A few more thoughts about the election

I am expecting the next Trump term to be even more of a Pool-Pah (a Bokononist term for a shit show, or God's wrath - whichever you prefer) than the last. That's such a safe bet that there isn't much point discussing it. I continue to read and hear hot takes on what went wrong for the Democratic Party and almost all of them are awful. 

If the only lesson Democratic politicians learn from this election is aggressively tamp down on inflation regardless of the consequences, we're truly in trouble. Conventional wisdom among the pundit class that has done well during the neoliberal era is that economic stimulus should be kept to a minimum, much the way the Obama administration did during Obama's first term which was during the Great Recession and its aftermath. There was a recovery of sorts, but it never really felt like a recovery, and we as a party did suffer - maybe not in the sense of losing the White House in 2012, but we lost a lot of ground politically and we are still dealing with those consequences to this day. I still think that the most parsimonious takeaway this election cycle was that the global supply chain problems in the aftermath of the global COVID pandemic was the primary driver of inflation, and that most incumbent political parties globally were going to lose at least some power regardless of the extent to which they tried to stimulate the economy during those darkest of days. My own thinking was that Biden had learned the lesson of what not to do from Obama, and adjusted accordingly. Instead of being timid about aid to people and businesses in need, Biden - even with painfully narrow Democratic majorities for the first half of his term - decided to swing for the fences. In the process, we averted a prolonged recession, which would have done very few of us any good. Unfortunately, we were never exceptional when it came to global market forces. 

I earn a lower middle-income wage in my line of work. I can tell you that watching my grocery bill go up as much as it did was painful. The shortages for all sorts of goods like appliances and auto parts was something I had not really experienced, and it was crazy-making, to say the least. I was one of those lucky individuals who had to replace nearly every major household appliance in 2022 and the start of 2023, and it really was a pool-pah. The increased credit card interest starting in 2023 did me no favors. I delayed buying a car for as long as I could because vehicle shortages combined with high interest rates made for very painful monthly payments that I did not want to mess with. As it is, I am paying more per month than I would have paid for a comparable vehicle a decade ago. My adult children are still living with me in large part due to lack of affordable housing. That said, my eldest had the same complaint pre-pandemic, and I would be willing to wager they were not alone in their experience. Even in a low inflation environment, if wages are stagnant and job opportunities are just not there, you're going to fall behind. We've watched that happen consistently for decades. Inflationary pressures just made that experience of falling behind more acute, and any tangible wage increases come across as too little too late. I get what struggling is because I am living the dream, let me tell you.

Under those circumstances, I am still convinced that any incumbent leader and party were going to experience some serious headwinds this year. Yes, supply chain pressures have mostly subsided with some exceptions duly noted (the Russo-Ukraine war is putting pressure on staple commodities like grains; the war Israel started with Palestinian residents of Gaza has put the Strait of Hormuz at risk, also putting pressure on our supply chains). As a consequence, inflationary pressures have decreased. By the time we were nearing election day here in the US, our inflation rate was getting close to our central bank's target of 2% after being almost double-digit in late 2022. But the reality is that was not going to be enough for low information voters who only see that the price of meat is still higher than it was pre-pandemic. There is a way to get to those prices again, but that would require deflation, which every econ professor I've ever talked with has said would be a horrible idea. 

We can all wring our hands about whether or not Biden was an effective communicator or whether having anyone from the incumbent administration stand for election this year was sound. But at the end of the day, I question how much that ended up mattering. I am still searching for silver linings that may be little more than veneer over the thick dark clouds bearing down upon us. The good news if this can be called good news is that the Democratic Party was not completely routed the way the UK's Tories were, for example. The truth is that Trump may have won the popular vote just barely, and he never achieved majority status. The truth is that Trump did not have any genuine coattails. The GOP Senate majority is going to be one that was already fairly predictable, even if wishful thinking (mine included) was for a 50-50 split. The GOP majority in the House will be essentially the same as it was after the midterms. A number of states saw the Dems do reasonably well down ballot. A true repudiation of Democratic policies would have included a route of Dems at all levels, and that did not happen the way it did in 2010, 2012 (White House notwithstanding) and 2014. We still have a functioning civil society. We still have enough Democrats in positions of power to mount as an effective resistance as possible going in to 2025. That does not mean that things will be okay. They won't be. And a wannabe dictator probably has some tricks up his sleeve to figure out how to break this republic once and for all. But we are not in a hopeless situation quite yet. We are in a dangerous situation, yes. 

Remember the lesson about protecting our institutions. Those institutions are going to need our nurturing more now than ever before. Also remember the lesson of hot takes - they tend to age poorly, including my own hot takes. We have a democracy to save. We need to stay focused. One way to start is to accept the reality that these last couple of years have just been horrendous for incumbent parties in functioning democracies, and that the reason for that is due to circumstances largely beyond those incumbent parties' control. Start there and move forward.