What happened

North Carolina looked like a fairly normal election, but the national landscape did not.

Well, this sucks. Donald Trump is going to sweep the battleground states, win the national popular vote, and inherit the strongest economy in decades. He will also go to the White House with a GOP Senate, meaning the Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will step down to be replaced by conservatives who can serve for another thirty or forty years. If Republicans hold the House, Katy bar the door.

In North Carolina, the election looked remarkably normal. The presidential race went to the Republicans while Democrats won the Governor’s Mansion and several council of state seats. That’s the third election in a row with that pattern.

We don’t know what would have happened if the Republicans had nominated normal candidates for those statewide offices. Mark Robinson was possibly the most flawed candidate that I’ve seen in politics and he still took 40% of the vote. Michele Morrow is little more than an internet troll wallowing in nutty right wing conspiracies and she got 49% of the vote. Dan Bishop lost the attorney general’s race, in part, because he’s spent the last seven or eight years defining himself as an extremist legislator and Member of Congress. Rachel Hunt won the lieutenant governor’s seat by defining Hal Weatherman as an extremist in the mold of Mark Robinson. Democrats need to recognize that they won those seats, in part, because of poor candidate quality.

The lesson here is that money matters. The ads that exposed Robinson killed his campaign. The ads that educated voters about the histories of Morrow and Bishop probably sank their chances. Even Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, usually one of the most popular candidates on the ballot, had to run ads to eke out a two-point victory.

In North Carolina, turnout was down from four years ago. Back then, 75% of registered voters showed up while only 73% voted this year. Most of the missing 150,000 or so voters were probably Democratic voters. Even though counties like Wake and Mecklenburg increased their population and share of registered voters over the past four years, they voted at the same number of people as they did in 2020, indicating a drop in overall turnout.

Trump expanded his margins in rural counties by about four points or so across the board. In contrast, Harris did not improve on Biden’s margin in the urban and suburban areas. I suspect Democrats are still failing to reach working class voters of all stripes.

Last night was a wholesale rejection of Democratic governance at the federal level and an embrace of right-wing reactionaries. I’ve seen posts complaining that Democrats need to nominate their own economic populists, but the two most populist Democrats in the Senate, Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown, both lost their seats. No, Democrats have allowed themselves to be defined as cultural extremists and the party that’s allowing the country to be overrun by immigrants.

I think what happened this election is part of a global rise of right-wing populism. Socially conservative, native-born citizens believe that they are losing their cultural identity to foreign ideas and immigrants and that liberal policies are to blame. They want strongmen who can stop the forces that they perceive as destroying their lives. It’s a reaction to the rise of globalism, a phenomenon that’s not easily going to be stopped or reversed.

It’s too early to predict how bad a second Trump term will be. Some of the hyperbole of the left will prove to be false. Most people living in upscale areas probably won’t feel much pain or see their quality of life altered dramatically. Marginalized communities will feel the brunt of attitudes and policies.

The people most at risk are immigrants. Trump will begin deporting them pretty quickly and will likely set up some sort of camp system. The Senate will not get rid of the filibuster to make sure Democrats stop some the right’s most politically damaging instincts. For instance, they won’t be able pass a national abortion ban, but they can blame Democrats for keeping it from coming to a vote in the Senate.

Our foreign policy will likely be turned upside down. Trump will likely appease the dictators in Russia and China. It’s why both countries hoped for his victory. I’m very worried about Ukraine. If Trump doesn’t pull us out of NATO altogether, our role will be diminished.

The coming years will be difficult. The political landscape has likely changed for a long time. Now is not the time to push for new progressive policies. Now is the time to oppose the wave of reactionary populism.

As for me, I’ll dust myself off and continue to fight. I don’t know what else to do.