Why I am not emotionally invested in this Election
In 2016, Trump’s populist message called out elites and appealed to the forgotten people, mixed in with racial dog whistles. In 2020, Trump ran a more conventionally conservative RNC or Fox News campaign. Trump’s 2024 campaign is more conventionally conservative on economic issues but more overtly racial. Trump’s strategy is to portray Kamala Harris as a Marxist radical leftist rather than part of the establishment oligarchy, as he successfully did with Hillary Clinton in 2016.
A strong argument for Trump is that he causes the political elites to unmask and show their true intentions, though he already accomplished that during his first term. Trump is primarily concerned with staying out of Jail and building a dynasty for his family. Thus Trump is cozying up to oligarchs, in exchange for helping him win. A large portion of oligarchs, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jamie Dimon, have warmed up to Trump. If Trump is elected, expect massive tax cuts and deregulation for the ultra-wealthy and corporations.
Another case for Trump is that even though he likely won’t accomplish much on policy nor take back America, he can serve as a placeholder or pause America’s decline. The case is that Kamala Harris continuing Biden’s high levels of migration will do irreparable damage to the Nation. Even if Trump doesn’t enact mass deportations, he will likely greatly reduce the number of new migrants. Not to mention that Kamala will likely further weaponize the Justice Department against political opponents and political dissidents.
While there is an argument that Trump is more non-interventionist than Kamala Harris, his recent rhetoric on Iran has been very hawkish, advocating that Israel strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. If anything, Trump will be more hawkish on Iran, though more dovish on Russia. Kamala is backed by liberal internationalists who view Russia as an existential threat while Trump is supported by hardline Zionists who are aggressive toward Iran. The hardline Zionists backing Trump have made a bargain with the MAGA nationalists, that they will accept anti-immigration policies in exchange for a hawkish approach to Iran. Regardless, since Russia and Iran are close allies, war with one entails war with both.
I get the narrative that Kamala Harris is an accelerationist in that she is so bad that she would undermine the system and radicalize a lot of people. While this scenario is plausible, it is also possible that she could be effective in governing as a centrist technocrat. Kamala might cater more to moderate White upper middle class suburbanites than the hard Left. Overall, I expect her to govern similarly to Biden but without the old Democrat labor ties and cozier with Coastal Elites while emphasizing social issues like abortion more.
If Trump wins, White conservatives will go back to being complacent and just grilling, focusing on their jobs, and families. If Kamala wins, expect MAGA to either hyper-radicalize or go into total despair. Things will become hyper-political with various dissident ideologies jockeying to fill the space left by MAGA’s implosion. Trump is better for normies but Kamala is better for people who make dissident politics and intellectualism their life. For instance, the Alt-Right emerged under Obama, fizzled out under Trump, and had somewhat of a resurgence as the dissident right under Biden.
Another argument for Trump is if he is defeated, the pre-Trump Republicans will push for an aggressive comeback. Trump’s defeat would be a symbolic repudiation of nationalism and populism. If Trump wins, expect J.D. Vance to be the frontrunner in 2028 and Glenn Youngkin if Kamala wins.
Hopefully, if MAGA implodes, it can be replaced by something better and more intellectual. Unlike the Democrats, who are ideologically rigid and hierarchical, the GOP is malleable and can be reinvented in the future, much like how MAGA replaced the Reagan/Bush GOP. The chance of the Democrats accepting some of my views is 0% while the chance of my views influencing a GOP politician in the future is maybe 1-2%. A lot of MAGA people are chuds but some of the more intellectual MAGA types are open to my views. I could also see the rightwing of Silicon Valley transforming the GOP to become more technocratic, and Vance might fulfill that role in the future.
Trump energized wokeness while pushing the Left and the establishment together. Under Biden, the woke culture wars chilled out while there is a growing divide between the Left and establishment over Israel and income inequality. Kamala will have to fight a two-front war against MAGA and leftists who view her as complacent for Israel’s siege of Gaza. In contrast, Trump will face a united Left and establishment that seeks to crush him and his supporters.
There is an argument that Trump is overall better for the economy. Primarily, because Trump will ramp up oil production, and cheaper oil means lower inflation, enabling the Fed to keep interest rates lower. However, Trump’s tariffs and tax cuts are inflationary. It is great to see Trump take a serious economic populist stance on capping credit card interest. However, it is probably a gimmick rather than a serious policy.
Trump wants to spend while cutting taxes, while Harris wants to spend even more than Trump while raising taxes. Whoever wins could face an economic crisis which will damage them politically and empower the other party to win in 2028. There is a case that since the Democrats disproportionately created the economic mess, they should stay in power to take the blame.
It is easier for Trump and MAGA to engage in elaborate conspiracy theories about Haitians eating pets than to just say that Haitians can never become Americans, or don’t belong here. Basically, it is negative ethnocentrism without any positive ethnocentrism. There must be a serious discussion about what it means to be an American, and who is an American, and eating the cats and dogs discourse detracts from that, even if they do eat cats in Haiti. The Alt-Right took the position that any kind of racism being normalized is good, but that simply isn’t true.
While White identity needs to be normalized, associating it with crude vulgar racism is low status coded to well-educated Whites, and doesn’t win over new voters. Even Trump saying migrant criminals have bad genes is good as far as normalizing HBD, it is bad in that it associates hereditarianism with crude racism. The big irony is that Trump is losing White voters while winning over more non-Whites. The GOP is becoming a multi-racial prole party, not the White people’s party. While Trump has pushed the Overton window on discussing race and the national question, it is also too incoherent.
