World

Washington upheaval: How it happened, why it happened, and what happens next

Attendees at Howard University in Washington, DC, react as US Vice-President Kamala Harris, not pictured, speaks on Wednesday, 6 November 2024. Harris had called Donald Trump to concede the election. (Photo: Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images

By J Brooks Spector

18 Nov 2024

The US has entered the transition process from the Biden administration to Trump 2.0. Trump is moving quickly to determine his choices for senior positions, with loyalty as his key criterion.

The outcome of the recent general election in the United States reminds me of a story told about the renowned theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein. It seems he was riding on a train out of Princeton, New Jersey where he was living while he was at the Institute for Advanced Study.

As the train conductor came through to check passengers’ tickets, he saw the professor furiously checking all his pockets and his briefcase, then turning to the conductor to apologise that he could not find his ticket. Then, later, as the conductor returned to Einstein’s car again, this time he found the scientist on his hands and knees, on the floor, still looking for his ticket.

The conductor told him not to worry, there was no problem. The train staff knew him well; they knew he would not cheat by failing to pay for a ticket. Increasingly flustered, the physicist replied, “I’m looking for my ticket because I don’t know where I am going!”

In today’s American political landscape, it now seems that we, too, are hurtling forward aboard a train to an as yet unknown destination, now that Donald Trump is America’s president-elect.

America’s 2024 election did not follow the expected trajectory of previous hotly contested elections. And it has not, despite all the rancour, been an election that might only have been settled by the Supreme Court, as between George W Bush and Al Gore.

Instead, it was a year that featured a disastrous debate for President Biden against his opponent, and then the Democrats suddenly upending their half of the race, replacing Biden with incumbent Vice-President Kamala Harris.

washington trump kamala harris US Vice-President Kamala Harris speaks at Howard University in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, 6 November 2024. Harris had already called Donald Trump to concede the election. (Photo: Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Harris ran an optimistically toned race in the 100 days between her nomination and the election. But it became apparent she effectively was forced to introduce herself and her ideas to the nation – an effort that more usually occurs through the grind of primary campaigning, plus a long, prior public presence. Her opponent was one of the best-known people on the planet and whose campaigning could suck the oxygen out of nearly any room.

At the beginning of her campaign, Harris had gained a positive bump in popularity after an upbeat nominating convention. That was soon followed by an excellent debate performance against Donald Trump. These events, together with enormous fundraising success, much of it from small donors, collectively began convincing commentators the race might be too close to call, despite that earlier weak position for then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Then, too, there was a mass of polls, almost all pointing to the same conclusion – too close to call.

Amid this, in the aftermath of those two assassination attempts, massive funding by Elon Musk to a SuperPAC, plus endorsements from evangelical preachers, Trump was saying he was chosen by God to lead America’s redemption. Moreover, the armed threats predicted that in his inevitable success, he would be his and his supporters’ retribution against those who had attempted to bring him down.

Although it only became clear at the end of the electoral process, Trump benefited from material issued online on a wide range of internet sites. These sites and especially podcasts, were largely ignored by mainline media (and Harris’s campaign managers) in order to gain a full understanding of the shifts in attitudes.

Read more: Uncertain future: how a Trump presidency could reshape South Africa’s economic landscape

In the end, Donald Trump achieved a substantial win over his opponent, gaining the first popular vote majority for a Republican candidate in 20 years. His electoral vote margin was substantial and his party won an actual majority in the Senate – 53-47 – and a more modest one in the House of Representatives (a few seats remain undecided for various reasons).

(As an aside, in seven out of 10 states where referendums to guarantee women’s reproductive rights in state constitutions, the referendums securing those rights were winners. This issue was obviously potent for many voters but, in the end, it was not decisive.)

The transition begins

washington trump US president-elect Donald Trump arrives at a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC on 13 November 2024. (Photo: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

Now the country has entered the transition process from the Biden administration to Trump 2.0. Different from his previous term, Trump is moving quickly to determine his choices for senior positions. Between now and 20 January, he must decide on those major appointments, making recess appointments if necessary if Senate confirmation is not forthcoming quickly. He must also begin formalising an agenda of key measures he wants to achieve, early on, or even in the very first days; and he must establish a basis for international interactions.

