Comment by Bernd Pickert

Translated from https://taz.de/Trump-erneut-gewaehlt/!6047329/

Donald Trump's renewed election victory is an absolute catastrophe. But it reveals where the Democratic Party simply didn't want to look.

Trump at his election party in Florida on election night   Photo: Evan Vucci/ap

Germany November 6, 2024 1:41 p.m

This morning started with a shock that many had feared but that few wanted to believe.

Donald Trump, the convicted felon, the candidate who either says nonsense or personal insults, wild threats, misogynistic impossibilities or racist outbursts; Trump, whose economic proposals including mass deportations, if implemented, would plunge the United States into a deep economic and human rights crisis; Trump, whose contempt for democratic rules has been hidden from no one since January 6, 2021 at the latest; This Donald Trump moves into the White House again, wins at least the Senate, and possibly also the House of Representatives. What's more: He is the first Republican since George W. Bush in 2004 to win the so-called "popular vote", i.e. a majority of votes across the country.

And in the background, the masterminds of “Project 2025” are waiting with their agenda to convert the US institutions from a politically neutral government apparatus to a subservient instrument of power and thus destroy everything that actually characterizes the – God knows, imperfect – US democracy for years to come .

None of this can be true. Why? The minority asks themselves.

No, the majority of Americans have not suddenly forgotten that they actually enjoy living in a democratic country.

Many of Trump's supporters, an expert recently said on a US TV show, love him but don't take him seriously. The Democrats, on the other hand, loathe him – and take him completely seriously. That's why they ran an election campaign that was largely based on warnings against anti-democrats, but that's exactly why it came to nothing outside of their own bubble.

What the Democrats didn't want to notice: In almost all post-election surveys, around 70 percent of those surveyed said they were dissatisfied or angry about the state of the country. And they are saying this not for the first time, but for at least two years.

This is a cry for change, given that the magnitude of Trump's victory still seems relatively moderate. Explaining to people that the economic data was excellent and that they shouldn't be like that wasn't a good idea. Nobody pays rent or buys groceries.

Yes, swapping Joe Biden for Kamala Harris was the right thing to do. Harris at least came within striking distance of the now re-elected Donald Trump. However, it was wrong to assume that the incredibly poor poll numbers for the Democrats since at least 2023 had mainly to do with the clumsiness of the president, who was in office until January 20th.

Of course: Joe Biden would have been better off declaring two years ago that he would not run again. That would have paved the way for open primaries within the Democratic Party, and in this process there would have been the chance to analyze problems differently and catapult someone to the top who is not part of the unpopular Biden administration and develop a program independently of it , could have changed the topic and found a different language.

Would have, would have.

Trump can now carry out an unhindered march – even if he is unlikely to deport millions of undocumented workers paying social security contributions any more than he had a wall paid for by Mexico built in 2016.

Nevertheless: He abolished protection against water and air pollution in his first term in office, he calls climate change a lie, he wants to abolish entire authorities such as the Ministry of Education and cut social security. There's no reason to believe he won't.

And: He has another four years to appoint countless right-wing federal judges. There may not be an opposition party that controls at least one chamber of Congress to provide him with guardrails. And on top of that, with its ruling in July, the Supreme Court guaranteed him almost absolute immunity for all official acts.

These are extremely bleak prospects. Especially since Trump's renewed victory has a global impact on the authoritarian right.

Democrats, whether party or civil society, will have their hands full organizing themselves and preventing the worst. This means that they remain on the defensive and, in order to organize majorities in elections at some point, are dependent on the Trump government failing resoundingly - and on the fact that they still have at least enough discourse sovereignty to define this failure.

Trump's election victory is a catastrophe that also causes its own continuation.

Bernd Pickert

* grobi