"It's less psychologically distressing to preserve the Trump fallacy than (for supporters) to confront uncomfortable truths about Trump, and themselves." -- Psychotherapist Nick Carmody.
Although Joe Biden has amassed the largest vote total ever (80 million) and achieved the highest vote margin (51%) to unseat any incumbent since Franklin Roosevelt whacked Herbert Hoover in 1932, his convincing victory is not a smasheroo.
It's really disturbing that the incumbent's vote total is the 2nd-highest ever (73,610,000), eclipsing the Obama 2008 mark. 73+ million voters decided that the last four years, and especially this last year, were OK.
Yes, 73 million apparently considered issues like COVID, the crippled economy, the racial reckoning of BLM and White Supremacy, the No Healthcare Plan, the anti-science/anti-expertise/anti-fact movement, the US unhitching from allies and alliances, the confounding and debilitating Putin romance, the denial of climate change, the 25,000+ lies, the deliberate and repeated steps towards autocracy, the embrace of QAnon, the diminishing world role of the US, and the support for someone who can be charitably called one of the most loathsome men in America, to be all good! Let's go for another round on the Tilt-a-Whirl!
So, what happened? Biden did his job. He got the historic votes, the percentages, and the electoral votes. He flipped the 2016 totals with excellent symmetry: 306 electoral votes for Biden in 2020, 306 for Trump in 2016. And just to recall, T has called that 2016 election, where he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million, a "landslide" of historic proportions. Biden now has the 306 votes, plus a popular vote victory margin that will settle in around 6 1/2 million. Not too shabby.
What is crappy is the awful performance of the Democratic Party and the DNC. The Trump/GOP Machine has flipped at least nine House seats to the Republicans. A few days before the election, DNC folk were predicting anywhere from 10 to 20 additional seats being won. What happened?
And no state legislatures flipped from Red to Blue. Democrats were expecting at least a few states to go their way. These are important for developing a Bottom-to-Top strategy, and determining future voting district boundaries/preventing gerrymandering.
And though Georgia came through for Biden, it will need to vote in both Democratic Senate candidates in the early January run-off to achieve a 50-50 balance in the Senate. It's more likely this won't happen and that Dems will have picked up just ONE Senate seat overall, when the pre-election conventional wisdom was more like four or five!
All told, this was a craptastic performance for the Democratic Party, particularly because their Top Of The Ticket performed historically well, and GOP opponents were so blatantly flawed. So why was there such a terrible result?
But I think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit the button by describing the DNC culture as being insular, dysfunctional and poorly run. With the exception of the remarkable 2018 Blue Wave MidTerms, the DNC has been in charge of recent devastating losses in 2010, 2014 and 2016. While Obama and now Biden won, the rest of the down-ballot got pummeled, especially during mid-terms.
It's not like the Democrats are being beaten by a remarkably formidable and well-run organization. The RNC is headed by this person. The RNC, like its leadership and its base, is kooky. They utilize a Far Right media ecosystem that is a closed-off world. It's immune to the power of ideas, persuasion and factual thinking.
What it does well is attach down-ballot candidates with the top tier candidates. Elect Trump/Joe Blow for County Supervisor. The Dems simply don't do this as much. Their candidates often are out on their own, unattached to the top tier. They're usually policy-and-persuasion-driven. They're trying to hit the voters' heads with information while persuading them with facts. Republicans simply go for the gut. They are far more "belief driven" and their feelings aren't necessarily tethered to the facts that ground the real world.
Moreover, to entertain countering thoughts is to allow doubt into the certainty of their beliefs. The majority of the GOP are highly patriarchal and evangelical. They are authority-driven and believe in things that require a sense of magical thinking.
They are certain of their religion, certain of their place in the socio-racial hierarchy, certain of their political views as pronounced by their media spokespeople. Doubt isn't allowed in their world of faith. These are people who will NEVER admit they are wrong about ANYTHING - just ask them!
So... how does the spell get broken?
Given the extremes we've endured this year, it's not likely that many GOP-ers will change by experiencing familiar forms of pain. If there was a time for the bubble to burst, it would have been three weeks ago. Instead, apart from Biden/Harris winning, things got worse for the Blue Team.
It's more likely that the solution is a long-term one, requiring a generational change. White Boomers (not the Aussie variety) have demonstrated over the years to be kinda stupid, self-absorbed and Me First. There needs to be a demographic clock reset. We need less privileged white people. We need more diversified populations. We need more immigrants seeking jobs that no whites want or can perform. We need more immigrants seeking education that some whites don't want or can't afford.
Yes, we need lots more education for all people. Two-Thirds of the White Population have no college degree. And they vote overwhelmingly Republican. Their educational system failed them. Their perceived place on the top ladder rung is threatened when People Of Color/Immigrants are working, thriving and they are not. It's a little bit of economic anxiety, and a lotta bit of racial resentment.
The Democrats try to win their policies with voters through facts and persuasion. But you can't persuade a racist to not be an intolerant racist/misogynist/bigot. It has to be a realization coming from within. Their inner world needs to fundamentally change. But for the last several years, Trump has given encouraging voice to them, saying the toxic things that they think, and thus "normalizing" them. It's no wonder that this cult is so amazingly devoted to him - he makes them feel correct, loud and proud instead of feeling ashamed. They have risen from society's shadows and they won't go back easily.
Eventually though, after some years, our current level of racial animus and 'belief > fact' way of thinking will wane.
A shortcut to all this exists by undercutting their allegiance to Trump. In the next years ahead, he's going to be immersed in court proceedings, both civil and criminal in nature. Trumpism will need a new name brand when the official Trump model falls apart. People who have lashed themselves to his mast are bound to struggle as they see him, his family and his sycophants get into DEEP LEGAL/ FINANCIAL TROUBLE.
When this happens, the layers of the rotten onion will begin peeling away. There might be enough people that realize they've been snookered. Some, not most, but maybe just enough to finally break the spell.