In the days following Trump’s victory, the jockeying by people who hope to be appointed, or who have individuals they wish to have considered, is well under way. The hotels in and around West Palm Beach near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club are filled to capacity by such people, and many of them find their way to the club’s main dining room in the evening where the president-elect makes his nightly appearance. All of this seems to be taking place beyond what Trump’s chief of state or the formal transition team intends. One constant in this has been the presence of Elon Musk, Trump’s “best bro” and omnidirectional, omnipresent adviser.

Trump’s first step had been his announcement of Suzie Wiley as White House chief of staff. Wiley is a well-known, respected figure among veteran Washington types. She was the campaign manager for Trump’s victory this time around and is understood to be one of the few people who can successfully rein him in on an ongoing basis, but not, so far, apparently, on his naming of key senior officials. Presumably, she will still fare better than the quartet of chiefs of staff in his first administration.

Keep in mind that in contrast to a parliamentary system, there is no automatic hierarchy to step into office as an opposition’s shadow cabinet after an election and take over positions previously held by another leader’s cabinet. Sometimes, building a new administration by a new president features a series of public trial balloons and signs of things to come, but the formal identification of appointees comes beyond the trial balloon stage.

Read more: What Trump’s victory means for you, the world and SA – seven takes from Daily Maverick writers

Quickly following Wiley’s appointment, it was announced that New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik would be the new US ambassador to the UN. Stefanik is a complete Trump loyalist. In prior public statements, she has been extremely critical of the United Nations and its works.

Most recently and quite publicly, she attracted media attention during the congressional grilling of several heads of leading US universities over their handling of Gaza/Israel protests, the encampments on their campuses, and their treatment of Jewish students in the process. Stefanik effectively accused the heads of failing to defend the basic rights of students who did not wish to participate in the protests.

About Stefanik, Trump said, “Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.” Trump could have well added that her key attribute actually seems to be her intense loyalty to the Trumpian view of governing.

There will obviously be no “cabinet of rivals” for Donald Trump in the way Abraham Lincoln chose his cabinet during the existential crisis of the Civil War. For Lincoln, rather than picking buddies or looking for slavish personal loyalty, he selected a group of strong-minded, experienced, politically savvy figures, most of whom had already built major national reputations.

By contrast, in the incoming Trump administration, besides absolute loyalty to the Maga litany, one foundational element in the president-elect’s selection of cabinet officials seems to be in picking people who look like what he thinks cabinet secretaries should look like in the manner of a cinematic political thriller.

There is a strange, even eerie resonance with a long-ago, eighteenth-century Prussian king who recruited men for his royal guard, picking the tallest, seemingly fiercest, most imposing, would-be soldiers from across Europe, rather than from among human specimens who could make the best soldiers. Call this process the performative over performance.

Personal loyalty

Beyond body image, perhaps the most important hallmark of the Trump appointments process is going for personal loyalty to Donald J Trump, as with Stefanik. Long-time Trumpistas Steven Miller will be deputy White House chief of staff for policy, and Tom Homan, a veteran of the first Trump administration in dealing with immigration, will become his “immigration czar”. Together, they will be the sharp points of the spear for deportations of illegals, in tandem with a convert to the cult of uber-loyalty-to-Trumpism, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

Noem, as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, among other responsibilities, will be administratively responsible for border control and visas. Readers may recall her as the individual whose very short-lived candidacy for the presidential nomination cratered once she became infamous for shooting her dog, Cricket, because the pooch was not turning into a good hunting dog, as opposed to just being a family pet.

