TGIF: That Was the Election that Was

One can be overjoyed by the repudiation of a candidate without being pleased with the opposing candidate’s victory. This election is an occasion for that reaction. An American (or anyone actually) is perfectly justified in taking pleasure in Kamala Harris’s humiliating defeat while anguishing over the intemperate Donald Trump’s impressive win. As I like to say, every election has good and bad news: the losers lost but the winners won. That’s where I am today if anyone cares to know.

I rejoice at the defeat of Harris and virtually all that she stands for, while also realizing that some of the grounds for that defeat are themselves to be repudiated. Most Trump voters seemed to have had “the economy” uppermost in mind, with immigration a distant second. That’s sort of good news, except that most people think tariffs are a big solution for our economic woes. (In fact, there’s no “economy.” There are only cooperative interacting individuals deploying material factors and human effort to improve their conditions.)

Trump’s defects have been widely discussed here and elsewhere. No need to rehearse them now. (As Yogi Berra said pre-internet, “You could look it up.”)

One of Harris’s problems was that while there was no there there, she was likely surrounded by the condescending woke set whom she would have wanted to please. This held the potential for outright violations of freedom and impediments to advancing prosperity. It may well have aggravated tensions between people of different skin tones and ethnicities—something no advocate of social cooperation through the market economy should take lightly. We must be wary of those who seek to undermine domestic peace, especially when the cause is not justice, but trivial natal characteristics (like where your parents were born). (For an account of the dangers of a Harris administration, see Gene Healy’s “Fear and Loathing at the Ballot Box.”)

Trump was called Hitler, a Nazi, and a fascist, which was not only ill-defined and absurd but malicious. The people who trafficked in such charges, including the top of the Democratic ticket, deserved to lose just for using such tactics. Warnings that he would establish a dictatorship were hollow and not really believed by many who issued the warnings. Remember that a partly Democratically controlled Congress reauthorized horrendous surveillance powers for this “worse than Hitler” figure during his first term. How are we to explain that? Politics, that’s how.

We have to discount much of Trump’s flamboyant rhetoric because we know that he loves to play to his core audience, which in turn loves to see the woke progressives sent into rage on MSNBC, CNN, etc. His core audience called on candidate Trump in 2016 to “lock her up,” meaning his rival, Hillary Clinton. Did his Justice Department bring a case against her? No, it didn’t. He didn’t try to lock her up.

When Trump partisan Sean Hannity asked him during the latest campaign if he would abuse his power to retaliate against his enemies, he smiled and said he would, but only on day one. What would he do? “Seal the border” and “drill, baby, drill” for oil. When Hannity said, “That’s not retribution,” Trump ignored him and kept talking. That did not keep his opponents from “reporting” that he said he would be a dictator on day one and beyond and would punish his opponents. The Democrats’ implicit message all season seemed to be this: “He’s really not so bad, so we have to make up stuff.”

I’m not defending his “seal the border” promise or his promise to round up and deport millions of people for lacking government permission papers. Those would be terribly unjust policies. Tragically, however, a president probably has decades-old congressionally delegated powers to do such things. So technically Trump wouldn’t be acting like a dictator. The same is true for oil drilling. We don’t know exactly what he means, but if he intends to free producers to bring more oil and gas to market, then yay! If he intends to direct an effort to create energy independence, then boo. We’ll have to wait and see. The point is that any president would probably already have congressionally authorized powers to loosen restraints on oil producers. His promise does not imply dictatorship.

But let’s consider the possibility further. Would there be no checks on his power if Trump tried to be a dictator? Would the military obey orders to arrest, say, Supreme Court justices or recalcitrant members of Congress? Would the courts support him? Unlikely. How would he enforce orders no one obeyed? He’ll have no guns.

America still has a legacy of liberalism in the best sense, which includes deep-seated attitudes about government power, as well as an independent judiciary and a Constitution-bound military. This limits what even a dictatorial-minded president could get away with in America. In a sense, it really can’t happen here. At least it’s highly unlikely compared to other places without our traditions.

My old friend the historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, who has thought much about the role of ideology in society, used to say that if a Soviet ruler had magically appeared as the president of the United States, he could not have ruled in the Soviet style. Likewise, if a libertarian had magically become the head of the Soviet government, he could not have governed like Ron Paul would have. History and tradition—ideology—would have prevented it. The result is a sturdy, albeit not indestructible set of taboos.

Even Trump is probably not blind to what is unique about the American liberal legacy (including freedom of enterprise) and what makes for legitimacy. Ideas, not force, rule the world, Hummel says. “Ideas ultimately determine in which direction [people] wield their weapons or whether they wield them at all,” he writes.

This does not mean we will be able to sleep soundly from Jan. 20, 2025, through 2028. Guarantees are not to be found in such things. But we need not run around like our hair is on fire. I question the claim that Trump will be a dangerous freer agent in his second term. As self-centered as Trump is, he will surely have an eye on the mid-terms; he won’t want to lose the House or Senate in 2026. Moreover, he won’t want to hamper J. D. Vance or another would-be successor for 2028. He won’t be free to offend those who still are connected to America’s pro-freedom legacy.

In foreign affairs, if Trump means to get and keep out of other people’s conflicts, then good. But he gives us no reason for confidence. Look at his first term. Look at his unwavering support for Israel’s violence against the Palestinians. (No defense of the brutal Hamas is hereby implied.) Look at his belligerence toward Iran. Look at his acceptance of the expansion of NATO. To state the obvious, Donald Trump is no Richard Cobden, even if we ignore the tariffs, which we cannot do.

So I’m not optimistic about foreign policy, though Harris would have been worse. (Did she push her boss to reinstate the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump canceled? We have no evidence of that.)

None of this is amenable to mathematical or scientific proof. How could it be? We’re talking about the always-uncertain future and individuals who have free will. On this day, however, this is how I see it. It seems reasonable

Then again, what the hell do I know?