Alex Kane: Donald Trump may have lost, but his influence will remain

This is what I wrote in the News Letter on July 25, 2016: ‘The battle between now and November 8 isn’t just an ideological one. This is about two candidates who hate each other. It’s about two electoral camps, embracing upwards of 150 million, who hate each other. So it’s going to be one of the most bloody, unpleasant and polarising contests that America has seen since the Civil War era. It’s actually a battle about what it means to be an American and who is entitled to describe themselves as such ... He could win.’

A few days after his inauguration he tweeted: ‘I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!’

Well, he did establish a presidential commission, but dismantled it 10 months later when it couldn’t find anything of substance. That was the same conclusion reached by the official post-election inquest and by a number of independent studies. In fairness, they did find a few instances of fraudulent behaviour (which occur in every election, everywhere) but nothing which suggested a massive, states’-wide conspiracy to ‘steal’ the election.

Which is why Trump did nothing, absolutely nothing, after his post-inauguration tweet to reform voting procedures. Yet, even before the 2020 election was in full swing he was back to the allegations of fraud and theft.

Interestingly, he’s now back to blaming the media for winning the election for Biden, as well as preventing the truth from ‘being exposed’. This is the man who has spent the last five years insisting that mainstream media was fake, lame, dying, untrusted and shedding readers by ‘the truck-load’. Yet suddenly this same media is powerful enough to swing an election against him! Even his network of choice, Fox News, put the boot into him in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when it called Arizona for Biden; beginning the speculation that he was in trouble.

Trump had numerous opportunities to do things differently. He chose not to. His strategy from the moment he threw his hat in the ring in 2015 was division and polarisation. That strategy worked for him and he won. But a key to his victory was that Hillary Clinton was hated – and I really do mean hated – by nearly all of the Republican base and by some sections of the Democratic Party.

He should have assumed his 2020 opponent wouldn’t be her and would, instead, be likely to be someone who could reach further into the Democratic base as well as tapping into any evidence of Republican discontent.

He should have done what Ronald Reagan had done in the 1970s (when what we now understand as the ‘culture war’ was just kicking off) and framed conservatism as an optimistic, forward-looking vision for the country.

Instead, Trump fed into and fuelled the bonkers narrative of an alt-right movement which saw everything in terms of win and lose and had no interest in compromise or building a coalition of causes and political/socio/cultural interests as close as possible to the electoral centre ground. It was a form of political evangelism steered by Matthew 12:30 – ’He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.’

Trump’s strategy of making enemies – he seemed genuinely pleased when another one was added to the list – was always going to end in failure. He could have tried to make friends across the media. He could have opened his door and opened his ears. He could have thought more carefully before he opened his mouth.

He could have followed through on some of his better ideas (North Korea, China and much-needed pressure on the United Nations); but he was lazy and rarely went beyond the headline-grabbing soundbite. He could have locked his mobile away and read briefing papers instead.

The election wasn’t stolen from him. He lost: and he lost because ‘Sleepy Joe’ put together a huge coalition. That’s not to say that he didn’t do well, because he did. The second-highest vote ever for a presidential candidate and, by a mile, the highest ever for a losing candidate.

That should not be forgotten. Trump, if he so chooses, will still have a huge influence on US politics. He could easily start a new party. Crucially, he leaves the Republicans with a whopping headache: how do they reshape themselves for 2024 without risking the extra votes Trump won over?

That’s also a problem for Biden. America is at its best when run from the centre, but I was struck by how muted the applause was when he told his audience on Saturday evening that he wanted to ‘reach out’ to Republicans.

Something has changed in America over the last decade in terms of how people see their country and how they view themselves within the country. Bringing together what looks like two polar opposites may, in fact, be too big an ask anytime soon.

Closer to home, some unionists are getting over-excited by the prospect of ‘nationalist Joe’ (it may be something to do with the fact that sections of unionism always seem to need a bogey-man) in the Oval Office. They shouldn’t worry. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, served as vice-president for eight years from 2009-16 and didn’t exactly tire himself out on our problems.

Yes, he clearly favours Irish unity, but he won’t be pushing that agenda; not least because neither the UK nor the Irish will want him to push it.

The real problem for unionism, of course, is Boris Johnson and some of the alt-right around him; people who would happily let Northern Ireland go if it looked like getting in the way of a clean-break Brexit.

Mind you, finding another bogey-man is probably easier than acknowledging how often, easily and spectacularly the DUP was outmanoeuvred and let down by just about every key player in the Conservative Party.

——— ———

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Alistair Bushe

Editor