Former Republican congressman Lee Zeldin will go to the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. His mandate, it seems, is to roll back industry pollution regulations. He has little background in environmental law – but he does have good ties to industry – presumably those with issues over pollution.

trump US president-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on 6 November 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Early on, the president-elect named major elements of his national security team. Senator Marco Rubio will be nominated to be secretary of state and congressman Mike Waltz will be the National Security Advisor. Both men are from Florida and in prior years, neither was particularly known as heel-clicking, lockstep, saluting, Maga acolytes. Of course, Rubio, after years of criticising Trump and vying for the presidential nomination himself, in the past year or so seems to have imbibed some Maga-flavoured Kool-Aid.

Regardless of their current inclination to tug the forelock, in past statements, both men have clearly been more internationalist in their foreign policy orientations than the president-elect, with echoes of the older style of Reagan Republican internationalism.

Ambassador to Israel

One surprising appointment is Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has staked out policies that are closely aligned with those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – or even more extremely so. (One has to wonder how Arab- and Muslim-Americans who fell for Trump’s blandishments in the election now feel about their choice.)

Will the foreign/defence and security appointments like Rubio and Waltz’s be in tension with Trump’s “America First-style” appointees? Key among the latter are Pete Hegseth for the defence department, Stefanik as UN ambassador, and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

Hegseth’s major qualifications, such as they are, seem to be his weekly time slot on Fox News, along with being run out of the National Guard for his tattooed chest redolent with white supremacist iconography. He has zero experience in running a major organisation staffed by millions and a huge budget.

Meanwhile, former congresswoman Gabbard has been all over the political landscape. Even while still a Democrat, she has defended Bashar al-Assad’s murderous dictatorship in Syria and offered consolation to the tender feelings of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, essentially repeating Kremlin talking points. Her appointment is already generating consternation for many in the intelligence and foreign policy communities.

Thus, the big question is whether a squaring of the national security circle can be achieved in Washington between those two different perspectives, or, instead, will there be perpetual, shadowy infighting between those two camps?

Meanwhile, now-former Congressman Matt Gaetz (he of the swarm of investigations around his appallingly smarmy behaviour in Congress and outside of it) has been picked to be the country’s attorney general. Given his virtual lack of legal expertise and his crass reputation as a congressman, it is likely his nomination will face one of the tougher confirmation processes, even if the Republicans have a majority of the Senate. Maybe he will even be the sacrificial lamb that allows others to be voted in by a grand compromise of some sort.

As other nominations are being announced, we are seeing the naming of Andrew Carr to the Federal Communications Commission, a man who has promised to challenge Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft that form a group he called a “censorship cartel”, and Chris Wright, the head of an oil fracking company to be head of the energy department. It seems likely that other names to positions will follow this pattern, loyalty to the president-elect, plus a certain fox guarding the henhouse approach to governance.

There is also the odd note that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head something called the “department of government efficiency” to seek and destroy $2-trillion worth of government budget. There is, of course, no such department, and Congress will be unlikely to authorise one, let alone fund or staff it. Presumably the pair will operate outside official channels, but with that crucial access to Trump’s ear.

Read more: Rasputin’s return – what does Elon Musk really want, now that the US election is over?

Of course, all governments, anywhere, have waste and inefficiency embedded in them, but the meat cleaver approach is unlikely to have useful results, especially in the hands of people with no experience in governing. There is also, in the case of Musk, a growing appetite for government contracts in satellite and rocket launchings, and so Nasa and space exploration would be virtually untouchable in a hunt for easy targets.

In all of this splashing about, it is useful to recall Harry Truman’s comment about his successor, General Dwight Eisenhower and how “after all those years in the military, Ike will say ‘do this, do that’ but nothing will happen.” Truman was noting that giving orders is only a part of being president and that the crucial second part of governing is in persuading others to agree and then move forward.

Yes, Trump has had four years of experience at being president, but in his first term, much of what he wanted to do was ultimately thwarted by Congress or the courts, including repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) or his Muslim immigration ban.

One of the most influential students of the presidency, Richard Neustadt, observed the real power of the presidency is the power to persuade. Here again, the ghost of Harry Truman speaks when he said of his presidency, “I spend my time trying to convince some damn fool to do what he should have figured out what he should have done in the first place.”

