The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER

Just over a week has passed since Donald Trump was emphatically reelected as president (he will now be president number 45 and number 47). In a ‘red wave’ that was predicted but did not materialise two years ago, the Republicans also recaptured control of the US Senate, and the GOP will probably also eke out a slim margin of control in the US House of Representatives.

All in all, it was a pretty comprehensive shellacking of the Democrats, made quite a bit more painful by the fact that it seemed to have caught so many of the Democratic leadership by surprise. But in the midst of all the hand-wringing, blaming and lamentation by the losers, there were still Democrats who managed to give voters reasons to support them – largely by acknowledging the shortcomings of the current Biden administration.

There is an emerging consensus that the three issues that most hurt the Democrats were immigration, the economy and the “culture wars” that have seized a disproportionate share of the public political discourse during the past several years.

On immigration, as the New York Times reported six months ago, “the Biden administration has been notably slow to address one of his biggest political vulnerabilities: immigration.

“Polls show that immigration is a top concern of voters, often trailing only the economy. Most voters are unhappy with Biden’s handling of the issue and say they trust Trump more on it.”

Indeed, figures cited from the bipartisan and widely trusted Congressional Budget Office show that during the first 20 years of this century, the total of legal plus estimated illegal immigration into the US peaked in 2005 (1.8 million) and 2014 (1.6 million).

Biden swept into office and initially welcomed the resumption of immigration that had been restricted during Trump’s first term. And potential immigrants heard Biden. After 1.2 million came to the US in 2021, the totals jumped to 2.7 million (2022) and 3.3 million in 2023. Voters clearly felt the gates for migrants were too widely open.

Two Democrats won by confronting the immigration issue head-on. In an often-redistricted Ohio district that now stretches from the endless farmlands along the Indiana border along the south shore of Lake Erie to the western suburbs of Cleveland, veteran Democratic legislator Marcy Kaptur managed to squeak by to another victory despite the Ohio Republican legislature’s determined efforts to redistrict her out of Congress.

In one of Kaptur’s ads, she called out “the far left for ignoring the millions illegally crossing the border”.

Arizona reversed most of the gains Democrats had made two years ago in a solid Trump victory. An exception was the apparently successful Democratic candidate for the US Senate, Ruben Gallego. In one of his campaign ads, he said, “Arizonans know — on the border, there is no (Biden) plan.”

On the American economy, success found Democrats who didn’t pretend that inflation, COVID hangover and relentlessly rising consumer prices were inconsequential, or that these economic realities weren’t still exacerbating the quality of life for millions of American voters.

Some Democrats won tough races while acknowledging and confronting economic issues. On this issue, they emphasized their frustration at high prices, slow wage growth, corporate greed and unfair Chinese competition. Elissa Slotkin, who won a difficult Senate race for a vacant seat in Michigan by 20,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast, spoke of how her own mother had been “gouged by the insurance companies”.

Personalising the economic hardships felt by so many voters was a common theme among candidates of both parties, and those who seemed most convincing used examples from their immediate families.

Culture wars issues such as transgender bathrooms and permission for once-males to compete in women’s sports clearly were the obsessions of a small minority of Democratic far-left zealots, according to exit polling after voters had cast their ballots.

Republicans could make a convincing argument that such issues were truly peripheral for most voters and little more than a distraction from the high cost of living in the US.

“How could you take a party seriously that gave so much attention to these issues that impacted only a few thousand people? The key to this election, as it usually is, was the economy,” said a liberal pundit who joined in the mass repudiation of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and their campaign staffs in the wake of the GOP triumph.

In a gracious concession speech, Harris spoke before a large crowd at her alma mater, Howard University, the talismanic American historically black college located in Washington DC. She and her husband, her sister and her kids must be relieved to be finally through with this bruising election campaign during which she was both called a communist and said her opponent was a fascist.

All eyes are now on Trump. He’s reportedly prioritising personal loyalty to him as he considers personnel assignments, as many incoming presidents also have done. His choice of Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State is interesting for several reasons.

Rubio, still a relatively young national politician at age 53, famously sparred and traded personal insults with Trump nine years ago when both sought the GOP presidential nomination. But Rubio has scrambled back into favor with Trump in the intervening years and avoided a possible Trump-backed primary challenge two years ago.

Overall, Rubio has grown in stature right before our eyes in the Senate. He has served on both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Select Intelligence Committee. The latter especially is something of a badge of honour for senators, inasmuch as it affords to its members the most complete Congressional look behind the curtain of American intelligence and other secret activity. Membership on this committee signifies trust to guard the most precious US secrets.

Presuming Rubio is indeed nominated and then easily confirmed by the Senate, Florida governor Ron DeSantis will have the opportunity to appoint his temporary successor. That should spawn a great deal of speculation in the coming weeks in the Sunshine State and beyond.

As Secretary of State, Rubio would assume the mantle of senior member of this Trump cabinet. His trips overseas will propel him to the front pages and TV newscasts for as long as he serves. And Rubio may well thus emerge as the most formidable challenger to the incoming vice president for the role of successor to the now term-limited Trump.

JD Vance still looks like the heir apparent. But he’ll be looking over his shoulder at America’s new top diplomat.

Along with Rubio’s prospective appointment, Trump also tipped his intention to appoint Florida congressman Michael Waltz as his national security adviser. Waltz, who succeeded DeSantis in representing a district that stretches from just south of St Augustine to Daytona Beach, has been an outspoken hawk on China and a generally loyal and effective Trump surrogate on the campaign trail.

What will Trump’s foreign policy look like? Expert testimony came last week in a webinar featuring Dr. Matthew Kroenig, a 47-year-old Washington insider whose gaudy credentials include service as a foreign policy adviser to Rubio during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

While carefully modifying his comments as speculation, Kroenig offered a very plausible preview of how Trump will behave with respect to America’s European allies during his second presidential term.

“Overall, I think Trump is very likely to project the ‘peace through strength’ approach that Republicans have embraced since Ronald Reagan’s presidency,” Kroenig said. “Trump is going to be guided by the art of deterrence.”

The GOP insider reminded his audience that Trump on at least two occasions during the campaign said he would not pull the US out of the NATO alliance that has been the bedrock for American foreign policy since World War II. The incoming president has at times publicly mused about the possibility of withdrawing from this key alliance.

“But he will return to his insistence that our European allies contribute more of their Gross Domestic Product to defense-related expenditures,” Kroenig said. “Our European allies now average 2 percent of GDP on defense. The goal is 3.5 percent.

“At the same time, Trump may push American defense spending up from the present figure of $800 billion to around $1.3 trillion.”

As for Ukraine, Kroenig expects Trump to push for a quick cease-fire roughly along current battle lines, as he has been saying for months.