Support our Nation today - please donate here
Opinion

Trump Is Toast

25 Aug 2024 6 minute read
Kamala Harris. Photo Niall Carson/PA Wire

Ben Wildsmith

Donald Trump is going to lose in November. I’ll go further and suggest there is a pretty good chance that he’ll pull out of the race, or at least try to negotiate the conditions that would allow him to do that.

Last week’s Democratic National Convention was a very different affair than had been feared by those attending. Delegates who had been braced for a week of wincing, as Joe Biden mangled names and policies whilst staring into the distance at an approaching light, instead celebrated in sheer relief at the competence and vigour of the campaign behind Kamala Harris.

The Vice President herself exuded an easy confidence that belied the chaotic circumstances of her nomination. For all the smiling unity on display, there is a story yet to be told about how Biden was finally persuaded to step aside.

Whatever the murky details of that process, it was necessary skulduggery as the underlying narrative is of the old yielding to the new.

Abundant joy

The abundant joy on show in Chicago was rooted in more than relief at the overdue replacement of a deteriorating candidate. It reflected the passing of a political age, with Barack and Michelle Obama assuming the roles of party elders and a slew of younger politicians like Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan taking their place on the national stage.

Chicago was a fitting place for this transition to occur. The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in the city as protests against the Vietnam War were met with violent policing measures.

It was an iconic flashpoint of ideological politics that marked a difference in priorities between those born before and after WWII. We are at a similar juncture today.

Societies will always disagree on the way forward to an agreeable future. Those conversations, informed by our differing expertise and cultures, are how we learn from each other; how we grow. For them to bear fruit, though, there must be an appetite for the future, an urgency to shape the flow of history.

Societies fail when leaders can’t keep pace with the evolution of those they are leading. Watching the fateful debate between Trump and Biden was an experience that would have been familiar to people who had lived through the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Moribund leaders, whose world view was formed when they could bound up a flight of stairs, are both a symptom and a barely living embodiment of exhausted societies.

Mediocrity

Politicians flourish with the hot breath of potential successors on their necks. Great politicians nurture emerging talent with that in mind. Tony Blair and Mark Drakeford are recent examples of leaders who abandoned their legacies to mediocrity.

Americans, like us, are in desperate need of things upon which they agree. Muskian algorithms and outrage-incentivised media have prised open divisions in our societies so ruthlessly that our politics has become divorced from life as we live it.

The nuanced compromise of work, family, and neighbourhood is drowned out by deranged bellowing across ideological chasms that exist only to perpetuate the noise.

The absurdity of living on the breadline whilst authoritatively opining about leaving the EU on ‘WTO rules’, or devoting hours every day to ‘legitimate concerns about immigration’ when you live in a village with the cultural diversity of yoghurt speaks of societies that have given up on debate and sought solace in rage. It speaks of impotence.

Which brings us back to Trump. It can be difficult to see his appeal from this distance. Ill-natured machismo plays poorly in the UK, where our embittered misogynists have learned to cloak their inadequacy in layers of irony.

Royalty

Posturing atop a pile of money is reserved for royalty here, and that comparison is perhaps more apposite than any than can be constructed from the UK political scene (apologies to Andrew RT Davies).

Whenever there is a royal event nowadays, social media is awash with people railing against the anachronistic ostentation of it. Sparkly hats and golden carriages have become, for many, tawdry echoes of a history that crumbles into disrepute under ethical investigation.

The means by which European and American wealth was accumulated have become a matter of concern all around the world, so the celebration of it is becoming unacceptable. It is, simply put, cringe.

If 2024 had a lesson to teach, it is that 2016 is history. As that period’s ageing electorate starts to be replaced by a younger cohort, politicians who can’t adapt are doomed.

Trump’s campaign, which hitherto relied on Biden’s infirmity as its central plank, is all at sea when it comes to Harris. Clunking references to race, she ‘turned black’ according to Trump, and the misogynistic jibes that found an audience when aimed at Hilary Clinton, are falling on ever stonier ground.

Most illustrative of this is Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance’s horrendously misjudged remarks about ‘childless cat ladies’ in politics. Much of the 2024 electorate heard that, before looking at Harris’s adoring stepchildren and recognising the wholesome dynamics of a successful blended family.

They saw the choices that people make in order to make a difference.

Toxic

There remains much to worry about in America. Harris is running without much of a policy offering; the nation’s foreign policy remains troubling, and the fundamentals of its economy drive inequality on its shores. In looking to the future, however, the Democrats have shifted the dial.

A conversation can be had that isn’t dominated by toxic nostalgia. The looming realities of climate change, AI, and a multipolar world must be shaped by people who have time enough left to experience them. The uncertainties of the future won’t be halted by yearning for an imagined past.

If the polls tip far enough, Trump will feel the chill of a prison cell approaching. Nothing within him could sustain the humiliation of a loss so emphatic as to be undeniable, still less the prospect of incarceration.

In return for a pardon, Trump’s threats of autocracy could be taken off the ballot paper. In granting one, Biden would secure his legacy.

Labour’s insistence that we accept its uninspiring election offer here in the UK was dishonest. There was no route to victory for the Conservatives and they knew it.

In America, the peril is real and by orders of magnitude more terrifying. By unifying behind Harris, the Democrats may have saved democracy.