The Democrats and Kamala Harris, going forward

But what of Kamala Harris? What is to become of her? She will be vice-president for a few months more and will presumably continue to advocate for the Biden administration’s projects and policies. Sadly for her and her president, any real achievements of the Biden administration in rebuilding a bruised economy after Covid and the administration’s efforts to revitalise bricks and mortar investment in manufacturing will, in the short term, be largely ignored, at least until historians begin reevaluating them.

trump harris Attendees at Howard University in Washington, DC, react as US Vice-President Kamala Harris, not pictured, addresses them on Wednesday, 6 November 2024. Harris had called Donald Trump to concede the election. (Photo: Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images

As for Harris, she will need to think about what she will do for the next four years – or more. Will she attempt to position herself as the presidential candidate-in-waiting for 2028? Or will she take up corporate or NGO-style organisation board memberships? Perhaps she will start her own foundation/think tank to advocate her ideas on government; or maybe she will join an already existing one such as the Center for American Progress (run by Ambassador Patrick Gaspard), giving her a convenient perch to stay in contact with other former officials – and the media.

Any or all of these choices could happen following a healing activity like crisscrossing the US on a “listening tour,” or maybe writing memoirs while relaxing at some lovely beach house on the California coast.

How the election happened

To understand what happened in the election, we must understand how the two candidates differently conceived the core of their appeals to voters.

Trump crafted a multi-part, overlapping pitch (think of one of those Venn diagrams we encountered in middle school), that said to voters:

1) Immigration is out of control. They are stealing your houses, jobs, futures, and, oh, don’t forget, eating your pets. And the immigrants are murderers, rapists, mental patients. We will deport them.

2) The economy is in terrible shape because of poor leadership. Your wages can’t cover your needs and everything is too high because of the Biden-Harris years. Kitchen table economic fears trump abstractions about the health of the economy. Here too, immigrants are taking your jobs.

3) The Chinese need to be punished because they export products made by low-paid workers. Those exports are destroying your jobs and American manufacturing. I will fix this with harsh tariffs.

4) And, as a further disaster, there is crime. And remember, the immigrants consume resources and destroy your cities. We will crack down on them (See #1).

Collectively, this became a landscape closely aligned with the mental landscape of many voters, especially for those who have found their lives harder than they remembered from pre-Covid times.

Trump brought all those positions into the overlapping congruence of an economic message that spoke to an easy, elegant solution: Elect me and I will fix things.

Moreover, he tagged the Harris campaign as being in thrall to a horrible woke agenda of LGBTI issues, DEI concerns (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), critical race theory, defunding police, and transgender operations in prisons and schools – the whole megillah.

By contrast, Harris built a campaign around two core issues:

Women’s reproductive rights and a principled defence of democratic values and behaviours. In that argument, the election of Trump would be a disaster both ways and, in particular, because he was a wannabe authoritarian. Yes, she talked about the economy, but it was largely to speak of the economic successes of the Biden administration in growth, increasing employment, lowering unemployment, pressing down on inflation now that the supply chains were fixed, and keeping wages up with inflation. But those more abstract numbers ran counter to feelings things for many were not going well in the nation’s economic life.

Read more: Panel weighs in on Trump’s election victory and what it means for America, SA, Africa and the world

Running against her as well, is that 2024 has been an anti-incumbency year in elections around the world (again, due to the baleful lessons of economics). That made it that much harder for her to succeed – even if there had been no other impediments or false steps. In the end, significant numbers of voters in almost every demographic category – save for black women and Jews – dropped their traditional support for Democrats in the case of Harris.

Underlying this was an electoral revolt by largely white, largely male, blue-collar, working- and middle-class voters across the country, but most crucially in the northern swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, plus North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Winning some of those would have been crucial for a Harris path to victory. Latino men also moved towards Trump – presumably on immigration issues and a certain socially conservative set of family values.

Sizing up the revolt, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote:

“The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn’t see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality.

“I guess it’s hard to focus on class inequality when you went to a college with a multibillion-dollar endowment and do environmental greenwashing and diversity seminars for a major corporation. Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself. Maybe the Democrats have to embrace a Bernie Sanders-style disruption – something that will make people like me feel uncomfortable.”

Brooks continued, “Can the Democratic Party do this [shift]? Can the party of the universities, the affluent suburbs and the hipster urban cores do this? Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that.”

Critics and commentators – in the weeks following the election – are already reaching the view that if Democrats hope to regain the initiative, they must find a version of populism that returns to their party’s roots as a welcoming home for working- and middle-class people via real programmes that improve their lives.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a successful Democrat in a reliably Republican state, added, “So the way forward is not complicated, but it takes work and discipline. The focus of the Democratic Party must return to creating better jobs, more affordable and accessible health care, safer roads and bridges, the best education for our children and communities where people aren’t just safer, but also feel safer. We do this through policy and by taking direct action that gets results.

“So while others are talking about political strategy and messaging, the way forward is really about focus and about action. The next several years are the Democratic Party’s chance to show the American people that we will not just run on but also govern by addressing those core issues that can and will improve the lives of our people. And perhaps the best part? These core issues and concerns aren’t partisan, and addressing them helps Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Reality check

And what about the world president-elect Donald Trump inevitably must face, rather than the one in his imagination? He is on record as saying he will end the war in Ukraine with the flick of a finger, and similarly unsnarl the Middle East tangle. He has had conversations with Vladimir Putin (with Elon Musk participating) and if media reports are accurate, he told Putin not to escalate the fighting in Ukraine any further. (Will Putin listen to a man whose words have largely rejected support for Ukraine?)

He has promised to end inflation, finish and klaar, even as he promises to raise tariffs on imported goods, most especially from China, an act that will be a driver of inflation.

There is likely to be a return to Schedule F restrictions on many senior career federal workers, plus transfers to distant locations.

He has promised to continue tax cuts for the rich and end taxes on tips and Social Security, even though non-partisan bodies warn these moves will increase the national budget deficit.

And, in nominating Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of health and human services, Trump will have yet another quirky ally who will task himself with restricting vaccination campaigns and fluoridation of potable water.

How all these measures will happen, along with mass deportations of illegal immigrants – disrupting agriculture, meat processing and service industries – is going to be a real test to NGOs, the core of the Democratic Party, and much of the judiciary system. If things go badly, it will affect the 2026 midterm election.

As far as foreign affairs go, while the larger picture will require a more in-depth, separate essay, for Africa, the big elephant in the room right now is Agoa, the African Growth and Opportunity Act: Should it be renewed, changed or even ended, in line with those transactional notions of tariffs and trade?

In that potentially dangerous development, perhaps there is a small positive side. Here, maybe, is an opportunity to begin negotiations over an all-Africa-US trade pact, perhaps mobilising the AfCFTA as a negotiating partner, and in demonstrating Agoa is beneficial to the US as well as Africa. Other aid programs like Pepfar and Power Africa or even military and security aid may possibly come under a budget microscope as well, and they could benefit from some fresh thinking about how they are presented to Americans.

Finally, who will inherit a broken Democratic Party as its leader?

Will governors like Gretchen Whitmer, Andy Beshear, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro and JB Pritzker step up, preaching that as governors they know how to make things work for citizens? Can they set up a meaningful dichotomy between the revival of Democratic-style populism versus the Republicans’ party of plutocrats who masquerade as populists? Or, will the Democrats move towards their more usual style as a circular firing squad?

As for Republicans, given the president-elect’s age, and with vice-president-elect JD Vance’s own youth by comparison, soon enough, Republicans will confront their own succession question. Trump can’t run again, and there are rivals in the party who will be eager to make themselves the inevitable go-to person in 2028. As Julius Caesar tells a friend, at least according to William Shakespeare, “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous”

We are in for a very bumpy four-year ride. DM

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