It was novelist Marie Corelli who used the phrase “surface-clever Americans” to describe Americans’s superficial reading of human nature. In her 19th century classic “The Sorrows of Satan”, she says Americans, their women especially, are passionless or are incapable of hard thinking.
Well, perhaps. Fast-track to the United States presidential election of Nov. 5. The contest was between the Republican nominee Donald Trump and the Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris, a woman and the sitting Vice President. Trump, as we know, was first elected president in 2016, beating another Democrat woman Hillary Clinton. In 2020, he lost his bid for a second term. But he promised to be back in 2024 and Trump come back he has, with a decisive victory over Harris. He exceeded the 270 electoral votes threshold and also won the popular vote with 72. 2 million to Harris 68 million. What a surprise come-back? Surprise because his antecedents are not good. This is a man who refused to accept he was convincingly defeated in 2020 by Joe Biden. Not only was he uncharacteristically un-American on his repudiation of the election outcome, he also instigated an invasion of the Capitol by his supporters, a treasonable felony offence. What more, he campaigned for a return to White House under a cloud of court cases including tax evasion. The bad press that trailed Trump’s campaign, you would think he already was a loser. But the Pen, this time, proved itself powerless against a bulldozing Trump. It proved no longer to be the power that “topples down kingdoms like card-houses and sticks fullscaps on the heads of kings.”
The pre-election role of the mainstream American media was lampooned by the Times of India in its comment on the election. “The media’s role,” it said, “should be to inform the public, yet, over the past eight years, mainstream outlets have been preoccupied with attacking Trump. They frequently distorted facts, as seen when they misinterpreted Trump’s comment about Liz Cheney, claiming he threatened her with violence rather than critiquing her “war hawk” views. The MSM’s reality distortion got so dissonant that a huge chunk of the country simply stopped believing anything they read. Even comedy shows leaned into anti-Trump narratives, reinforcing biases rather than fostering critical discourse. And they also committed the worst crime of all time, not even being funny. While the idea of journalistic neutrality was preposterous, the Trump Derangement Syndrome meant that mainstream media simply left the field for people to use other media like X. Trump’s victory would be an important moment for America’s mainstream media to introspect the huge dissonance between reality and the reality they offer.”
In other words, in this election, Trump was up against a political foe and a hostile press. But how was he able to fight them off and secure a White House return? The Times of India thinks Harris had no time to prepare for a contest against an unconventional fighter like Trump. The paper days she suffered from what it calls “interview doom loop”, a reference to her initial unwillingness to grant newspaper interviews when her campaign appeared to be ahead of Trump’s. However, when the poll statistics began to drop for her, it was then she reached out to the news media but then it was too late. Another factor that worked against her but in Trump’s favour was the new media platform alternative that Trump exploited expertly. Times of India again: “With mainstream media missing the mark, alternative platforms have gained prominence, allowing people to judge Trump independently. Platforms like X, owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, and podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience have helped Trump redefine his image, distancing him from labels like “fascist” and “bigot.” In today’s media landscape, where figures like Joe Rogan hold as much influence as major celebrities, Trump’s alternative media appearances countered the negative portrayals from traditional outlets and when people watched him speak for three hours on Rogan or with Andy Schulz on the Flagrant Podcast, they couldn’t find the dictator or fascist that MSM had warned them about.”
Also, Harris’s team was believed to be sub-standard. According to the Times of India, “As Harris’s ratings dipped, her surrogates grew desperate. Hillary Clinton likened a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden to a Nazi gathering, while Obama admonished Black men for not backing Harris. Over the years, the idea has gathered steam that the Dem party takes Black voters for granted, as evidenced by a Michael Joke on SNL where he joked: “Without Black voters, the Democratic Party would be the Democratic Small Get Together.” Liz Cheney failed to convince moderates to vote for Harris, as did Barbara Bush. At the last moment, a plethora of celebrity endorsements made the Harris campaign look faux, particularly when Beyonce turned up and didn’t perform or Cardi B forget her lines. Vance was a far more reliable VP pick than Walz, whose lack of national exposure was starkly contrasted against Vance in the only debate they went up against.
On the other hand, Team Trump this time was very carefully handpicked to (strengthen) his weaker points. Trump, while a champion of retail politics, has always been poor on details. For that he had JD Vance, who left interviewers twisted after three hours with his smug logic. In Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump had a surrogate who not only countered his white supremacist stance but could debate a person without belittling them including crazy white evangelicals. RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, Jungian archetypes who appeal to people on their own accord, meanwhile being former Dems who gave an insider’s view on what went wrong with the party.”
As it looks, this defeat of the Democrats was deja vu. As part of a rethink, the party will have to ask itself whether, after two big time rejections, American voters are ready for a woman presidency. The American society is still largely masochistic and the party must learn to flow with the current. But preferring a Trump over a woman, Americans should be prepared to live with Trump’s anarchistic tendencies, his “bad and ugly.”
