republican voters just hate mass immigration, inflation, etc, and plenty of Democrats just see Trump as a divisive dealbreaker and bad leader, and both don’t care about the abstract notions of democracy and freedom and so on. But the people who do think about these things seem to only operate on distrust and disdain. It’s done from healthy skepticism to outright cynicism. Trump may be bad, but if the populist backlash doesn’t diminish on its own or its concerns aren’t mollified, these dual disdains will produce something far worse down the line. If history has done me any good, it has been to remind me that, as Mr. Wood put it so well here, things could get a LOT worse.