As of production deadlines early on Wednesday morning Nov. 6, election returns from across the country indicated that twice-impeached former president Donald Trump and his vice presidential running mate Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance have been elected to a four-year term. While the Republicans have retaken control of the U.S. Senate, it’s uncertain which party will control the House of Representatives, a possible check on Trump’s power should the Democrats win control of that body.
Trump comes into office with a radical right-wing agenda, detailed in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, that proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice and EPA, be placed under direct presidential control – with 50,000 federal civil servants to be fired and replaced by Trump loyalists. Trump has pledged to deport more than 11 million undocumented immigrants, eviscerate corporate consumer and environmental regulations and reverse policies to address the climate crisis. Trump says he’ll veto any nationwide abortion ban, favored by his Republican allies, but has indicated he’s open to restrictions on contraception and the mailing of abortion medications.
To many across the country Donald Trump, who has praised Adolph Hitler and has repeatedly said he plans to prosecute and/or execute his political enemies, presents an existential threat to democracy. The next president, a convicted felon who attempted to violently overturn his 2020 election loss, is described by his former chief of staff as a fascist. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with John Nichols, The Nation magazine’s national affairs correspondent, who ponders the reasons why Trump won and what effective resistance to his extremist agenda could look like over the next four years.
JOHN NICHOLS: You know, it’s a bad night for the Democrats. How bad, we are going to find out. What was the problem? I think it’s a multiple problem. First and foremost, they ran a campaign that basically neglected economics at a whole host of turns. This is an election year that is about economics and the exit polls tell us this.
There’s a whole bunch of other factors that tell us this. You just didn’t hear Kamala Harris or Tim Walz, or frankly, a lot of the Democrats talking as much as they needed to about raising minimum wage, about the fact that when Trump was president, he restructured NAFTA and actually made it worse for workers. About the fact that in general, there are a whole host of explanation why our economies where it’s at today, good and bad. They just didn’t engage with that discussion at the level that they should have. And I think it harmed them tremendously.
I think it also harmed them that they didn’t sort out some sort of position as regards Gaza. And Gaza is a vital issue for a great many voters across the country, especially on campuses in Arab-American communities. But more broadly, I heard about this from rural organizers and rural activists in Wisconsin where I live. This issue comes up a lot. And it was one where Kamala Harris needed to put distance between herself and Joe Biden. She made some minimal effort at that convention in August. But as the campaign went on, there really wasn’t clarity there. And I think that did some harm.
At core, I think the economic issues were the biggest area of weakness. I think Gaza, as I said, another area of weakness. And then, you know, we should not neglect the reality that in the United States, we have shown an inability as a country to wrap our heads around the idea of electing a woman as president. And I think that is not a factor that should be undiscussed. It’s a reality and a painful one that we’ve gotta wrestle with. Because I believe America can elect a woman president and I believe it’s certainly time for that. But there’s clear evidence of resistance, I think, and that’s an issue we have to think about.
SCOTT HARRIS: What is your message to people who are horrified by what might be coming the next four years, and what should they take heart in terms of the power of resistance?
JOHN NICHOLS: Look, here’s the challenge. When Trump won the first time, I think there was a strong sense that he sort of dumb lucked into it, right? That Hillary Clinton was, like it or not, a uniquely non-viable candidate with a lot of voters. And she ran a campaign that didn’t connect in the ways that it needed to connect. And so, everybody had excuses and explanations for that.
This is different, even though Biden held on for too long and the hand-off to Harris was messy, ultimately it looked good on paper. But it didn’t actually play out in a realistic way. You know, there’s all these other factors that were in play, but the bottom line, I think, or the thing to kind of keep in mind here is Trump has won and he has won as Trump, and you can like him or dislike him, but that’s the fundamental reality.
And so as a country, we’ve gotta wrestle with that. And I think, you know, you can say, well, you’re gonna resist Trump. You’re gonna be in opposition to Trump understand that. But it’s got to now be a somewhat different kind of opposition than in the first term. This has gotta be an opposition that is rooted both in education and in criticism or/and in opposition, right? It is clear that there are a lot of people who have not, either don’t want to, in some cases that’s the case or have not heard a credible alternative argument to Trumpism, right?
And something that they would find more appealing more viable for them. And so I think that there’s absolute place for resistance. It’s more necessary than ever, but it does have to be a different kind of resistance, more sophisticated resistance and one that does a lot of education that says, you know, look, OK, you’re concerned about these issues.
Let’s talk about ’em. Let’s go deeper. Let’s go deeper on the economics. Let’s go deeper on foreign policy. Let’s make those connections between, you know, a failed foreign policy, a misguided, a damaging foreign policy and failures at home, right? All the economics and all the things that relate to that.
And so it will begin in the states. Big March in Washington is not the answer. Maybe you may do, it may be fun, but you have to work in the states. You’re gonna have to especially work in the states where you have, you know, some traction, something to work from. A Democratic governor, Democratic legislature, things of that nature.
Then you’re gonna have to build it out nationally. We’re gonna have to see emergent leadership, people that are ready to speak about these issues and to stand up in very strong, very clear ways to Trump. I think it will be a new generation of leadership. You’re gonna still see Bernie Sanders, but you’re also gonna see people, I think like AOC and others. These are people who can speak about Gaza, some of these other issues in much clearer, much more useful ways. That’s what I would say about where resistance stands.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with John Nichols and Norman Solomon (24:01) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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