Well, it’s finally happened. Grover Cleveland is now no longer the United States of America’s only nonconsecutive president. Donald Trump, the president who left office, but decidedly NOT the public eye or the sphere of politics he has dominated for the past two decades like it or not, after his defeat in 2020, won reelection, and now will become president again.
So, we have to ask, how did this happen?
The first thing to understand is, 2024 was not 2020. That must be acknowledged before anything else.
It’s not just that Vice President Kamala Harris is a different opponent than Vice President Joe Biden (as he was most recently known as when he beat Trump in 2020), though that certainly is a factor that factors. It’s not the whole thing, however Rather, it is any number of elements, from Trump himself, from Biden, from Harris, culture, reactions to this and that, historical considerations, shocking developments, and luck, good and bad. Sometimes that’s just the way the wind blows.
First of all, why did Trump lose his first reelection in 2020? Well, how about 2020?
And President Trump? Well in addition to his own scandals leading to being impeached twice, as president, he has to take responsibility of the current situation and bare the brunt of the burden for the consequences. The nation being in such a state of unrest, a change of pace was the natural recourse. So out goes the president.
But how did it go for President Biden? Well, 2021 was hardly better on the Covid front. If anything, the introduction of compulsory vaccines only made things more bitter and devise. Even out of office, scandals continued to follow former President Trump, including the accusation that he was responsible for January 6th, the unarmed insurrection. Yet the sitting president has his own issues to deal with, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, one of the most shameful moments in US military history.
While the narrative that Trump is on Putin’s side has never stopped being pushed, the invasion of Ukraine happened on Biden’s watch, as did the Israel-Hamas War.
Much was made, on both sides, of the Dobbs decision, wherein Roe vs. Wade was finally repealed, an incredible development I never thought possible. The Democrat party played up the “War on Women” chestnut as a chief talking point in the 2022 and 2024 campaigns. Yet is it possible that Trump, who appointed three of the six justices who overturned the decision that lead to the murder of tens of millions of unborn infants, would get credit from his own side for doing more for the Pro-Life cause than any other politician in American history, and even those of us who would never have voted for him before might reconsider? (Spoiler alert…)
But let’s get to 2024, cause that’s what it’s all about.
Former president Trump, predictably, secured his party’s nomination easily, even with rising stars like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Vivek Remaswamy on the scene, and the sitting president faced no real threat to renomination…though Robert Kennedy Jr was an interesting factor as a Democrat, then an independent campaign, and then…
So at first, the 2024 election went pretty much as anyone could have guessed, with President Biden’s politicizing and President Trump’s obnoxiousness.
Then came the first debate.
“We’d be able to right – wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that – all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID – excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with…Look, if – we finally beat Medicare”
“Well, he’s right: He did beat Medicaid. He beat it to death.”
Some might say that was the deathblow to the Biden campaign. I had long rolled my eyes at the accusations that President Biden wasn’t all there, that he was actually suffering from mental dementia, rather than simply prone to gaffes as Vice President Quayle or President George W. Bush. But this was by all accounts a disastrous debate. Biden insisted he was staying in the race – for a bit.
I won’t go into too much detail. But suffice to say that while July was ultimately a joyous, miraculous occasion, the night before was extremely stressful and frightening. I had to hold back tears. I think what happened next is some sort of psychological transference. Because I saw this Tweet. Speculation had built since that debate that Biden had to drop out. I had doubted that. The man himself affirmed that he was seeing this through. My doubt at any quitting was certainly not based on personal preference. This was a man whose positions I despised, whose political persona annoyed me, and whose claim as a fellow Catholic I took as personal affront. I have a framed photo of the man in my wall, but I dislike that he’s my president, and didn’t want him to get reelected. But then on that day…I saw this Tweet. The rumors that former President Obama himself was urging Biden to reconsider the viability of his campaign were shocking, and Matt Walsh’s simple statement, “Well, that’ll do it. He’s fine.”…was devastating. The finality of that. The rejection. It was just so…sad. The world mocking him. His closest friends and allies withdrawing their support. It was just too much. It turned the most powerful person in the world, who pushed had failed as commander in chief and pushed the policies I found wicked and deranged into a pathetic old man I couldn’t help but pity. The tears I had held back burst forth, and I cried buckets for Biden.
