The comeback kid

THE EDITOR, Madam:

It was fitting that Donald Trump reached the winning number in the US electoral college. Tim Walz was chosen by Kamala Harris as her running mate because his position as Governor of Minnesota would hopefully deliver votes from his and neighbouring swing states in the Democratic Party ‘Blue Wall’.

Things didn’t work out as planned for the Democrats, with all seven swing states won by Mr Trump, giving Republicans a convincing win in the electoral college, as well as regaining control of the Senate. Coincidentally, the Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery in 1854, at a meeting in a small wooden building in Ripon, Wisconsin, and Abraham Lincoln was its first president elected six years later. It’s a far cry from today’s Republican Party whose ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) credo was born in the luxurious Trump Tower of Manhattan.

Mr Trump’s victory is only the second non-consecutive term since President Grover Cleveland in 1892, but there is another important comparison from 1992, when President Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, James Carville, coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid! “ Back then Bill Clinton had a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire after losing previous primaries, with allegations about numerous affairs and draft-dodging filling the airwaves, he labelled himself ‘The Comeback Kid’. Now, 32 years later, Mr Trump’s character was constantly reviled and ridiculed, with references to several legal problems and court convictions, but he won the popular vote that was spread across all demographics and social structures.

In 2020, Joe Biden won the White House by simply claiming that he was ‘not Donald Trump’; with very little else going for him, his presidency was viewed as unsuccessful with a 58 per cent disapproval rating. Kamala Harris held a similar claim about being the opposite of Mr Trump, when she took over President Biden’s delegates in July after he withdrew from his re-election campaign. There was all the glitz and glamour of the Democratic National Convention with the expressions of optimism and pure joy from party luminaries such as the Clintons, the Obamas and Oprah Winfrey, etc. That pure joy quickly dissipated on the campaign trail when it became mixed with spite and misery from the Dick Cheney family and many others.

It was apparent that Ms Harris had very little to offer in the way of policies, except that she was ‘not Donald Trump’, and unwilling to unshackle herself from Joe Biden. On the contrary, Mr Trump’s authoritarian populism appealed to the new MAGA Party members who were a strange blend – backed by a few billionaires – of working-class folks and somewhat rabid evangelists; all willing to forgive or forget his many shortcomings, and hear Mr Trump’s main message. He pledged to make their lives better by eliminating rising crime, stopping illegal immigration, lowering the cost of accommodation, gas and groceries. These simple promises hit the sweet spot for his MAGA supporters, and echoed Mr Carville’s famous mantra : ‘It’s the economy, stupid’; proving Donald Trump to be another genuine ‘comeback kid’.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada