What now america?

With the election season behind us, and a new presidential administration taking office in January of 2025, what lessons can we learn and how does the nation move forward?

News Media

In 2015 I began to pen the first of my political thriller series, choosing a journalist as protagonist. Why? Journalism was failing us.  The hero needed to be someone who could validate the profession, at least in some corner of my mind.

Once upon a time, we could turn on the news and feel confident in its objectivity. “60 Minutes” was a weekly, seasonal ritual for me with its deep investigative reporting. The news media inevitably changed when company bosses, and perhaps shareholders, insisted that news divisions turn a profit.  I’m not privy to news media financials though I can assert that news morphed into an entertainment business, away from presentation of news.  Opinions rule the day.  Those opinions are accelerants within their respective echo chambers.  If your own opinion differed from their opinion, you were labeled [a pejorative term].  For a contrast, watch NHK World from Japan.

Social media and podcasts/videocasts filled a news vacuum.  We were exposed to a broader segment of knowledge and reporting through people with cameras and microphones.  This was a good news, bad news proposition.  We didn’t have a “trusted” source for information since, of course, that was the purview of traditional media.  Yet, there were combinations of authoritative and open-source channels of information that captured attention, to the chagrin of the media.  My early COVID research relied heavily on these channels.  The Empire, however, would strike back.

The Twitter files disclosure and Facebook mea culpas demonstrated active collusion between government and social media to suppress and manipulate information. Much of this machinery came to life in 2020.  I was disheartened when Lester Holt of NBC, someone I once dubbed “the hardest working man in news journalism”, assert that news organizations had a responsibility to censor content they felt was misinformation or disinformation.  The Democratic Party nominee for Vice President, Tim Walz, echoed similar sentiments.  There’s a reason the Bill of Rights begins with a declaration of free speech since without it, you will not enjoy a functioning society.  While the First Amendment specifically points at restrictions on government, we should not have any expectation the press will do their bidding.

If necessity is the mother of invention, independent news journalists, formerly employees of traditional news media, filled the void.  I spoke about this transition in a university entrepreneurship class, demonstrating how new business models supporting objective reporting were disrupting traditional news.  Candidly, it’s more work for the citizenry to find objective news in this distributed fashion given we used to find it on ABC, CBS, NBC, and early versions of CNN.  Critical thinking also requires effort.  Indie journalists like Tucker Carlson, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Shellenberger, and Sharyl Attkisson have carved out a successful niche beyond the shackles of the Mainstream Media (MSM).

The MSM is no fan of these usurpations by these upstarts. They hyperventilated when Mr. Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin.  More generally, anyone reporting anything about Russia, outside of the government’s or MSM’s prescribed narrative, was/is branded a Russian stooge, agent, or purveyor of misinformation.  With respect to the Carlson – Putin interview, I was completely and utterly unprepared for the history lesson given by the Russian president.  It made me reflect on our leading presidential candidates (both parties) and whether they could articulate a similar historical progression for the United States.  Giving voice to a foreign leader is not a tacit approval of any of their policies.

If we need a reminder on this last point, recall Mike Wallace, of the aforementioned 60 Minutes, and his interview with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in November 1979.  What’s doubly significant about this interview is that it occurred just a couple of weeks after the U.S. Embassy takeover.  To my recollection, Russia has not taken hostages in a U.S. Embassy, which of course is an act of war since embassies are considered sovereign territory. Was Mike Wallace reviled for this interview?  Of course, not.

If you doubt the disintermediation of MSM, observe recent presidential candidates eschewing debates and giving their time to podcasts and social media outlets to spread their message. MSM is at a crossroads.  Will they continue their current (failed) business model or learn from the upstarts?

Moving the Democratic Party Forward

In this essay about the state of union in 2024, in the section on Politics, I gave a progression of the three national elections beginning in 2016.  To summarize, the Democratic Party (DP) has consistently not placed their strongest candidate to run for the highest office.  In both 2016 and 2020 the strongest candidate was Bernie Sanders.  He was thwarted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016 and its rescue by the Clinton Foundation since the DNC was flat broke. Sanders was called to the White House by then President Obama to mend fences.  I’ll never forget the look on Bernie’s face (narrowed eyes and gritted teeth) at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

In 2020, Joe Biden was burnt toast until the party rescued him in time for the South Carolina primary.  Bernie was thwarted yet again.  Senator Sanders recently affirmed these machinations on a podcast, asserting that the DP had no interest in his nomination.

