We haven’t seen the last of American populism
By Pete North - November 10, 2020
From my earliest days of political awareness I can recall left wing idiots insisting any Republican candidate was a Nazi. They ramped it up a little further each time. They even accused John McCain of right wing extremism.
This time around they’ve pulled out all the stops to link Trump with white supremacy despite being massively popular among black conservatives. All the while the same media who wanted to create those bogus associations in the minds of voters, attempted blame widespread rioting and looting on far right extremists, often ignoring that some of it was encouraged and sponsored by the Democrats.
It certainly didn’t help Trump’s case that white nationalists were certainly pro-Trump and among his most vocal supporters, but the media went on to imply that Trump voters were all racists.
At that point, who Donald Trump was, irrespective of his corruption and incompetence, ceased to matter. He was still better than the liberal establishment who continued to slander and insult the intelligence of the American public. Were it not for Covid, a second term of Trump would have been well within tolerance. I would probably have abstained in this election but I still wouldn’t especially blame anyone if they did vote for Trump.
Ultimately I think Covid was the game changer. Trump was essentially a Covid denier and though you can play politics with a lot, the line had to be drawn somewhere. Biden represented a suboptimal sane option.
In this, the Democrats must be cautious about triumphalism because it certainly doesn’t seem like a decisive mandate. If there was good reason to reject the establishment in 2016 then those reasons remain. The media hasn’t learned anything and it’s doubtful the politicians have.
Essentially they’ve won the White House on the sole merit of not being Trump. Anyone who paid even cursory attention to the Biden campaign knows the man is befuddled and declining mentally. Biden was just a familiar brand name, carrying with it a certain reassurance from less turbulent times. Democrats have to ask themselves if they could have won it without. Emphatically no, I would venture. Certainly a 2024 Harris ticket will lose against any Republican candidate more together than Trump.
The next election will ultimately depend on the economy but the culture wars will continue to rage and there’ll considerable political residue from this episode that defines the battleground for the next four years. The media has abandoned the pretense of objectivity and Trump will be successful sowing doubt over the legitimacy of this election. If not the vote count then media bias and social media censorship.
If there is a strong sense of grievance, and I’m sure there will be, then we have not seen the last of American populism. Nothing is resolved for as long as the left is more concerned with the correct use of gender pronouns than defending against China and bringing work back to American factories.