The Battle Begins (repost)

Is Trump's Election Our Brexit?

Before the election I was expecting Kamala/Walz to win handily. Although the polls were predicting a tight race, I couldn’t imagine much support beyond Trump’s base, and I expected women to turn out in huge numbers to defend their rights.

Clearly I was wrong. In the aftermath it seems that concerns about immigration and the economy were more important to the majority of voters than Trump’s character, morality, and threats to our democracy.

Unlike the Trump machine, I believe in our democracy, trust our elections, and accept the will of the voters. Trump will be our president. But we should try to understand how we got here, and more importantly, how to respond.

There will be endless analysis on the how, but to me the underlying issue is the increase in wealth and income inequality that began with Reagan’s presidency and has continued to worsen during administrations on both sides of the aisle. I was hopeful that a Harris administration could begin to address this.

Instead, voters who were looking for a solution to their economic problems were convinced to choose as their savior the party that’s mainly responsible. I think that a fundamental issue is the commercialization of our elections. Starting with the Citizens United decision, changes to election regulations enabled billionaire funded PACs, right wing propaganda networks like Fox News, and social media platforms to target voters with disinformation.

So how does a progressive, small d democrat respond? My model is the Brexit campaign in the UK, which also misled voters and made promises that couldn’t be kept. This has resulted in buyer’s remorse, and a political price will be paid. There’s a good chance that the Trump administration will also fail to deliver on their promises and that the reality will be disappointing.

Our opportunity to respond will be in the mid-term elections in two years. If their performance is as disastrous as I expect, voters can make a correction. I don’t know how, but I hope that I can make a contribution to the fight.