Support our Nation today

For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

28 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jeff
Jeff
3 months ago

Trumps goons are already stacking the area’s that involve counting and validating votes, he has his places in the judiciary (Canon etc.). I wont write him off yet and the language he is using is set up to get the usual suspects doing a Jan 6th re run if he loses. He has already told the world that he will trash the joint of he wins, why not if he loses. I hope Harris buries him in the election. Strange how everyone in the press singles Biden out for fluffing words but never ever remind us that trump is as… Read more »

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff

‘I won’t write him off yet.’ I’m inclined to agree. Factor 1: will middle America voters back a candidate who is (a) a woman and (b) has mixed south Asian and Afro-Caribbean heritage. They might, but at this point I wouldn’t want to bet on it. And if that weren’t enough, we need to consider Factor 2, which is that Trump clearly already sees himself as ‘America’s choice’ – and he seems to have rather a lot of middle America disciples who share his conviction. If the outcome of the election turns out to be that he loses, and for… Read more »

Last edited 3 months ago by John Ellis
Uhh
Uhh
3 months ago
Reply to  John Ellis

I love how you’re doing the Hillary thing of “If she loses, it’s because voters are sexist”, as if there weren’t countless women who hated her as well. Hillary and Trump were both awful candidates and Kamala’s awful too

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Uhh

Not really; what I actually had in mind was the late Dick Tuck, a US political strategist, who once opined: ‘“The people have spoken – the b@st@rds.”

Uhh
Uhh
3 months ago
Reply to  John Ellis

America deserves better than Red team vs Blue team and so do we

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Uhh

You won’t find me quarrelling with you there!

Jeff
Jeff
3 months ago
Reply to  John Ellis

He knows what is needed to cheat this time around vs 2020. He now owns the RNC effectively, that was a quite coup not touched a lot by much of the press (it got a mention or two). His daughter in law is now head. They have been shifting people into place that have openly said they will not certify votes where trump will lose. They are making it harder to post in votes in many states (his Postal head was in post to game this, not sure Biden has sacked him yet). Then there are a slew of people… Read more »

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff

I don’t follow the intricacies of the US political scene as closely as you appear to do, and so I can’t really respond usefully to some of what you’ve posted.

But I share your instinct that a Harris win next November, if that were to be that outcome of the election, won’t on this occasion settle the matter of the presidency, as it long did before the Trump era dawned.

Mawkernewek
Mawkernewek
3 months ago
Reply to  John Ellis

The other factor could be that Kamala Harris is from California, and a lot of people in other states might not want a Californian as President.

John Ellis
John Ellis
3 months ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

You could be right – at least that sounds plausible. But I don’t know enough about the intricacies of the US political scene to offer an opinion which might be of value.

Uhh
Uhh
3 months ago
Reply to  Mawkernewek

Or, they just wish there was a third option and no FPTP

Bela'Rheeth
Bela'Rheeth
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff

Gofrwysgder. Llwyr
Pwy Byd wy’t ti”preswylio mewn,yn amlwg byd Ddychmygol.Dyw “Kam~ala” yn cynnig fawr o ddim ond am fwy o bathu fwy o arian(sydd dim ar gael- yn lle cynta’) er mwyn pharhau a’r “ennyd” o ddim i gynnig ond am pholesiau di-werth ac hefyd yn anpherthnasol i anghengion pobol. cyffredyn.Diweithdra ac ddiofeudd yr ton o cyffyriau sy’ wedi. boddi bywydau y ‘gwerin fel
Cymlawdd yn golchi mewn o r Ffin Ddeheuol.Dyhynwch Lan ac. EDRYWCH YR “COFFEE” er mwyn Yr TAD TANGNEFOL

Jeff
Jeff
3 months ago
Reply to  Bela'Rheeth

With respect. I don’t speak Welsh.

A.Redman
A.Redman
3 months ago

It is difficult to understand the MAGA Trump supporters being so in awe of someone who preaches one thing but totally ignores anything or anyone that dares to hold different opinions to himself. Constantly using personal abuse as a weapon of choice His contempt for the judiciary is plain for all to see unless they are in position due to his patronage.Will they be so supportive should he suffer the ignomy of incarceration in the US penal system if found guilty of the charges he faces?

Garry Jones
Garry Jones
3 months ago

This analysis and projection of the likely outcome for Mr Trump this November, is convincing for me. In the event of such a plea bargain pitch, it should be accepted by the sitting President. 
Better we hold our noses, and this serial felon escapes his nemesis, than accepting the perhaps small risk he wins, or loses by a small margin in November, with all the calamities that would surely follow that event.

S Duggan
S Duggan
3 months ago

There was much apathy regarding this election just a few short months ago but now it’s caught fire. Finally people have a credible candidate to vote for. Biden was/is a good guy but past it ane Trump just a crook – what a choice. With Harris women and ethnic minorities, in particular, now know Trump can be beaten. Let’s hope Trump is well and truly toasted and behind bars for Christmas.

Uhh
Uhh
3 months ago

Trump’s a notorious war criminal
Biden’s a notorious war criminal
Kamala Harris is a…well, you get the picture

I wish America would stop lecturing the rest of the world about the importance of freedom and democracy, when they have neither

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Uhh
Uhh
3 months ago

A warning to Kamala Harris: Joe Biden’s support among Black and brown voters in 2020 was lower than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016. Don’t take votes for granted

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54972389

Ap Kenneth
Ap Kenneth
3 months ago

I just hope that Harris can come up with a coherent story that appealsto enough voters in the places that matter. But we should not forget that some of Trumps policies were carried on by Biden – China and a foreign policy that drops the world policeman role.

Rob
Rob
3 months ago

Donald Trump represents a clear and present threat to democracy. Lookup Project 2025. If the most powerful and influential country on the planet were to become an autocracy it would have global ramifications for everyone. Trump should have been barred from ever standing for office again after the events of 6 January 2021.

Our Supporters

All information provided to Nation.Cymru will be handled sensitively and within the boundaries of the Data Protection Act 2018.