THE ECSTASY OF VICTORY

One happy camper

Why did Kamala Harris lose the election ? Entire history books will be devoted to this question in the years to come and already barely a few months after the election, umpteen different theories and reasons have been advocated, from Bernie Sanders belief  “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”[i] to the  BBC’s conviction that Harris did not distance herself enough from Biden.[ii]

From my perspective, there is one overriding factor that tipped the scales in favour of Trump, and that is the fact that he got away with lying through his back teeth to an unprecedented extent and that the media, in general, did not hold him to account for his campaign based on outrageous propaganda. All the other very valid reasons for Harris’ defeat are secondary compared to this fundamental fact.

The scope and scale of Trump’s victory were unexpected, and the much-feared prolonged wait to declare a winner did not materialise as Trump won all seven battleground States. Just after 1:30 am, the AP declared Trump the winner, and the fat lady had sung, albeit very much to a very different tune than most observers had expected.

Trump quickly took to the floor, declared victory and wasted no time wallowing in his victory, saying he had “masterminded the greatest political movement of all time”.[iii] Contrary to 2016, he also won the popular vote, a significant fact in and of itself, as his victory cannot be tainted.

The reaction to his victory on the Democrat’s side was equally subdued and contrary to 2017, there was no groundswell of protest, no resistance, and no women’s march with the famous “pussy hats”. The Democrats fell back on one of their bad habits, looking inward to play the blame game. To quote a Politico article: “The resistance is not coming to save you. It’s tuning out.”[iv] The immediate reaction to Trump’s victory was for Americans to tune out, take time off, and devote their energy to other matters after what had proved to be an exhausting political cycle.

As further evidence of this, the viewership of both CNN and MSNBC plummeted dramatically after the election, respectively, by 16 and 36%.[v]

During the last week of the campaign, Trump was continuously being branded as a fascist, but to suddenly become a respectable President-Elect only a few days later.

Even Trump’s arch-enemies Mika Brezinski and Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe fame meekly capitulated and visited President-Elect Trump in Mar-a-Lago on Friday, November 15th,  “to restart communication between the three of them “[vi] for the first time since March 2020. The symbol was not lost on everybody, as some of their colleagues at MSNBC, such as Katie Phang, remarked, “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea. Period”.[vii] The capitulation to Trump seems to go against the historian Tim Snyder’s recommendation regarding how to deal with potential fascist leaders: “Do not obey in advance”.[viii] After spending two years demonising Trump as the second coming of Adolf Hitler, it took Brezinski and Scarborough two weeks to change their minds. Seeing this as anything other than opportunistic and self-serving isn't easy. It is apparently better to avoid the wrath of the future President than to stay true to your values.

Whilst it is easy to criticise talk show hosts and news commentators for their “flexibility” in all things Trump-related,  we cannot ignore what is a much more serious matter, namely the attitude of politicians, not only from America but the world over.

Mar-a-Lago became the centre of the world virtually overnight, and the lack of engagement of the still-official President Biden made this all the more apparent. Under the American constitution, there can be only one President at a time, but in a typical Trumpian manner, this fundamental principle was quickly ignored, and Trump not only welcomed foreign dignitaries to his Florida headquarters but also called numerous world leaders to discuss matters of State.

Mar-a-Lago quickly became the court of King Donald, with ultra loyalists and supporters vying for attention along with the usual cast of jesters. Elon Musk took up residence at the private club and was Trump’s shadow throughout the transition period, playing both kingmaker and the role of the Prince of Darkness as Trump’s most influential adviser.

 On November 14th  Javier Milei, the right-wing Argentinian president, became the first foreign leader to meet Trump following the election nine days earlier when he attended a gala at Mar-a-Lago. On November 29th, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the trip after Trump threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports. The trip mustn’t have gone too well as Trump took to referring to Trudeau as the “Governor of the 51st State”, and Trudeau has since then resigned. Many other foreign leaders followed suit, such as Trump’s old friend and supporter Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary on December 9th and Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister on January 4th 2025.

Trump’s new popularity has transcended to the corporate world, particularly to the heart of the tech world in Silicon Valley. Ever since Elon Musk very publicly endorsed Trump in July 2024, bouncing around on stage like the South African version of the mad hatter, albeit a mad hatter with bottomless pockets willing to donate massively to the Trump campaign,  the importance of the tech world’s newfound love for Trump became more and more apparent. Musk took such a shine to his new pastime that he made sure Twitter, now known as X, would become an unofficial arm of the Trump campaign, allowing far-right ideas to spread exponentially across the platform under the guise of “free speech”.

The tech CEOs knew which wind the wind was blowing, as illustrated by Jeff Bezos’ highly unusual decision not to allow the Washington Post, the newspaper he owned, to endorse Kamal Harris just before the election, demonstrating that the newspaper’s motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was no longer worth the paper it was printed on.

Once Trump won the election, the tech CEOs pushed each other aside to visit Trump in his Florida court and kiss the ring. One by one, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon promised to donate a million dollars each to Trump’s inauguration fund. Moreover, they were promised prominent access to the inauguration itself; even the CEO of TikTok, the much-maligned Chinese video platform, was welcomed to attend, despite the ban due to come into effect the day before on January 19th.