He did indeed drop out. And as much dignity and pretense as the politician would try to announce his decision with, could anyone honestly pretend this wasn’t a reluctant, bitter decision, his hand being forced, likely by higher party forces, in direct response to the negative backlash?
So it came to Vice President Kamala Harris. While this is a historical event, the first time one of the two parties in our two party system nominated a woman of color, it was less an accomplishment to be celebrated so much as an embarrassing necessity, taking over after the original guy was too unwell to continue. A Plan B. One with only a few months left to campaign.
But back up a bit. Something else happened in July. Something that many would say defined the campaign and secured Trump’s victory.
I repeat Evan Vucci’s photo because it is unquestionably the most iconic image of the entire campaign, and indeed joins the ranks of history with any screenshot from the Zapruder film, the burning monk, or the Crying Frenchman. It may be hyperbole to say that this picture and this assassination attempt won Trump, and it is a poor reason to vote for a man, but…there it is. Getting shot, bleeding from the ear, and still fighting the strength and courage to raise your fist a moment later and proclaiming “Fight!”, it’s hard to deny the power in that.
Hollywood liberal Ron Howard, if he sticks to his own principles, must surely regret adapting Hillbilly Elegy, the memoir of JD Vance. It’s a powerful story with great characters, a man East Coast academic establishments dismiss as a “redneck” (I’ve been there!”) with a drug addicted mother and any level of adversity become a veteran and a Ivy League graduate. But it also put Vance into the spotlight, gave him the prominence to become senator (as a Republican!) and Trump’s running mate.
Celebrity endorsements are, in theory, an irrelevant thing. There was one poll that indicated that 1 in 5 fans of Taylor Swift would vote however the most famous woman on the planet told them to. Yet that did not translate to electoral victory. The speech of Hulk Hogan surely wouldn’t make much impact, but the line “My name is Terry Bollea…” was oddly cathartic, and as one more sign of where the wind was blowing…
Building a “big tent” has always seemed asinine and counterproductive to me. I mean, if you’re appeal to such a base you have hardly any shared principles, what’s the point? Yet there was something fascinating and relevant about the team Trump built up. Career Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy Jr., who, (look at his name!) was from America’s most prominent Democrat dynasty, and independents like Elon Musk. These are just three notable names on the campaign, who would also be given some interesting roles in the new administration. Musk, with Vivek, will have an especially interesting position running the Department of Government Efficiency, which conveniently backronyms with his meme Bitcoin DOGE but which pledges to fulfill a VERY needed time if cutting red tape and trimming the fat.
There was also Joe Rogan perhaps the world’s most prominent podcaster (even more than The Minus Men!), making an rare endorsement on the eve of Election Day, giving Trump the opportunity in his final speech to casually say, “And he doesn’t usually do this”. Which, to me, sums up the entire point of this post and the election in general. Things were difference.
Also, Undertaker.
There’s really no point in being coy, or disingenuous. This is a personal blog, and even if I lose friends and am risking career damage for it being on the internet, the truth matters. I haven’t voted for a Republican since 2008, I think Trump is insufficiently Pro-Life, not kind enough, problematic with women, and too negative on immigrants. Some would say that with our electoral system, one vote in a blue state like California doesn’t make much difference. BUT! when the extraordinary achievement of repealing Roe vs Wade must go to him, when he survives everything they throw at him, including literal murder, when the Democrat administration continues the oppression of Covid and disgraces America in Afghanistan, when Kamala is unapologetically and unmistakably even worse and more wicked than Biden on child murder and mutilation, when The Dead Man himself endorses him… that’s the way the wind blew. What would I do?
