IT’S NOT ALL DOOM… SOME OF IT’S JUST GLOOM.

Many friends and family across the pond are dumbfounded. How did they just re-elect Donald Trump in the good ole USofA? As the man who publicly predicted an electoral college win and a popular vote win for a uniquely American figure who is both worshipped and reviled, I am well-placed to shed light on the WHY.

Many pundits incorrectly identified ‘January 6th’ as the nail in the coffin of the Republican party. Trump was delivered on a silver platter to Republican senators who could finally rid themselves of the orange menace. But that day of insurrection convinced conservatives once and for all that Donald Trump was the only choice. What Republicans saw on that day was a cohort of people from all walks of life willing to storm the capital for one man. Willing to go to jail. Follow that man, and you’ll, at best, permanently shift the U.S. to the right and, at the very least, rule the nation for a generation… likely two. The 2020 election – and it was legitimate – of a decrepit, befuddled and stuttering (Americans are unforgiving of those who dare to grow old in the public spotlight) man who promised the most progressive government since FDR, heralded the death of the Democratic Party. Clear-thinking Republicans knew that any Democratic policies that would help working-class Americans wouldn’t be felt during Biden’s administration. Trump would win in 2024, and a new Republican government could claim it was they who fixed inflation.

‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ The U.S. stats are truly impressive compared to other western nations. But perspective is everything. If you feel it’s awful… it is. The high price of staple goods is only ever blamed on the incumbent. Trump does not worry about the domestic effect of his tariffs. I suspect he judges that any domestic damage done will be short-lived and long forgotten by 2028.

The great myth about abortion is that anyone is 100% comfortable with it. And there is the reality that many conservative voters in America are single-issue voters. A national abortion ban is the only righteous option for them. A vote for Trump is a vote closer to that outcome. Within the pro-life movement, those who wanted to see an end to abortions lost out to those who wanted to see a ban on abortion. The two are not in concert with one another; abortions have ticked up since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. This reminds me of the old adage, the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want. Empiricism does not factor into such viscerally emotional fights underpinned by religious beliefs, but the tree that cannot bend will eventually snap. The Temperance Movement and Prohibition come to mind. Now that women trying for a family have begun to die because doctors refuse to perform necessary procedures after a miscarriage, the moral dimension is about to get a lot muddier. And so, Trump is a victory for the pro-life cause, but many conservatives also voted for state amendments to state constitutions that now guarantee the right to an abortion… in red states, no less. While birthrates continue to drop worldwide, threatening to destabilise the global economy as the century progresses, pro-lifers have now targeted IVF treatments as the next great moral fight. I predict there will come a time when conservative voters will view the pro-life movement as a threat to America’s economic powerhouse status. Follow the money, as they say.

Americans aren’t clueless about the rest of the world. They look at the War in Ukraine and see two co-existing realities: they want Ukraine to win but recognise that Putin would sacrifice every single Russian to win the war. Putin would also likely go nuclear should he see a firing squad in his future. Why throw money and weapons at a hopeless situation? One candidate said our support is unending. The other said the deaths will be unending unless a bargain is struck. After over two decades of the War on Terror, it’s no surprise that Americans are exhausted. During WWII, when General Patton suggested the Allies keep marching to Moscow, the American president reigned him in. People were tired and no longer had the stomach for a fight.

There are two schools of thought on human beings. One belief is that people are not who they were in the past. Wisdom, regret, experience, success and failures transform an individual for the better. Those who believe that people never really change are quite happy to condemn and cancel anyone but themselves for the smallest historical infractions… conflating poor choices with the actions of monsters. Compassion and Free Speech become casualties in such a world, allowing an opening for convicted criminals to climb the ladder to messiah status.

But perhaps the greatest sin to have far-ranging and diabolical consequences is the abandonment of young men. It is, in my opinion, the greatest threat to social cohesion. I’m a fan of Jane Austen. She goes into great detail in her novels about what happens to women with no economic and mating prospects. They don’t burn down the house they are living in. Some men… once they figure out they are going to live alone in their parents’ basement without any chance of romance… get in their 20-year-old white vans and run down mums pushing prams in city centres around the world. For our daughters’ sakes, we need to figure out how to care about young males again and not label them ‘Just Ken’. We have as a society rightly sought to do a better job at protecting the most vulnerable… LGBTQ citizens and refugees remain close to mind. But in an age when men are four times more likely to die from suicide than women, it is Trump who primarily spoke to young men.

Finally, joy is not a campaign platform. Her advisors were abysmally bad. Kamala deserves a hug from all of us. She was a sacrificial lamb. Biden should have stepped aside after the mid-terms, when his declining faculties became evident to all, and actually given her a shot. Transitioning to a female president could have offered America a reset. I now expect history to prove unkind to Biden’s presidency. America sits in the bottom half of the global league table for gender equality in the political realm. You don’t attain such a coveted spot through American women voting for American women. They certainly don’t vote for women who wear pantsuits. Dresses… maybe. Take a lesson from Thatcher’s book next time. Condemn me if you wish for pointing out that humans are shallow creatures. When America does elect a female president, she will likely be a Republican. Sun Tzu instructs us that wars are won or lost through actions taken before any battle commences. A Biden resignation of the presidency was the potentially winning move he was unwilling to make. As it stands, the Democrats had no chance of winning anything but the virtue signaling contest.

I do have hope… that the UK will get its free-trade deal with the US and that the electric car industry will survive because Musk cozied up to Trump. I also hope that technology initiatives like EarthShot will do for climate change what pr environmentalism could not, and that people will stop believing the end of the world is around the corner simply because those social media accounts who say it is acquire the most ‘likes’. We owe our children a little optimism. There is always hope.