"Trump voters were motivated primarily by assessments of their own economic situation", says political scientist Catherine Kluwer Ashbrook of Harvard University in an interview with ARD. She refers to surveys this year that showed that a large part of Republicans, but a small part of Democrats, are inclined to put a strong man or even a military man at the head of the country: “So the combination of the feeling that the country needs to take a new path and the analysis of their own economic situation prompted voters to vote for Trump, especially in swing states.“
However, why didn't Kamala Harris manage to win more voters, given that the country's economic situation is actually not bad at all?
K. K. Ashbrook: When people think about their own economic situation and security, they think about things like consumer prices, high child care costs, or real estate prices – that’s probably what drove more urban voters to vote for Trump. These are still the effects of the 2008-2009 economic crisis, which was also accelerated by the pandemic. For many people, this led to job losses or job changes, which increased feelings of insecurity.
Take the struggling state of Pennsylvania, and especially the Philadelphia region – where consumer prices have risen more since the pandemic than in many other parts of the United States. Voters may have never come to terms with the fact that the U.S. economy is generally doing well, but they themselves – no.
Did Harris make mistakes in this regard or did she not give clear enough answers to the questions?
K. K. Ashbrook: Harris had the classic problem of the Democrats - she tried to speak in plain language with facts in a situation where Americans wanted almost only pictures, emotions and short texts. What she wrote on 93 pages in her economic program was in the complex classic style inherent to the Democratic Party. And voters expected simple messages. And when they asked Harris what her message was and what she would do differently than Joe Biden, she gave very detailed explanations. Obviously, for many voters, they were more than enough - as the results showed.
On the other hand, Trump managed to continue accumulating assets with very simple populist messages: he announced that he would make America great again, that he would revive its economic power. And how she will do it - it seems to have turned out to be secondary for the voters. Harris constantly wanted to prove with facts and explain - and apparently she simply lost certain voters.
What will happen from now on? Once the Republicans have won a majority in the Senate, and probably will have it in the House of Representatives as well? What will this mean for the administration?
K. K. Ashbrook: This success will encourage the implementation of an extremely radical program that differs significantly from classic Republican politics. This will be a fundamental rejection of the conservative policies of Ronald Reagan, for example.
From the so-called “Project 2025“, prepared as a plan for a possible Trump administration, we know how each ministry will be restructured. The goal is to undermine the state administration and place the Department of Justice under the control of the White House. It is also important who becomes the president of the Senate, because this person will allow Trump to push through anything he wants.
He has already threatened to reject the budget if Congress wants to provide strong support to Ukraine. In addition, he will block those legislative initiatives of Congress that he does not like. Such a thing has never happened before in American history and in the understanding of the separation of powers. But in the face of Trump we see a person who is trying in every way to violate political norms and devalue the political traditions of America. A completely uncontrollable person will now enter the Oval Office, who will act chaotically and will hardly listen to his advisors. Probably neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives will be able to restrain him.
You are afraid that he will govern without considering anyone or anything?
K. K. Ashbrook: Absolutely. This was stated repeatedly by him during the election campaign. Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is behind Plan 2025, in turn said that a second American revolution is coming, which will pass bloodlessly only if liberals allow it. Anyone who has read the manifesto could find these points in it.
These are the things his voters and supporters would like to see - and Trump has long said that he will become a dictator for a day, that new fossil fuel drilling will be done, that he will remove America from international institutions, that he will effectively end NATO and will protect Europeans from NATO only if they pay for it.
Trump will try to instrumentalize NATO and Europe and turn Europeans against each other. All this is written in the manifesto. He has prepared for this, and now he gets the opportunity to realize it. If he really rules unfettered, as it seems possible at the moment, the foundations of an executive dictatorship will be laid. And that will put an end to American constitutional democracy as we know it.
Author: Eckart Aretz ARD