74 Million: The Implications of Donald Trump’s Election Performance
“It’s morning again in America.” — Hal Riney, 1984.
On the morning of Saturday, November 7, 2020, four days after Election Day, Americans woke up and saw on their phones and televisions the news that Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. had been declared the President-elect of the United States. Projected beside news anchors such as George Stephanopoulos and Anderson Cooper were images of people celebrating in Lafayette Square in Washington, the same area where Trump had ordered the use of tear gas on protestors to clear the way for a photo opportunity at St. John’s Episcopal Church months earlier. Some liberals were pessimistic (or, possibly, realistic) that despite this victory, Trump would not give up power so easily. And, sure enough, they would be correct — President Trump would reject the result, demand that states stop the count and throw out ballots, proclaim himself the victor, file lawsuits against states, fire government officials who called the election fair, prevent the funding for an administration transition for several weeks, and tweet “I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Others knew this might happen too, but it did not matter. For them, the nightmare was over. It was morning again. Whatever scheme Trump would cook up meant nothing when compared to the fact that America had told Trump that they were sick of his tenure… well, half of America.
While Joe Biden may be the next President of the United States, his victory was nothing to brag about. In an election that was seen by many as a referendum on the Trump presidency, the incumbent proved to remain extremely popular in the hearts of many Americans. 74 million Americans, in fact. In some states, the President even made gains among Black voters. Democrats would also lose seats in the House and perform below expectations in the Senate. Joe Biden may be the next President of the United States, but he will have to reckon with a government and populace still heavily influenced by his predecessor.
Many prominent Republicans have broken ranks with Trump over the years. Former Senator Jeff Flake had said he would “not be complicit” in the party’s embrace of Trumpism in his 2017 retirement speech. Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote for the removal of President Trump after the House had impeached him. And even recently, many have asked Trump to step down and shut up about voter fraud, among the first being Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ohio governor Mike DeWine. Both federal judges, including several appointed by President Trump, and the now firmly conservative Supreme Court saw no merit in his campaign’s legal challenges. Trump’s own (now former) Attorney General, Bill Barr, announced the Justice Department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Even the Republican master of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, acknowledged that Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States and warned against Senate Republicans aiming to challenge the results after the Electoral College voted as the general populace had on December 14. But some know their political career depends on their support of the man who took nearly half the country by storm.
Ignoring their higher-ranking party members, many Trump loyalists within the Republican Party have lent support — some in lip service, others through vowing to challenge the election results in Congress — to the President Trump’s cause. Seventeen state Attorney Generals and 126 of the 196 House Republicans had signed on to a Texas lawsuit urging the Supreme Court to overturn the election. Their scheme failed, but that did not stop some like Texas GOP Chairman Allen West from flirting with secession: “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.” On December 30, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican representing Missouri, defied Mitch McConnell and vowed to challenge the election results. It may just be a stunt to prove loyalty to the outgoing President and his supporters, but it is a dangerous one that happens when a party lets an outsider hijack its ideology.
For other conservative intellectuals, the chaos born out of the President’s four years in office pales in comparison to the supposed doomsday a Biden administration would impose upon America. Writing in America’s flagship conservative publication, National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy makes clear his disgust at Trump’s conduct in the Oval Office: “The norms he is demolishing are not, in fact, musty, deep-state relics; they are, to the contrary, the essence of the presidency, of its capacity to influence world events for the better.” And yet, preserving the essence of the presidency ends up being of little importance to McCarthy, who saw the election as “a choice between Trump and what the Biden-Harris Democrats would do to the country… So I’m making it: I’m for Trump.” Ben Shapiro, arguably the most prominent conservative commentator of the last decade and frequent critic of Trump’s behavior, would spend the entirety of every episode leading up to the election discussing Joe Biden’s radical leftist agenda. As of late, Shapiro has dedicated his episodes to adamantly defending the President’s choice not to concede.
These intellectuals are but a fraction of a fraction of the electorate, however. So what of the tens of millions who voted for Trump in Middle America? And what about those who gave Biden a run for his money in Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia? These are the voters who made Trump more popular than he was in 2016. Back then, Trump voters, no matter how twisted their logic, could at least use the excuse that they were so put off by a deeply unlikable Hillary Clinton and her supposed corruption that they had to vote for her opponent. 2020 showed that half of the country couldn’t get enough of @realdonaldtrump on Twitter. It showed that despite two damning Bob Woodward books, and New York Times stories on his laughable tax returns, and his fairly obvious racism, and his pardoning of loyal crooks, and his purges of people who challenge him, and his obnoxious debate performance, and children in cages, and his handling of the pandemic, and his encouragement of violence, and his “Very fine people on both sides” comment, and his abuse of power and subsequent impeachment, half of America was still willing to take that, however enthusiastically, over a center-left Democrat. Are the Supreme Court appointments really worth all that? Not voting for a Democrat because of moral qualms against abortion does not necessitate voting for a demagogue instead.
Voting for Donald Trump and not voting for Joe Biden were not mutually exclusive choices. Split tickets were possible, and there were in fact many. For instance, Biden had won 3 of 4 of Maine’s electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split electoral votes by district), but Republican senator Susan Collins had won reelection and earned over 42,000 more votes than her Republican presidential counterpart. In Colorado and Texas, the Republican senators also won tens of thousands more votes than Trump. The Democrats had no doubt brought some of their Congressional losses upon themselves. Open talks of socialism and defunding the police along with riots in major Democratic run cities no doubt turned off many moderates. After losing seven seats in the House, Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger told her Democratic colleagues they would get “fucking torn apart in 2022” if they didn’t change their messaging: “…We need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again.” Despite this, split ticket voters, whether they were independents or Never Trump Republicans or Democrats bothered by their party’s embrace of far-left thinking, demonstrated that voting with their heart was possible.
How does one govern a country where half the electorate decided the other guy was a better choice? Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden has promised to be a president for all Americans. In his November 8 victory speech, he reiterated, “I pledge to be a president who does not see red or blue states, but United States.” The president-elect has held out an olive branch. Whether 74 million Americans choose to grab it remains to be seen.
