A Pipin' Lukewarm Election Take: Don't Blame Trump Voters

America ain’t over.

Lame Excuses

Hey, folks! It’s been a minute. Right after I relaunched Kudzu News, I landed a paid writing gig through the election that didn’t leave my brain with enough creative juice for extracurricular writing endeavors. Sorry for bailing on y’all. I’m chiming in now though – with a piping lukewarm take on last week’s presidential election! 

I’ll preface this by noting that I’m not telling you or anyone else how to feel about the election. That’s your business. But if you share my opinion that Donald Trump is an existential threat to our republic, you’re probably tempted to blame his voters for this outcome. I encourage you not to do so. Let me explain. 

Near the beginning of my year of teaching, I gave my economics classes their first test. In one class, >80% of them failed it. I took the entire stack of papers for that class and threw it in the trash can. The only conclusion I could draw is that I had failed to teach them the material. 

That’s where I am on these election results. This was a decisive result. It wasn’t close. Democrats failed to make a compelling case to voters as to why they should retain power. This is not the fault of the voters. 

Blame Biden (Some. Mostly? I don’t know.)

I mostly blame Joe Biden and the small group of people to whom he listens — his family and his longtime consultants. Though it might not have changed the end result, Democratic voters deserved a real, competitive primary and were denied one because Biden listened to his ego and reneged on his implied promise to be a one-term (“transition”) president, incorrectly concluding that he was the only person who could beat Trump. From the beginning of this cycle, polling showed clearly that voters thought he was too old for a second term, and voters were ignored until it was too late.

I don’t fault Kamala Harris. If anything, I think she deserves an apology. She stepped up when asked, and she ran a strong campaign by traditional measures. She killed at the debate and gave a beautiful convention speech. She ran to the middle and did her best to appeal to voters broadly. She turned out huge crowds. But that didn’t change the fact that voters didn’t choose her for the top of the ticket, and voters never forgot that. It also didn’t change the fact that she’s the second-in-charge for an administration that voters were ready to show the door. 

Voters worldwide have thrown out incumbent parties in the aftermath of the pandemic. So I’m not confident that even a real primary would have changed the outcome. The election results here are consistent with similar elections globally. But it was worth a shot and could have happened if Biden had stepped aside sooner.

There’s also the undeniable truth that Donald Trump has a knack for telling people what they want to hear. His campaign team had a bold strategy that they executed effectively. So I’m not suggesting this outcome is only due to outside forces. A lot of things can be true at once. 

If You’re Explaining, You’re Losing. If You’re Not Explaining, You’re Also Losing, Apparently.

Something I thought throughout the election and still wonder about: Why didn’t Democrats ever try to explain the recent inflation to voters? It’s like all of us just agreed to pretend the pandemic never happened. The high inflation we experienced is a direct result of the policy choices to inject money into the economy in order to keep it from collapsing. (If you’ll recall, the first round of those checks were signed by Trump, who insisted his name appear on them, even though presidents never sign checks to taxpayers.) It’s easy to think of these government checks that were issued during the pandemic as “handouts” — and they were that — but these handouts kept everyone’s 401Ks from bottoming out. When you give people money, they spend it, and it keeps the economy afloat. It also drives up prices. Plus inflation gets even worse when you add in the supply chain nightmares the world incurred. 

Inflation here is back to normal levels now. That doesn’t mean prices have all gone back down. Most won’t. But the rate of increase has stabilized, and the economy is adjusting accordingly. The US’s post-pandemic economy is doing well compared to other countries’. 

But none of that matters when people still feel sticker shock at the grocery store. There’s a saying in politics that “when you’re explaining, you’re losing,” but I’m not convinced that’s always true. I think an effort should have been made to contextualize what we’ve been experiencing in this economy. 

Biden Deserves Credit

Though I’ve taken Joe Biden to the proverbial woodshed for his role in this election, I should add that I also think he’s been arguably the most effective president of my lifetime. It’s a real shame that most people in this country aren’t aware of all he’s been able to accomplish in one term, much of it on a bipartisan basis, in a Washington that’s been incapable of doing much of anything for more than a decade. In addition to guiding us out of the pandemic, Biden shepherded several huge pieces of legislation through Congress and signed them into law — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (legislation of generational significance that Trump promised to deliver and failed to do so), the CHIPS and Science Act (addressing the global semiconductor “situation” and boosting the industry in the US), and the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained tax incentives that have brought thousands of new manufacturing jobs to the US — something else Trump failed to do in his first term.

In South Carolina alone, here are just a few companies that would not be setting up shop here if it weren’t for these tax incentives: 

• Volkswagen-backed Scout Motors is constructing a major EV production plant in Blythewood and aims to create 4,000 jobs, with production expected to begin by the end of 2026. 

• AESC, a Japanese company that makes EV batteries, is investing $3.12 billion, aiming to create 2,700 jobs in Florence County. 

• Redwood Materials is developing a $3.5 billion, 600-acre battery recycling and manufacturing plant in Berkeley County, expected to create around 1,500 jobs.

• BMW is investing $1.7 billion to expand its facilities near Spartanburg for EV production. 

• ABB E-mobility has announced a facility in Columbia that will produce EV chargers, generating over 100 jobs.

The South Carolina leaders posing for ribbon-cutting photos at these job-creating extravaganzas aren’t crediting the Biden Administration for convincing huge corporations to set up shop in the Palmetto State instead of Mexico or China. Most of y’all probably didn’t know about some or all of these developments since far fewer folks consume local news anymore – another problem that factors into election outcomes. Democrats also failed to connect these dots for voters. 

America Ain’t Over

Blue collar voters are supposed to be the raison d’être of the Democratic Party, but the truth is that the majority of these folks voted for Trump. Democrats must figure out how to talk to so-called “Middle America” again. It’s not impossible. Biden did it four years ago. A number of Democrats running statewide did it this year, including Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Ruben Gallego in Arizona, Jacky Rosen in Nevada, and Josh Stein in North Carolina— all in swing states won by Trump. 

America ain’t over. The next four years will be a challenge, but it’s imperative that we stay engaged, stand up for our institutional norms, and hold the incoming administration accountable to the United States Constitution.