FORUM: Election 2024, Part IV

A time to look back, a time to look forward

Donald Trump has won his second presidential term. What does this mean—for us as individuals, for our country, and for the world? Today concludes our series of reflections on the revelations of this election season and the new moment it has ushered in. (We invite you to read the first, second, and third installments as well)

***

We just watched the last television election

Susan McWilliams Barndt

In 1960, a political era began when Richard Nixon debated John F. Kennedy, Jr. After the debate, radio listeners thought Nixon, whose arguments were easier on the ears, won the debate. Television viewers thought Kennedy, whose looks were easier on the eyes, won the debate. Television won the day, and Kennedy won the election. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, it truly is history. Because the television era of American politics is over. And, to repurpose a slogan, we are not going back.

This year, one candidate embraced television. Kamala Harris ran a made-for-TV campaign. It featured television’s biggest stars—Harris sat down with Oprah and rallied with “The West Wing” cast—and pitch-perfect Hollywood production. On ABC’s debate stage, the telegenic Harris outshined her opponent.

When Donald Trump refused to debate Harris again, the move was interpreted—mostly by television pundits—as weakness. But Trump, once a TV star, was gathering strength elsewhere. He refused to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” eschewing a precedent dating to the 1960s, but spent hours with Joe Rogan. He courted streamers, influencers, and podcasters.

Post-election interviews suggest that for voters who get their news online, Trump’s domination of digital media was decisive. That’s most voters, period. A few months ago, a majority of survey participants told the Pew Research Center that they prefer to get news online. Fewer than a third said they prefer to get news on TV. Digital media won the day, and Trump won the election.

The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan once said. In this election, the inverse is also true. The message—the takeaway message—is the medium.

The revolution was not televised, but it might yet be streamed.

Susan McWilliams Barndt is Professor of Politics at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She has authored and edited numerous books including A Political Companion to James Baldwin (2017) and The American Road Trip and American Political Thought (2018).

***

It’s time to get serious about pluralism

Jesse Smith

A prominent narrative to emerge since the election is that Democrats alienated voters with their radical stances on cultural issues. The nation’s intellectual elites have played a central role in this development by condemning anyone who does not share their unpopular positions as a moral reprobate—fascist, authoritarian, Christian nationalist, and so on. 

As articulated by psychologists, the problem takes two forms. The first is outgroup homogeneity bias—that is, a tendency to view rival social groups as undifferentiated masses. The second is concept creep—that is, the propensity to use harm-based concepts (e.g., trauma, bullying) in increasingly expansive ways. When combined, these result in a view that those on the right half of the political spectrum are basically all the same in sharing motives that are fundamentally toxic and bigoted. This attitude works to keep the flames of righteous indignation burning in perpetuity. It is not a good way to expand a voter base.

This view is fundamentally incompatible with pluralism, which has sadly become a buzzword among those seemingly unable to recognize the possibility of good-faith disagreement with their own deeply held commitments. If we want healthier politics on both the left and right, this will have to change. People who believe that gender is rooted in biology, that some religion in public life is good, that abortion is bad, or that racial disparity is not the defining feature of American society, will have to be allowed in polite company. 

This isn’t to say we must agree. It means we must have space to disagree, to make compromises when necessary, and to maintain a spirit of charity, goodwill, and humility always. The next four years will not make this easy, but it will be necessary if we are to have hope for the four years after that.

Jesse Smith is a professor of sociology at Benedictine College. His research is focused on the intersection of family, religion, and politics in the modern United States.

***

When the anti-establishment becomes the new establishment

Daniel K. Williams

This election was the strongest victory for the anti-establishment that America has seen since at least the days of Andrew Jackson. Other recent presidential contenders have portrayed themselves as opponents of the establishment, promising “change we can believe in” or claiming they will clean house in Washington. But none have been such visceral opponents of the established order as Donald Trump.

This time, he has an entire party behind him. The sweeping Republican victories in this election were therefore a victory for Trump’s brand of anti-establishment politics. It’s a political style that thumbs its nose at the conventions of established governmental and international institutions and threatens to replace the traditional rule of law with a new efficiency that is willing to cut corners and that gives leadership positions to personal loyalists rather than seasoned experts.

In a sign that the Democratic Party is now the party of the establishment, it attracted a substantial amount of support from establishment conservatives. More than one-hundred former Republican officials—including former Vice President Dick Cheney and more than a dozen civil servants from the Reagan administration and many more from the two Bush administrations—endorsed Kamala Harris before the election. But a majority of voters didn’t care about these endorsements and declared with their ballots that they wanted the anti-establishment candidate instead.

Now that the anti-establishment candidate has won, we no longer have a traditional conservative party and a liberal party. Instead, we have a populist anti-establishment party that resembles a European far right party of protectionism and anti-immigration versus a college-educated, pro-establishment party that is now out of power. When Trump was first elected, the Republican Party had not yet fully transformed into an anti-establishment party, but now it has. Those who are shocked by this probably underestimated the depth of the anger against the establishment that exists among American voters—especially those outside of elite professional circles.

But can an anti-establishment party that is devoted to burning down institutions really govern once it becomes the establishment and takes over those institutions? I, for one, am deeply skeptical. Removing institutional safeguards and established norms is likely a recipe for disaster. But the anger of many voters was a sign that the establishment has failed—and now we’re about to find out how high a price we’ll have to pay for those failures.

Daniel K. Williams is a historian at Ashland University in Ohio and is the author of several books on religion and American politics, including God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right and The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship. He is a Contributing Editor to Current.