How often can the same brutal lesson be taught to a complacent Democratic establishment? In 2016, they were certain that the unlikable, entitled Hillary Clinton would romp to victory over Trump, so long as the mainstream press and party machine swung efficiently behind her. This year, they didn’t even bother with a primary process as Joe Biden was hustled off stage as soon as his decrepitude was made manifest to all. 

The cynicism of Kamala Harris’s candidacy didn’t stop at the backstage arm twisting that went into her last minute elevation to Presidential candidate. It was present in every aspect of her campaign from her largely policy free appeal to “joy” to her evasion of media scrutiny. This potemkin political campaign, propped up by an often sycophantic liberal media desperate to believe that Trump would be thwarted once again, has finally been found out.

By midnight, her carriage was already well on its way to being a pumpkin. Numerous important swing states had gone to Trump, and only a sweep of the Rust Belt would salvage matters. It wasn’t to be. Trump has won the battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, dashing Democratic hopes entirely.

There was no shortage of money, lack of organisation or failure of message discipline to blame for this catastrophe. American voters simply didn’t like or trust Kamala Harris enough to support her over Trump, and they had good reason to feel that way. Harris, like Clinton, is blatantly entitled, inauthentic, and grating. Whatever energy her campaign had came from relief at the dropping of Biden, and the ecstatic reception of an essentially captive media. It didn’t, and couldn’t last. 

What does this result mean for America? In the first instance, it certainly doesn’t mean, despite the ravings of Trump’s opponents, that democracy in America is in peril. Even apart from the dubious notion that Trump is a committed authoritarian, there is no sign he has any alternative vision to liberal democracy, let alone the potent ideological and institutional support needed for enacting such an utter reversal of American norms. 

For the Democratic Party, it will mean a reckoning. Either they will have to forcefully break with their attachment to a divisive politics of progressivism, linked to the identity politics of a university educated population, or they will hysterically embrace that politics with renewed vigour and fanaticism. Where that fight will end up is anyone’s guess.

In the short term, a new Republican government will face all the same challenges as Biden’s administration, and Trump will have four years and little leverage to work with. Even as Democrats tear themselves apart over this result, Republicans will be more quietly at work planning for the future of their party after Trump. They will, after four years, have to move beyond him, but his impact is irreversible. Whatever conservatism becomes in future, the days of Reaganite fusionism are dead and buried. Elections are being contested on new turf.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of this election is the increasingly diverse character of the Trump electorate, even as Republican politics becomes militantly nationalist and closed-border. As I discussed in my pre-election essay, America is a country that is divided by identity categories, and defined by an increasingly individualist ethos. Identity is less about solidaristic politics of collective interest, than it is a selfish politics of affective self-assertion. One typical comment renounced any interest in the policies under dispute in this election, and expressed the desire to simply see their enemies cry. 

Whatever the visceral satisfactions of seeing your opponents self-immolate, this is no way to govern a country or elect a leader. Trump may not be the monster his opponents make him out to be, but nor is he a man fit to lead the free world. This obvious fact is swept aside by a factional politics of mutual grievance and hatred. 

Forget the jokes, the memes, and the scaremongering. Talking to American friends on my visit here, it is swiftly obvious how destructive this election has been. Many are deeply concerned about family and friends who feel attacked and rejected by Trumpian politics. Perhaps more worrying are the even greater numbers simply cynically numbed by the entire dispiriting process, especially young people, who are disengaging from politics altogether.

Nor should all this be cause for celebration for US conservatives. The immiseration and alienation of political opponents may be a source of temporary schadenfreude, but it ultimately erects lasting barriers to their ability to effect change, or persuade fellow citizens. 

From an increasingly senile Biden, to the grating and condescending Harris, the Democratic Party has assumed it can inflict any candidate it chooses

Intelligent American political actors, of both left and right, need to find ways to think beyond the destructive divisions that have defined this election, and formulate a more unifying account of American nationhood. JD Vance, now destined to be Vice President, and a onetime critic of Trump and no unthinking partisan, could prove a crucial figure. With his extraordinary background growing up in poverty, and his willingness to combine leftwing economics with rightwing social conservatism, he is uniquely well placed to define a new American politics. But he will have to break with Trump’s style and habits in important ways if he is to grow into such a figure. Idiotic and destructive lies, such as the absurdity of the Haitian pet-eating story, are indicative of the kind of politics that serve Republican narratives in the short term, whilst, with good reason, setting many liberal and moderate voters eternally against them.  

But for now, the harshest questions will be asked of an American Left that has continually failed to take voters seriously, or offer them serious and substantial candidates. From an increasingly senile Biden, to the grating and condescending Harris, the Democratic Party has assumed it can inflict any candidate it chooses. That illusion has been shattered today, and that, at least, is no bad thing for American democracy.