The surprising result of the presidential election in the United States –even Trump himself seemed surprised by it – has a variety of causes. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 48,03% (62,523,126 votes) against 47,01% for Trump (61,201,031 votes). However, she lost in the Electoral College by 290 to 232 (270 are needed to win). There is an additional 4% of the popular vote casted to the Libertarian and Green candidates, whose agenda was clearly anti-Trump’s rhetoric on the issues.
Trump not only got fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, he also got fewer votes than Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and nearly the same number of votes as John McCain in 2008. That is, support for the Republican Party decreased under Trump. Not to leave aside the inexplicable and heavily criticised intervention of the Director of the FBI in the final two weeks of the campaign, it is critical to focus on what I regard as key factors that brought the election to Trump.
Trump was able to use his anti-immigrant rhetoric and bigotry to galvanize and get the best electoral performance from the white vote, particularly the less educated and most socially conservative. His extravagant and dangerous comments on foreign policy and the fight against terrorism, his attack on Latinos or Muslim Americans, and his positions aligned with religious fanaticism (especially those of his now Vice President) on issues such as abortion and the denial of the rights recognized to the LGBTQ community were also helpful to him in this regard. This unified the Republican base despite the resentment of its leaders, and incorporated new rural voters though it did not increase the total electoral participation. The optimization of the rural vote, along with the decrease in the participation of voters more likely to vote for the Democrats was decisive. Obama is one of the most popular outgoing presidents in US history, but he could not transmit his 55% approval rating to Clinton even though a Clinton presidency would have been the best way to protect and continue his legacy.
But let’s focus for a moment on the history of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Trump’s victories, with less than 1% of the vote, led him to triumph in the Electoral College. The last Republican to win these states was Ronald Reagan, regarded as a Great Communicator. He had been a lifelong Democrat but switched to the Republicans and went on to become governor of California, and later win the presidency for the GOP. He spoke the language of conservatives in economic issues although committed to economic nationalism, consistent with his fierce opposition to the Soviet Union in the Cold War. And he was also open-minded on certain social issues. For example, he approved an amnesty for immigrants which opened the road to citizenship for millions. Under his leadership there arose a block of voters which pollsters and analysts defined as “Reagan Democrats”. For this reason he won in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania by attracting voters who had previously supported the Democrats.
Michigan and Pennsylvania as part of the industrial corridor of the Mid-West of the USA have traditionally voted Democratic because of the influence of the trade unions and because the development of their major cities (Detroit and Marquette in Michigan and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania) resulted in a more diverse social fabric, more cosmopolitan and more racially and culturally diverse and so more open to progressive ideas. Wisconsin with its dairy economic actvity and industrial base was similarly a democratic stronghold. However, outside of these urban and suburban enclaves these states are profoundly rural with little ethnic diversity and marked by a profound Christian conservatism. They are separate worlds, one totally white, conservative and religious, the other diverse, progressive and cosmopolitan (that is, less religious or religiously tolerant and of the view that religion shouldn’t be imposed on politics). The Democratic Party has maintained deep connections with the diversity of these urban and suburban areas but unions have declined their once mighty electoral power, while economic nationalism that opposes globalization and free trade has gained in strength. In fact this latter point is shared by Trump and Bernie Sanders. While Trump expresses himself in this regard through xenophobia, Sanders holds that free trade agreements should only be entered into with countries that have comparable labour and environmental standards to those of the United States. President Obama has had a proactive position on the question of free trade, and views the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement as a result that reconciles a push to increase labor and enviromental standards on trading partners through cooperation and market integration, while expanding business opportunities and protecting other vital interes of the U.S. economy (such as intelelctual and industrial property rights), therefore preventing competitors like China to lead in a key market for our economic growth. Candidate Clinton was left electorally exposed in this area as she was perceived as being committed to a position similar to that of Bill Clinton when he was in office and NAFTA was approved, and without much credibility a case for a new approach was never articulated.
Now let’s return to how this impacted the election. Trump mobilized rural voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan with a nationalist conservative rhetoric. And he grabbed a relevant small percentage of the traditionally Democratic vote, principally working class white males older than 45 who, whether employed or under-employed, want a return to industrial work. Trump captured that with his anti-free-trade narrative. The reality is that such jobs may not return given the transformation of the US economy in the context of globalization or the impact of new technologies. But not even in a situation of full employment do these sectors of the electorate stop seeing the past as something better than the present. The message “Make America Great Again” evokes that reactionary nostalgia to social or economic change in the sectors of the electorate in Michigan and Pennsylvania that gave Trump victory by a slim margin, maximizing the rural vote and weakening the so-called “blue shield” in the urban areas. And all this notwithstanding the successful auto industry rescue policy and support during the Detroit city bankruptcy provided by Obama’s administration.
