A backdrop to Trump’s stunning win

Analysts often face the tough task of assessing an outcome the way it is rather than how they would like it to be. Nowhere is this challenge more daunting than analysing the stunning election results in the United States this week. Against the odds, former President Donald J Trump of the Republican Party has resoundingly won a second term over Vice President Kamala D Harris of the Democratic Party both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. The Republican Party also captured the Senate and the House of Representatives. While the implications for Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia are wide-ranging and far-reaching, it is first and foremost necessary to understand the nature of the Trump victory.
Something was amiss well before the election. The vast majority of vernacular television news and newspapers were rooting for Ms Harris. Just about everyone in my professional and personal circles and networks disliked Mr Trump, some even hate him outright. Yet the polls and the news kept saying the race was “too close” to call. This meant that there had to be a substantial number of Trump supporters who stayed silent. Evidently, they came out in large numbers at poll time, leaving no doubt as to which candidate they prefer to run the US for the next four years.
There is something about Mr Trump that is abhorrent and appealing at the same time. Mr Trump is unintellectual even though he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university. He often comes across as rude and crude, a misogynist and chauvinist. His blustery and mercurial nature and tendency to exaggerate and express false claims further fuel the fury of those who cannot stand him.
But yet he won the vote soundly because his campaign focus on the economy and better standards of living found traction and consonance among voters. Those who voted for him probably did not care for his demeanour and personal shortcomings but they must have felt that all was not well in America on a range of issues from excessive immigration and welfare to rising prices and ballooning government debt.
Ms Harris ran on a message of hope and opportunities at home with a foreign policy posture of trying to “make the world a better place”. But Mr Trump focused on the home front with a campaign less about hope and more about fairness and a level-playing field for the vast majority while promising a foreign policy role of limited and more unilateral entanglements that require more burden-sharing from allies and friends. The winning message was an America intent on fixing itself and putting its house in order while shouldering foreign policy commitments that directly serve American self-interests.
The Trump triumph this time, when his campaign coffer was outnumbered two to one compared to that of Ms Harris, also raises questions about the 2020 election. Dismissing Mr Trump’s fraud claims, the poll four years earlier might indeed have gone to him had it not been for extenuating circumstances stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, which allowed his then-opponent and outgoing President Joe Biden to campaign from his home due to pandemic-induced lockdown and distancing conditions.
No doubt, the Democratic Party will now enter a period of navel-gazing to see what and how it all went wrong. Clearly, the party bosses bear a lot of responsibility. Over the past three decades, the Democratic Party has come under the heavy influence of ruling families and networks, particularly the Clintons and Obamas. Joe Biden was former President Barack Obama’s vice president. After the two Obama terms, Hillary Clinton went up against Mr Trump in 2016 in an effort to repeat her husband Bill Clinton’s rise to the White House in 1993-2000. Although she beat Mr Trump in the popular vote, Ms Clinton lost in the Electoral College.
Mr Biden then became the shoo-in candidate despite his advancing age and decreasing physical fitness, winning under special pandemic circumstances in 2020. In the latest contest, Mr Biden, at 81, ran a full campaign despite deteriorating health and decided to back down only last July. The Democratic Party then got stuck with Ms Harris as vice president because the Biden-Harris ticket had accumulated substantial donations that eventually surpassed one billion dollars. A different candidate would not have had access to such a large electoral war chest.
With limited experience and time as a senator from California, Ms Harris was first catapulted from virtually nowhere to become vice president and then thrust into the presidential nominee role without contest because of campaign finance exigencies. The Democratic Party may need a catharsis the way the Republican Party has cleaned house under Mr Trump.
To be sure, Mr Trump is widely disliked because he is quintessentially anti-establishment at home and abroad. In American politics, Mr Trump ran an insurgent campaign back in 2016 and won. In the process, he remade the Republican Party and sidelined myriad traditional republicans. Unlike Ms Harris, Mr Trump’s close circle does not include any of the previous republic leaders, such as the Bush family.
Mr Trump’s insurgency within the Republican Party is now mainstream. What he stands for can be traced back at least to 1988, if not prior, when Patrick Buchanan ran for the Republican Party presidential candidate under an “America First” platform. Back then, “America First” was the fringe wing of the party. Now, it is front and centre, represented and personified by Mr Trump. It has basically taken 30-odd years for this wing to wrest control of the party under changing conditions at home and abroad.
Abroad, Mr Trump is widely despised because he is against the established rules-based order that the US crafted after the Second World War. This is why Mr Trump, in his first term, ditched regional trade agreements, waged a trade war with China, and admonished allies to pay more for security and defence. We can expect him to do so again with fiercer conviction in his second term to refashion the international order to “Make America Great Again”, no longer willing to carry international leadership responsibilities and to underwrite and underpin the international system as we know it.