More importantly, a few days before the inauguration on January 7th, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta was closing down its third-party fact-checking program on Facebook, Threads and Instagram, a move destined to curry favour with the incoming president. But it is Elon Musk who has won the jackpot, at least at this initial stage, as he has been named responsible for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he will be able to play Venetian head of State until his heart is content. Initially, Vivek Ramaswamy was to be co-chair of Doge. Still, in typical Venetian fashion, he was soon exiled and found himself scrambling for an alternative path forward, deciding to run for the Governor of Ohio instead. Musk’s influence was apparent during the negotiations to prevent a government shutdown just before Christmas, and soon, Musk was being touted as the real power behind the throne. Trump meekly defended himself by saying that Musk could never be president, as he wasn’t born in the United States. It remains to be seen how long this match in the heavens of Mars will last before Trump feels it is time to re-establish his place at the head of the food chain, but he may find that getting rid of Musk will not be so easy given the fact he is the wealthiest man in the world.

However, the choice of Trump’s future cabinet provided the most entertainment as potential candidates scrambled for attention at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump was determined to prove just how different his second presidency would be by naming the most outrageous people possible to his cabinet and daring the Senate to refuse their nomination. The only acceptable and reasonable nomination was Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, but then Trump went full Alice in Wonderland. He first nominated Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General, rewarding him for his unwavering loyalty and particularly aggressive form of dedication to the MAGA cause and, by so doing, probably gave most members of Congress, including many Republicans, a mild heart attack given Gaetz’s reputation and popularity, or lack thereof. But faced with a damning ethical report, even Gaetz could not deny the allegations of promiscuity with underage young women and his affinity to taking class-A drugs; after all, only Donald Trump can escape scot-free from such dire straits.

But no matter, buoyed by his supposed landslide mandate, Trump continued to upset the Washington apple cart by naming RFK Junior, or the prominent anti-vaxer, as health secretary, officially giving him “carte balance” to make the changes he felt were necessary. Trump continued in the same vein, naming Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who once upon a time in the Army National Guard as Secretary of Defence and  Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Congresswomen and a  Russia sympathiser, as  Director of National Intelligence, to name but a few. All of these nominations have to be confirmed by the Senate, but with a 53-47 advantage, Trump will feel he has the latitude to bulldoze his nominations through the confirmation process and be damned those who dare oppose him.

If there is one point that has been made abundantly clear during the transition period, it is that Trump has no constraints at all and that he intends to govern the way he pleases, privileging loyalty over competence above all. This is the fundamental difference between Trump in 2016 and Trump today. The normalisation of Trump has allowed him to impose his will to test the limits of executive authority. Never have the United States been so close to an Imperial Presidency as they are today.

Victory is all that matters, and winning elections has consequences. The American people and the world, in very short order, will soon discover that it wasn’t about the price of eggs after all and that Project 2025 was merely the first draft of an aggressive fascist and anti-democratic plan that Trump fully intends to follow as soon as he sets foot into the White House again.

Even before the inauguration, Trump declared that the Panama Canal belongs to the United States, that Greenland is essential to American national security[ix] and that Canada is only worthy of becoming incorporated into the United States as its 51st State.[x]

The forthcoming presidency will be centred on retribution and vengeance against all of Trump’s enemies, real and perceived. Trump will undoubtedly, as of day one, do precisely what he promised to do, notably by rewriting history in pardoning all of the people convicted after the events of January 6 2021, thus freeing the so-called “hostages” and “political prisoners”.

The world will look on in horror, and many Americans may quickly experience buyer’s remorse, but it will be too late. It took Hitler 53 days to dismantle and destroy the Weimar Republic. How long will it take for Trump to bury American democracy?[xi]

[i] Anthony Ardagna: “Bernie Sanders blasts Democratic Party following Harris loss”, Politico, November 6, 2024, https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/06/2024-election-results-live-coverage-updates-analysis/bernie-sanders-election-response-00187980

[ii] Courtney Subramanian: ”Why Kamala Harris lost: A flawed candidate or doomed campaign?”, BBC News, November 7, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4l5j2v9do

[iii] Flynn Nicholls: “Donald Trump's Victory Speech in Full: Transcript”, Newsweek, November 6, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-victory-speech-full-transcript-1981234

[iv] Michael Schaffer: “The Resistance Is Not Coming to Save You. It’s Tuning Out.”. Politico, November 15, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/15/trump-presidency-liberal-media-resistance-00189655

[v] Ditto.

[vi] Andrew Howard: “‘Morning Joe’ hosts https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/18/congress/morning-joe-trump-meeting-joe-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-00190100 visited Mar-a-Lago for Trump meeting”, Politico, November 18, 2024,

[vii] Brian Stelter: “‘Morning Joe’ meeting with Trump was driven by fears of retribution from incoming administration, sources say”, CNN, November 19, 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/19/media/morning-joe-trump-mar-a-lago-meeting-fears/index.html

[viii] Timothy Snyder (2017) On Tyranny, page 17, Random House LLC, New York

[ix] Shannon K. Kingston: “rump threatens land grabs of Panama Canal, Greenland, even by force. Can he?: ANALYSIS”, abc News, January 8, 2025, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-threatens-land-grabs-panama-canal-greenland-force/story?id=117428826

[x] Julia Mueller: “What to know about Trump’s calls to make Canada the ‘51st state’”, The Hill, January 8, 2025, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5072926-trump-annexation-canada-trade-threat/

[xi] Timothy W. Ryback: “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days”, The Atlantic, January 8, 2025, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/hitler-germany-constitution-authoritarianism/681233/