In Defeat, One More Chance to Get It Right

This article is republished from the Understanding America Substack, subscribe here to receive new commentary from Oren Cass every Monday and Friday on the future of economics, American politics, and public policy.

Since the moment the reality of a Trump presidency dawned on the nation, late on election night in 2016, those who opposed or even feared him have had two paths open to them. One path was to consider what had brought them to their predicament, and how they might win back the trust of so many of their frustrated and alienated fellow citizens. That path was not chosen. Instead, the past eight years in American politics have been characterized by what I described in an essay this summer as “a shockingly irresponsible national game of chicken.”

Barreling from one side are elites who remain fully committed to their own preferences, to pulling the levers of power for their own benefit and to offering candidates in both parties who would preserve the status quo. Barreling from the other are ordinary people, the majority of Americans, who reject elite preferences but feel unable to assert others, except through the last resort that democracy affords them. Both sides are honking as loudly as they can.

The scenes I will remember most from the home stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign are those moments when the progressive leaders and institutions most insistent that our democracy was at stake proved that they had learned nothing, would learn nothing—perhaps could learn nothing.

I’ll think of Barack Obama, doing a poor impression of his once dominant and inspiring persona, lecturing young men for their failure to feel the same enthusiasm for Kamala Harris that they had once felt for him. “It makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that,” he said. “And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”

I’ll think of Joe Biden calling Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage,” his White House violating its own protocols to surreptitiously edit the transcript of those remarks to change the meaning, and the media going along gamely with the charade. I’ll think of the same media, days later, warping Donald Trump’s suggestion that Liz Cheney should have to fight in the wars she supported into a call for her to face a firing squad. I’ll especially think of The Atlantic, fresh off an ambitious effort by its editor-in-chief to paint Trump as a Hitler wannabe, leading its home page just days before the election with a story by staff writer David A. Graham, whose opening sentence was simply a lie: “Less than a week before Election Day, Donald Trump last night called for one of his prominent political adversaries to go before a firing squad.”

I’ll think of the concerted effort at the New York Times to sell the narrative that the Biden-Harris administration “conducted a campaign to secure the border since Day 1” and lament that “President Biden’s legacy will largely be limited to his success in lowering border crossings.” I’ll think about Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff promoting a story headlined, “She said she had a miscarriage — then got arrested under an abortion law,” with the comment, “This is family values? Think about that as you vote,” as if this were a case of post-Dobbs abortion restrictions leading to tragedy. The law in question was from 1911. The arrest happened in 2018. The woman was using marijuana and methamphetamines and attempting to induce the miscarriage.

With all due respect, which in this instance is none whatsoever, the self-declared Defenders of Democracy have seemed not to care much about democracy, or its norms and institutions, at all—except when it is helping them to secure and wield power. Their commitment to its defense has been a talking point, perversely intended to avoid any commitment to its actual practice. Vote for us because democracy demands it, the argument went, as if that were a substitute for what democracy actually demands, which is that leaders take the values and interests and priorities of the citizenry as their own.

The most fascinating result from the exit polls is the electorate’s view of democracy. Only 8% said it is “very secure,” compared with 17% saying “somewhat secure,” 35% saying “somewhat threatened,” and 38% saying “very threatened.” One might think the message worked. But in fact, Harris did better with those who thought democracy secure than those who thought it threatened. Among those who thought it “very threatened,” Trump won 50% to 48%. The people understand that this is indeed a fragile moment for our democracy, and as importantly, that the elite have been part of the problem, not the solution.

The Atlantic’s Graham has been busy writing the past couple of days, with three new stories whose headlines I could not make up if I tried: “This Is A Test, Can the Country Pass?”, “The Institutions Failed”, and “How Is It This Close?” The institutions have failed, it is this close as a result, and the nation indeed faces a test. But whereas for Graham the test was whether the country would vote how he wants, the actual test is whether he and his colleagues are prepared finally to take the off-ramp away from the collision course they have pursued and on to the path toward making amends.

Trump’s win brings the careening cars one click closer. He and his team will be in power and have a legitimate right to pursue their legitimate plans. The people who have voted for this course will not pull to the side, nor should they. That is how the democracy we are supposed to be defending works. And now in defeat, ironically, the elite have their true opportunity to buttress the institutions they claim to (and in fact should) prize by accepting that they hold their privileged positions at the pleasure of the people and can continue to hold them only by acting on the people’s behalf.

Can they do it? Or would they rather smash it all up than admit that the road is not theirs? A sane elite would learn their lesson from a result as clean and clear as this one, recognize that on its current trajectory American politics will only head further away from what they want, and refashion their expectations and activities accordingly. The affluent urban professionals would accept economic tradeoffs that benefit the interests of working families. The culture warriors would step back from their radical social experiments. The journalists would return to the task of journalism. Hopefully ours are not too far gone.

More from American Compass on the nation’s values and priorities here and here.