One Final Consolation

In the end, this is just how we humans are. Maybe we should adjust our expectations.

1.

By now, we’ve all heard a lot of election takes, unless, of course, you’re steering clear of the news, which is entirely understandable. And despite the endless attempts of pundits and politicians to use the election to confirm their priors, something like a consensus narrative has emerged: this was a global trend of incumbents losing in the wake of post-pandemic inflation and dislocation. Given what we know now, it’s hard to imagine any living Democrat winning the election, and a majority of swing voters picked Trump despite his personal failings and extreme promises, not because of them.  All the Monday-morning quarterbacking comes down to that brute reality.

I share this view, and wrote about it here last week and in Rolling Stone this week.  I’ve found it at least somewhat consoling to know that the voters who put Trump over the top weren’t focused on xenophobia, or ‘drill baby drill’, or anti-wokeness, or anti-abortion politics, or any of that. This was a global phenomenon. 

And yet, swing voters were willing to put up with all of Trump’s criminality and threats in the name of a desperate hope for economic salvation. So how could that happen? How could they be this guy:

Answering that question is the last consolation I will offer in this newsletter, though it comes at the price of a certain kind of hope.

2.