Game, Set, and Match

by Stoker

Last month we refused to predict the winner of the American Presidential election, and the reader, looking between the lines, would have had no difficulty in surmising that we thought Vice President Kamala Harris was sewing it up and the only question was by how much.  And that Stoker might be thinking this to be A GOOD THING (copyright Yeatman and Sellar, 1066 And All That).  Well, you misread, dear reader.  Stoker would like to congratulate the new President Trump, round 2.  There’s no point upsetting powerful people is what we figure, especially ones with the memory, the foot tread, and the temper, of an elephant.

So, there it is: Donald back in the White House with an absolute majority, and the Republicans winning comfortable control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  They even won a majority of the Governorships that were being contested.  It is an extraordinary and completely unexpected result, not least by the opinion polls who do usually get it less wrong than this, and The Donald has all the levers of state at his disposal. 

What has been little mentioned so far is the effect of this Trump victory on the Supreme Court.  The Court currently has 9 justices; 6 appointed by Republican presidents, 3 by Democrat ones.  One of Mr Biden’s (remember him) great desires was increase the Court to perhaps 11 or even 13 Justices.  This was not because dear old Joe thinks the current one is over-worked or that more lawyers mean better decisions.  It is simply because the Court has through a concatenation of events tended to need new Justices during the time of Republican presidents rather than Democrat ones.  This has given it a conservative lean; Mr Biden was hoping to appoint a new block of more radical judges to reflect his own leanings.  Unfortunately or fortunately (probably the latter) fiddling with cornerstones of the constitution is A BAD THING (Tony Blair kindly note), and Joe never was able to get anywhere near the required majorities in the House or the Senate to get this through. Even a number of Democrats objected to gerrymandering this obvious.

It is argued by learned theorists and jurists (not I, then) that the inclination of the Court to Red or Blue is important to the long-term governance of the United States, more so than in the UK because the US Supreme Court has great powers to block (or not) new legislation or legislative reviews by virtue of its core and all-powerful role in ensuring that legislation, and process, does not breach the constitution.  The most famous case of recent years is the Court’s overturning of Roe vs Wade which returned from the Federal forum the control of abortion, to control and legislation in each individual state (not, as many observers  thought, banning abortion, although in a state where abortion is disallowed, that is the effect in that state.)  It was at core a case about states’ rights and the balance of states’ and federal rights and thus a potentially important precedent in other areas too.   

The Court is not as political as is often suggested and the Justices are not usually especially partisan; they look at the law and interpret it.  An incoming Trump administration adopting a gung-ho attitude to the constitution will find it difficult to get such behaviour past the Court.  Indeed it may well find it difficult to get such behaviour through the House and particularly the Senate, which have, remember, Republican majorities, not Trump ones.

This has to be Mr Trump’s last term under the constitution and also given his age, in practice.  Those losers this time who worry about a Trumpian dictatorship are just being silly; the constitution of the United States was designed to absolutely prevent that.  And American devotion to their system is very strong. Ignore the hotheads on either side; they have little room for manoeuvre.  Practical politics also will increasingly limit Donald’s ability to be naughty. Senators are often very independent-minded and cantankerous and do not follow the Presidential line – as Mr Biden found out.  Also, the pondering about who will be the Republican candidate next time has already begun and new alliances and groupings will be formed to promote the 2028 candidate. In this D. Trump will become increasingly irrelevant.  Such are the sadnesses of any second-term or lame-duck President.

Never mind all that, readers cry; what about the other parties?  In 2016 the Libertarian party scored 4 million votes.  This time was not just a reversal but a wipeout, of a low-profile and unimpressive candidate who just managed to scrape over 600,000 votes; he managed the surprising feat of being beaten by Robert F Kennedy Jr, with 676,000 votes – and Kennedy wasn’t even running (write-ins, as allowed in some states, did this).  But top of the also-rans was Jill Stein of the Green Party with 697,000 votes; rather disappointing for her as she managed over 1.6 million votes in 2016 and had also run in 2012.   None of these three, nor some other personal candidates, got any electoral college votes and so must vanish from the pages of future history. Well, perhaps not RFK Jr, who having tried the Libertarians and the Democrats, chose late on a winner in one D Trump whose new best friend he seems to be. 

So why did Donald win? Or why did Kamala lose?  The answers are actually easy, as lots of things are with the benefit of hindsight.  Ms Harris first: she failed to distance herself from the least popular President in recent history, Joe Biden; she came over as nice but devoid of any radical new ideas, any glimmers of dreams, any solutions to the sea of troubles which besets American society.  Nobody wanted more Bidenism.  Nice is good, but policies are better.   Donald comes over, of course, as a rough, arrogant, vulgar brawler, but he produced lots of solutions to the things that bother many Americans:  he promised to lower taxes (remember the old adage that we talk with our hearts but vote with our pocketbooks - wallets to the Brits on here); he said that he will return illegal immigrants and stop most new arrivals; he will work to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and cut American spending in both war zones; he will cut all government spending; he will make America great again.  

Some readers are no doubt appalled at the outcome, but a clear majority of voters want what Donald promises.  That’s how democracy works.  Believe me, all the alternatives are worse. The voters want to kick-start the American dream once more, an end to obsessive political and social correctness, smaller and cheaper government, enterprise and hard work to be rewarded.

You might greatly prefer to have Kamala round for supper, and be horrified by Mr Trump’s weird and vulgar ways.  But maybe he is the man for the moment; maybe he will cure some of America’s problems and ills.  Well, whether you like it or not, he is going to try.