by Nicholas Patti

November 6, 2024, Wake Forest, NC—If anyone deserves to serve a second term as U.S. President, that person is Donald Trump. He never stopped fighting for it, facing considerable obstacles and overcoming numerous significant personal challenges. I congratulate him on his victory. He earned it, more than anyone else, after all.

That said, his victory in the electoral college, and so far, in the popular vote, as well, has left Vice President Kamala Harris supporters like myself wondering, what happened (Wolf Blitzer, CNN, 11/6/2024)? Wasn’t there supposed to be a so-called “blue wall” of three states that would tilt, reliably, toward the Democrats? Was it merely a glass ceiling among these and other voters around the country that could not support a woman in a leadership role, again (re: Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016)? What exactly went wrong for Kamala Harris with the American electorate? I have some thoughts.

Finally, I should note that while I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump on his victory in this national presidential election, I continue to have very different politics than he does. I am a democratic socialist, locally and globally, and he is something of a nationalist. I supported Kamala Harris because she is closer to my politics, and because she had the message of looking forward to a better future in America, which is an idea that is closer to the socialist, utopian dream. That dream is for a better world, here on Earth, in the future that we make for ourselves, collectively. That dream has been attempted on Earth in recent history, but has yet to be attempted or achieved on a global scale, and never in the United States. When state socialism fails in one country or another in line with global capitalism or militarily beset against it, people write off the entire idea of socialism. I do not. I believe it is in our collective best interest to continue to strive toward that goal, locally and globally, for a better world for ourselves and for all. That includes improving the environment, and avoiding the pitfalls of over-industrialization on our climate and planet.

Kamala Harris was not a socialist. She was a liberal whose ideas were rejected in a popular vote by the American people yesterday in favor of an American, nationalist, and populist conservatism. For the next four years, we will all live with the results, here in America.

Our only consolation is that we have seen this playbook before. President-elect Trump has already served one term, and we know that he loves the job and takes it very seriously. We lived through it before; chances are we can live through it, again. We know that while he will definitely put his own imprimatur on how he does the job, he will definitely do the job of an American president, just like his successor, and now predecessor, President Joe Biden, did, as well.

First, I should say that I admire just how hard President-elect Donald Trump fought, time and again, to reach this pinnacle for himself. He achieved his political comeback from absolute pariah who lost in 2020 and rioted in response against the entire American political establishment, to victor in this 2024 national election, a victor who has now claimed the new title for himself, President-elect, in addition to only former President. President Trump fought hard, he never stopped fighting, and he won. He deserves credit.

What obstacles did former President Trump overcome on his way to this election victory? First, there were the trials. Namely, two federal trials on hold, and two state trials. The trial in New York actually happened and resulted in 34 felony convictions in New York State criminal courts for President Trump. He is awaiting sentencing. Next, there were the assassination attempts. During one rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump was shot. The bullet grazed his ear, but the secret service saved Trump’s life. In this instance, Donald Trump came within inches of dying from the gunshot, but he came out alright, with a small wound on his ear. This assassination attempt did not slow Donald Trump down on the campaign trail, however. He continued to hold rallies, with updated security measures from the Secret Service. Then, there was the second assassination attempt. This time, the Secret Service caught the shooter before the shooter was able to shoot at Trump, at all. Add these challenges for Trump to the usual brutal schedule of frequent rallies and two debates against two different presidential candidates during the course of a heated campaign season. Trump faced it all, and Trump triumphed.

I should note at this time that President-elect Trump did not only defeat one candidate, he defeated two. First, he vanquished President Biden in the first debate of the campaign. Biden dropped out. Enter candidate number two. Vice President Kamala Harris made it through the election, when she lost, including a second debate, for President Trump, against candidate number two. In the end, President Trump not only defeated President Biden in this campaign. President Trump defeated Biden’s entire administration, including President Biden, himself, and Biden’s Vice President, Kamala Harris.

Meeting all of these challenges and winning at the ballot box in the final, national vote is the scale of President-elect Trump’s victory in this election. He came, he saw, he conquered. Now, he wins his second term. That is how much Donald Trump wanted this, and that is what Donald Trump receives—his second term as US president.

That is all the better for President-elect Donald Trump. What about Vice President Kamala Harris, however, Americans’ last and best hope for progress from the top? She lost. Her supporters, like me, are left wondering, what went wrong?

The first thing that comes to mind is the so-called blue wall. She lost all three states, namely, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They went red, i.e., Republican, every one of them. Those three states were supposed to represent the Democratic Party’s working class support, and would provide the easiest pathway for candidate Kamala Harris to win 270 electoral votes and win the Presidency. Not so. Every last one eventually fell for candidate Donald Trump. Trump turned the so-called blue wall into what could best be described as a purple door. Trump won all three in 2016, then President Biden won all three in 2020, and now Donald Trump has won all three, again, in 2024. They can no longer be described as a blue wall, in my opinion. They have voted for President Trump in two out of three elections since 2016, including this one. I would describe them, instead, as a purple door. They swing this way or that, like a door, in a purple fashion, politically speaking, from election to election.

