On November 5, we observed a considerable and striking shift to the right among the American electorate. The U.S. has revealed itself to be distinctly more conservative than many had thought—something we observed across many age groups, around the country, and among minorities from Black Americans and Latinos to Indigenous people. The economy can explain part of it, certainly, but it seems what we saw should also be understood as a value-shift much more than just a response to perceptions about the economy (which by many of the usual measures is doing quite well, though clearly in rather uneven ways).
In the end, Donald Trump managed to mobilize his voters, and Kamala Harris failed to do so. There is much to analyze about the election campaign—how people these days get information and thus about what kind of messaging works for them, what ultimately motivated them to vote as they did, etc.—but what we are now observing is a conservative shift around various dimensions of value. The four distinct elements I see in these first days are:
1. Leadership Style
(A) Voters showed a distinctive preference for authoritarian, strongman, personality-cult leadership, over the messy business of democracy. They understand that presidential power was substantially strengthened through recent Supreme Court decisions. They also understand that Trump intends to exert revenge on his enemies, the group he ominously calls the “enemy within.” His disdain for democratic institutions has been on display all along. That people voted for him nonetheless expresses not just that they are aware of these things and don’t mind, but rather that they prefer his leadership style.
(B) The misogynistic rhetoric also suggests that a distinctive version of machismo is at work here—the strongman must indeed be a man, and presumably a white man. It seems Trump gets a lot of credit under the rubric of “boys will be boys”; large parts of the electorate were forgiving when it comes to his failures in this domain.
2. The Focus on the Here and Now
(A) Climate change played almost no role in this election, even though timing around this matter is critical. So the future played no role—also regarding the promises of considerable tax cuts and other measures that promise to alleviate economic burdens today, despite the fact that they can only be realized via a massive increase of public debt tomorrow.
(B) While the American economy overall is strong, its strength has failed to reach many people, and worries about inflation and also housing have overpowered many other concerns.
(C) Anti-immigrant rhetoric was very strong, sometimes appealing to an American sense of fairness (“they need to stand in line”), but sometimes also pandering to deep-seated in-group/out-group dynamics. We should expect the rhetoric around mass-deportations to be very politically potent. There are many more than 10 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., including at least half a million “Dreamers,” the people who came to the U.S. as minors and have not been able to become documented. We should take the rhetoric around mass-deportations very seriously.
(D) In the foreign-policy domain, we can expect a mix of isolationism and transactional approaches to alliances.
3. The Rebuttal of Emancipatory Agendas
I see this election result as a widespread reaction against the emancipatory agendas that we at the Carr Center support and believe in, such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the global LGBTQI+ movement. Specifically evident in this election were questions of women’s rights and trans rights.
(A) It was widely expected that topics around women’s reproductive rights would play a much larger role than they did. It seemed to matter comparatively little, especially to male voters, that the Roe v. Wade settlement about abortion rights has been discarded.
(B) Fierce rhetoric against transgender individuals was a strong part of Trump’s campaign, in the name of family values, and we should think of this election result also as a larger rebuttal of the whole domain of emancipatory causes around people outside the gender binary.
4. Liberal Disconnect and Anti-Establishment Rhetoric
Liberal cultural elites (AKA, us here at Harvard) are perceived as not working in the service of the country as a whole, and certainly not on behalf of socio-economically disadvantaged social classes. This remains an ongoing issue. Books like Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal! and Chloe Maxmin’s Dirtroad Renewal speak to this, and make suggestions on what to do.
The Democratic party has yet again failed to understand a widespread national point of view, and has failed to effectively reach even some of their historically loyal voters. The party needs to adapt. To some extent this is about liberal disconnect, but the Harris coalition also very visibly included prominent conservatives—who were perceived as establishment figures rather than drivers of what many voters regarded as a much-needed conservative response.
If indeed a shift towards conservatism is what has been going on here, we should expect the culture wars to intensify and involve universities at an even larger scale. In the foreign policy domain, isolationism and transactionalism are likely to be bad for human rights causes around the world. Trump’s return to the White House will be welcome news for Putin and his war against Ukraine. And it will also be welcome news for Netanyahu and his policies around Gaza and Lebanon.
If we want to strengthen these liberal causes (which have been sidelined by this conservative shift) and more, we as a human-rights community must continue to do two things: (1) stand up for them at home and abroad; and (2) shift narratives so that they are understood as inclusive cultural values rather than values imposed by an elite that is otherwise out of touch.
We must try to find ways to make our contribution to the healing of our divided country by first recognizing the failures of the liberal side and understanding the desires and needs of our neighbors.