The 2024 election cycle brought forth a new dynamic.  As early as 2020, it became clear Joe Biden was non compos mentis, a legal phrase translating to “of unsound mind.”  When you have family members who’ve progressed through cognitive decline, it’s not difficult to recognize the symptoms.  In fact, I could assess the president’s progression through this devastating disease simply by looking at pictures.

Nevertheless, the media and the DP attempted to convince everyone that he was of sound mind.  I recall speaking to a colleague who suggested that our president was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.  The rationalizations continued up until the presidential primary season.  Since the inception of the Biden presidency, I offered anyone a $100 bet that he would not stand for reelection and that Vice President Harris would not be the party nominee.  Good thing no one took me up on that one!

Once primary season unfolded, the DP told their constituents that Joe was the only choice, even making it legally difficult to challenge him.  I outlined this further in my essay, America 2024.  President Biden did not show well, to put it mildly, in his first presidential debate.  I noted in the America 2024 essay, that Biden was in no condition to debate anyone so his performance was entirely expected.  Democratic Party operatives and the media, on the other hand, were aghast at his performance.  Their reaction was another example of incompetence or malice.

On July 21st, ironically via Twitter/X, we learned, via a letter not on White House letterhead, and with a signature not matching his customary John Hancock, President Biden would not run for office.  I won’t speculate what events preceded that announcement, but the subterfuge does not engender trust.

With the DP convention not far into the future, I naturally presumed the party would proceed through a typical nomination process at the convention — they did not.  Evidently, delegates voted via phone calls?  The party floundered in their VP selection, turning away from their stable of emerging stars.

Thus, DP voters in 2024 were thwarted two times in the process of selecting their candidate.  First, their party thrust a candidate in cognitive decline and excluded all challengers.  Second, they cast aside their chosen candidate and offered no opportunity to select his replacement.  For the third consecutive election, the party did not choose their best candidate.  Who was the strongest DP presidential candidate in 2024?  We’ll never know since the people had no chance to speak.  If you’re a Democratic donor, how do you feel about your party not positioning the candidate with the best chance of victory?

As you’ll read below, the Democrats had every opportunity to win this election.  They enjoyed a record stock market and low unemployment, but they focused on issues that were important to a fringe cross-section their voters, largely in a virtue signaling effort.  Yet, they governed counter to the will of many voters on two key issues.

To be fair to Vice President Harris, she had to cobble a presidential campaign in a limited amount of time.  Yet she struggled to articulate positions during her campaign’s brevity.  Imagine instead if DP leadership recognized the obvious about President Biden and a) convinced him to drop out of the race in 2023 and/or b) had an open primary.

Defeat offers moments of self-reflection and renewal.  Will the DP avail themselves of this opportunity?

Election Results

For months we were told by the media and pollsters that the race between Trump and Biden was close and perhaps not decided for weeks post-election day.  After the positioning of Harris, we were told it would be even closer.  Shortly before the election, a “reliable” pollster even suggested Harris had a chance in Iowa.

As of November 22, 2024, there were roughly 151 million votes cast between Harris (74.2M) and Trump (76.8M).  By comparison, there were roughly 155 million votes cast in 2020 (Biden 81M, Trump 74M).  Thus, as of this date, there were 4 million fewer votes cast in 2024 versus 2020.  Despite the number of anecdotal reports of waves of early voting, it seems fewer votes were cast this time.

According to Judicial Watch, up to four million names were scrubbed from voter rolls in several states.  Perhaps we’ll never definitively know the impact of COVID era voting policies in 2020 or the impact of scrubbed voter rolls.  If we, however, use published figures, Harris underperformed Biden by seven million votes, and Trump garnered three million more votes in this election.