Of course, there is more going on here than only that. The fact is that real wages have not kept up with inflation during the years under President Biden, according to CNN, 11/5/2024. Biden failed to deliver for the workers of the Blue Wall states, and the economy, high costs, and inflation became a key issue driving voters to the polls for President Trump. If the Blue Wall working class voters failed to deliver for the Democrats, it was because the Democrats failed to deliver for them. They fell for Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s message.

In defense of President Joe Biden’s economic policies, briefly, I will only note that President Biden has helped deliver for Americans in general the best economy in the world, at this time. What that means is that Biden delivered on jobs for the American worker. With all of the money flowing around the economy, as a result, and in addition to massive public spending to stimulate the economy, the economy picked up. As a result, prices and costs increased substantially for the individual American worker and consumer. Gas prices, groceries, and housing costs all skyrocketed. This situation did not produce gratitude for having money and a job; instead, it caused significant discontent. Americans in general, and blue wall American workers, voiced their discontent at the ballot box.

There is another dynamic going on here, however, that I would like to note. This dynamic I would term as the glass ceiling. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost the blue wall to Trump. People blamed Hillary Clinton. She neglected campaigning there, and she took their support for granted. The fact is, they voted for the man, Donald Trump.

Nobody thought too much about that, however, after President Joe Biden won back the blue wall states in 2020. Then came this election, in 2024. Again, the Democratic Party candidate was a woman. Again, the blue wall voters fell in line for President Trump, not the woman Democrat, Kamala Harris. No one could accuse Kamala Harris of neglecting these voters, nor taking them for granted. Both the Harris and the Trump campaigns spent incredible amounts of time and money campaigning intensively across the traditional Blue Wall states. Nonetheless, the Blue Wall voters fell for Trump, not Harris. It seems that the support from the Blue Wall state voters can be counted on for male candidates, namely, Joe Biden, but not for the women candidates, namely, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.

In light of this, the Blue Wall, working class male voters cannot be accused of being feminists. They can be accused of not delivering their support for a woman candidate, however, in contrast to actually supporting a male candidate. It seems that if a woman candidate takes the primary leadership role, she loses support among the Blue Wall. The glass ceiling, in these cases, seems to end at the Vice President’s office. Above that, forget it. There, the woman candidate will discover a glass ceiling, and not receive the same support that a man does receive. In this case, in 2024, these voters broke for the man in the race, Donald Trump.

Both of these trends help explain the victory of Donald Trump over Kamala Harris, but there is yet another dynamic at play here, so far as I can see. While I may be a socialist voter in America, voting Democratic, the general voters in America, including but not exclusively the Blue Wall voters, are more anarchists than socialists. What do I mean? Vote the bums out, in other words. Since 2016, there is a strong ani-incumbent tendency to the American electorate, writ large. First, the Obamas were surprised that American voters favored a major change in direction when the voters chose the right-wing alternative of Donald Trump in 2016. Next, after one term of Donald Trump, the American voters were sick of him, and elected the challenger, Joe Biden, for many reasons. President Biden promised a dramatic change from the atmosphere and direction of President Trump. Voters chose President Biden.

Now, voters expressed discontent at President Biden, also after one term. They chose the alternative. Donald Trump promised a radical change of direction from President Biden, and papered over his own record as a rosy past for Americans, including jobs and lower costs. Voters chose President Trump, the alternative.

Enter Vice President Kamala Harris. She tried to portray herself as an alternative to both President Biden and President Trump, calling a vote for her a vote for “a new way forward.” She campaigned on a break from the politics of the past. Ultimately, Trump tied her, successfully, to President Biden’s current term, pointing out that she currently served as the Vice President. One campaign ad comes to mind in which Vice President Harris said she could not think of one thing she would do differently from President Biden in her next four years. That ad resonated with voters. They chose to vote against her as part of the incumbent administration of President Biden.

American voters have been voting the bums out since the election of 2016. With limited choices, they continue to vote in this pattern, today. This shows a more anarchist approach to leadership in the United States, notsomuch a socialist vision. I am not seriously arguing that American voters are a bunch of anarchists, which some people, by the way, would take as a complement. No, I am merely saying that American voters are voting, in the last three presidential elections, as if they were anarchists, happily, or angrily, voting in US presidential elections.

This anti-incumbent fervor must be noted among voters in this and recent US presidential elections. In any case, now we are left with President-elect Donald J. Trump. Again. May we all survive his second term. Donald Trump fought hard for this second term, and Donald J. Trump achieved it. Good for him. Now, if we all can just survive a second term of his right-wing, national populism, again, I should note, then we will be all the better for it. I do not think the American government is at risk of falling, now, however. Instead, I think the American government continues, from the last ten to twenty years, and ongoing from here. May we all learn to fight for a better future the way Donald Trump fought for his second term. There is still hope on our horizon, despite the chaos of this election and our recent shared history.

—Nicholas Patti

Wake Forest, NC

USA

Additional Sources: 

CNN, 11/6/2024, 11/5/2024.

WRAL news, WRAL, Raleigh, NC, 11/5/2024, 11/6/2024, NBC, television news and alerts.

ABC news, 11/5/2024, 11/6/2024, television news.

News and Observer, Raleigh, NC: 11/6/2024, digital news.