Having looked at how Trump won his votes let’s now look to the question of the Electoral College. In any other democracy in the world Hilary would now be President, but not in the USA. This indirect electoral system for electing the President, and only the President, has been used since the foundation of the republic and is constitutional by definition. It has been argued that such a system is necessary to preserve federalism because otherwise the states with the largest population would impose themselves on the others. This, however, is not the case, even if the wide margins of victory won by the Democratic Party candidate in California and the Northeast (New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts) helped Hillary win the majority of the popular vote. It’s simply not true that the Electoral College preserves federalism, that’s the role of the Senate. The Electoral College was incorporated into the Constitution because the founders of the USA had doubts about the risks that direct universal suffrage entailed. At the time it was possible to imagine the failure of the new republic federalist experiment if large sectors of the populations imposed their will in the election, against the founding elites, in a context where no other new institution was as powerful as the presidency. This isn’t the moment to go more deeply into the history (fascinating by the way). It will suffice to recall what James Madison and Alexander Hamilton said as the Constitution was being drawn up. The former spoke of “factions” (clearly referencing to the power struggles within the single party system of the time), whose “interests” would damage the rights of “other citizens”, establishing a tyranny of the majority. And Hamilton wrote in the Federal Papers that the system was designed so that the presidency would never fall into the hands of someone not endowed with the necessary qualifications for the position. Many (inside and outside the US, including academics, scientists, and Nobel Prize winners) think that is exactly what has happened on this occasion when the election was won by someone whose fitness to be President was at issue for several reasons during the election.
Because of the Electoral College system, winning the popular vote has not always served to win the presidency, and this has happened five times in history. Over the 19th Century its was John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson; Rutherford Hayes over Samuel Tilden; and Ben Harrison over Glover Cleveland. It has only happened twice in the contemporary era: in 2000 with George W. Bush (after a legal challenge to the result in Florida failed) and now again with Trump. The experience of Presidents who were elected without winning the popular vote has not been positive. The least that can be said is that their presidencies have proved controversial; or that they were unable to win re-election, and particularly Jackson and Cleveland were elected four years after the college deposesed them from their popular vote wins. George W. Bush was re-elected but his time in office concluded with the monumental error of the invasion of Iraq, and with the gravest economic recession since the 1930s.
These historical precedents do not augur well for the Trump presidency. With regard to the Electoral College, probably the most sensible thing to do would be to open a debate on the necessity of abolishing it so as to allow the President to be elected by direct universal suffrage, as is the case for all other federal, state and local legislative and executive positions. This analysis leads to me to draw the following conclusions:
First, nobody is questioning the constitutionality of Trump’s victory. However, the value of the Electoral College system for the presidential election system should indeed be called into question.
Second, Trump takes office without a mandate for his presidency. To say that the majority supports his ideas is an attack on popular sovereignty. If Trump governs as if there was a mandate around his campaign rhetoric, then that’s a sure recipe for severe social tensions and a one term presidency. This lack of mandate is moreover inconsistent with the fact that the Republican Party has control over two branches of power, and positioned to change balance in the Supreme Court towards an ultra-conservative vision; without regard to the fact that such vision is not backed by the majority.
Third, Trump won thanks to the white electorate, especially those with greater levels of religiosity and lower levels of education. He lost by wide margins among women, latinos, african-americans and the young, which means he goes against the aspirations of the majority in the social field (and on many economic issues), where a more inclusive vision prevails by comparison to the one held by rural voters.
Fourth, the racial and social tensions unleashed by Trump’s rhetoric, and his open denunciation of free trade agreements without alternative, was fundamental for his victory. And this free trade position distances Trump from a good number of Republicans that now control both houses of Congress, since the party platform historically favours free trade. The Democratic Party also splits on this issue and, in the light of the result of the election, will have to find a unified position to this question. Should Obama’s approach (instead of Sanders) be the way forward? This is a highly important question for the future of the party and the country.
Meanwhile, Trump is involved in the transition process which will take him to the White House in January. But the fear and tensions provoked by his rhetoric are already visible on the streets, in the schools and public places.
People of color, Muslim Americans, and gay couples are already feeling or actually being targeted. There’s a lot of anxiety and very little happiness out there.
Trump and the GOP should get a clear message that a conservative or religiously driven social agenda is not what the majority of americans want for their future.
We know that Trump will be President, but we also know that he doesn’t represent a popular majority. He has a Presidency without a clear mandate and he needs to compromise before moving forward on policies the people did not vote for.
Leopoldo Martínez tweets at @lecumberry