How useful were polls and media pundits in handicapping the election outcome?  Consider two alternative avenues for predicting the election outcome — betting markets and open-source journalism.  While betting markets are not voter samples in the traditional sense, they do offer a glimpse of people putting their money where their mouth is.

As of June 25th, Trump was running ahead of Biden 59% to 34% in the wagering platform, Polymarket.  By August 10th, Harris had pulled ahead of Trump.  I wondered how she’d been able to achieve this bump before the DP convention.  Certainly, the media served as a major cheerleader for her campaign and there’s little doubt that they convinced many, including bettors, that she had a strong chance of victory.  This cheerleading was curious given the November ’23 article from the Atlantic entitled, “The Kamala Harris Problem.”  As recently as late spring of this year, she was viewed as a liability, as vice president.

By October 5th, Trump had pulled ahead of Harris and his margin increased (67% to 33%) later that month.  Some narrowing occurred in early November though it quickly widened to 68% to 32% on the morning of Election Day.  I believe the early August action in the betting markets was a mirage.  This election was unlikely to be as close as polls suggested, and betting markets offered partial insight to its outcome.

Open-source journalism offered further, and for me, confirming insight.  Recalling earlier comments about the disintermediation of the news media, the undercurrent of sentiment expressed in social media channels, particularly Twitter/X, was quite revealing.  Constituencies that one might historically associate with the DP were voicing their dissatisfaction with the party mostly around two issues: immigration laxity and the economy.  Voters on the lower end of the socio-economic strata were being disproportionately impacted by the uncontrolled immigration influx and rising prices for essentials.  This dissatisfaction continued for months prior to the election.  My immediate conclusion was that either a) these people would not vote for the DP or b) they’d cross over and vote for the GOP.  Either way, open-source journalism, folks walking around with their phones, recording video, and talking to voters greatly informed about public sentiment.  The MSM, however, showed none of this chasm emerging with DP voters.  Voters not tuned into open-source news channels were blind to what was happening on the ground.

Pollsters, like the MSM, risk further disintermediation moving into the next election cycle unless they change their approach.  The voters have spoken, let’s see how the pollsters and MSM react.

Role of the President

The emotional incontinence expressed by some U.S. voters should spark an awakening regarding the power of the Executive branch.  Voters perceive presidential influence and power far differently than its constitutional intentions.  The powers of the U.S. President are enumerated in Article II of the Constitution.  These powers are limited to:

• Chief Executive – enforcing federal laws, appointing federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers, and filling vacancies during Senate recesses.

• Commander in Chief – of the armed forces and state militias when called into federal service.

• Chief Diplomat – “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate”

• Legislative Leader – recommend legislation to Congress, convene both houses on extraordinary occasions, and veto bills.

• Judicial – grant reprieves and pardons for federal offenses, except in cases of impeachment.

• Communicator – “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper”

  
  

What’s broadened presidential power are Executive Orders (EO).  The number of Executive Orders has grown over time with Franklin Roosevelt issuing a record 3,728 orders.  By contrast, George Washington had 8.  The topic of EO merits further consideration in book chapters from Escaping Oz: Navigating the Crisis and Escaping Oz: An Observer’s Reflections, where I ask people to consider what they want their government to be.  Presidents often use the EO to circumvent the legislative process and as such, behave like a king or dictator.

Our government has grown into a leviathan well beyond its intended boundaries.  If you have any doubt, look at the size of our federal (funded) debt.  I’ve argued for years that we’re asking government to do way too much.  When Congress doesn’t enlarge the leviathan, we expect the Executive Office to oblige.

Despite this extension of power, I’m puzzled by the reaction to the election of the 47th president suggesting the expectation of a fascist state, and the removal of freedoms. The 47th president also served as the 45th president and has a record of governance that did not demonstrate these concerns.  Moreover, DP voters seem to overlook strong elements of fascism and freedom curtailment as described in the Twitter files.  DP voters possess a visceral loathing of the 47th president that often manifests in rage.  Rage clouds objective reality.

An important consideration for restrictions on presidential power is the understanding of Federalism.  Thankfully, the States have powers not vested to the federal government.  Moreover, cities, municipalities, and school boards often exert more influence on people’s lives than given credit.  We should seek to further decentralize governmental functions by pushing more decision/rule/law making closer to those impacted. Also, Congress wields the most power in government.  They pass legislation and can override a presidential veto.  This is as it should be since they represent the broadest will of the people.

Presidents are given too much credit and shoulder too much blame.  Returning more power to the States and localities and reestablishing constitutional boundaries around the President’s authority can help eliminate angst felt by some in the days after this election.  We evidently live in prosperous, comfortable times when the biggest problem in people’s lives is the election of a candidate from the opposition party.  The irony is that some of the prescriptions required to address the will of the 2024 voters will, in some instances, require a more authoritarian Executive branch of government.  Shrinking the size of government, however, ultimately curbs authoritarianism.

Two Key Issues Important to Voters

As I wrote in the Election Results section, there were two key issues important to voters: immigration and the economy.  Let me discuss immigration with a baseball metaphor.  It’s the bottom of the ninth inning and your team (home team) is up 1-0.  There are two outs and no one on base.  An easy ground ball is hit to the first baseman.  The first baseman fields it and instead of stepping on first base to end the game, he throws the ball into left field, creating an uncertain outcome.  Early in the Biden presidency he issued a number of Executive Orders that contributed mightily to the immigration influx.  Had he merely kept previous policies in place (stepping on first base) we’d not have the exacerbation of immigration problems evident today.  Was his policy shift incompetence or malice?  I penned an essay in 2019 on the topic of immigration.  While the policy prescriptions would differ now, for whatever reason the DP chose chaos.  As noted earlier, that chaos alienated (interesting word choice) their constituencies.

The second issue was the economy.  First, some of the impact of higher prices is related to policies preceding the Biden administration.  For instance, the Trump administration effectively shut down the economy in the Spring of 2020.  While he received horrible counsel, he was nevertheless in charge. You can’t shut off an economy and turn it back on.  The policy’s deleterious effects persist to this day.  Secondly, fiscal policy, under both administrations further inserted the U.S. government into the economy by way of massive deficits.  I forecast as much in a 2018 essay predicting the next president.  Lastly, the Biden administration, attempting to pander to Green New Deal acolytes, created a hostile environment for fossil fuel.  What they failed to grasp is energy’s relationship to the price of everything — incompetence or malice?

The new administration will address both issues head on.  Voters should prepare themselves for bouts of pain while these issues “resolve.”

So, What Now America?

The next four years will be disruptive.  At a minimum, if the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) achieves its aims, Americans will deal with slimmer government offering fewer services.  We’ll see if the American people can stomach this austerity.  The only time we’ve seen meaningful government contraction was the demobilization from World War II.  How will States react to potentially shouldering more responsibility?

Make America Great Again is, in no small part, a rejection of globalism.  The president-elect, globalism’s Grim Reaper, has telegraphed his intent to implement aggressive tariffs as a revenue generating mechanism.  Prior to the income tax, that’s how the federal government generated revenue — tariffs and duties.  No doubt some of the tariff bluster is to establish an anchor for geopolitical negotiation.  The transition to higher tariffs will usher retaliatory trade measures and supply chain disruptions.  How will Americans react to this transitory malaise while the nation ultimately benefits from repatriated production and reinvigorated domestic industries?

Mass deportations will be difficult and will both benefit and harm the economy.  Separately, the stock market mood is ebullient, reminiscent of the dot com bubble — this time it’s all things AI.  There’s little, if any, fear remaining.

The voting public will accept a limited amount of pain before crying “Uncle” and begging Uncle Sam to come to the rescue.  Government will oblige and that’s also a prescription for more of the same.  Our monetary system places no constraints on governments, and ironically, constraints are a gift for innovation.  Can we use innovation in our approach to governance?  Only a debt crisis can stop government.  We can’t predict the timing of a debt crisis any more than we can predict which snowflake starts the avalanche.  Just be prepared for the avalanche once it begins.

America can become a better version of itself and experience national renewal.  Is there sufficient national fortitude, patience, and grace to weather the crucible through which it will pass?