Figure 1 – 2024 Senate election results as of November 12th, 4:32 pm, ET
Last week’s blog promised to discuss geographic trends in America’s election in terms of a strive to increase the entropy of the system (see last week’s blog). Like many of you, last Tuesday night, I was glued to the TV screen, following the evolving map of the election results. Almost from the beginning, the trend became transparent. The focus was on the swing states but the data from states that had finished counting was quickly compared to the 2020 elections. The shift from blue to red based on these comparisons was almost always unidirectional – from blue to red. Almost every group with a previous concentration of up to 70% Democratic votes lost votes to Trump. These shifts move slowly from a very high concentration toward average, and the balance determines the final result. The NYT did a quantitative analysis of these trends by character and state, including cities and suburbs, the rural-urban divide, race and ethnicity, educational attainment, economic types, and age and across the country.
Figure 2 – Shifts in vote margins as of Friday
Perhaps the most striking examples are the choices of voters with Muslim and/or Palestinian backgrounds and Jewish voters. Many in both groups moved toward Trump at least partially because of Biden’s current American policy in the war in the Middle East. There is very little chance that both groups will be satisfied with Trump in power. As the NYT explains, right-leaning Jews look back at his support for Israel during his first term and hope for a continuation while many Muslims hope that his policy will be different (and better) than Biden’s.
Ex-President Trump had a decisive win on all levels. As of yesterday, the House count had yet to finish but it already had a strong Republican-leaning trend. Winning the House vote would give Republicans control of the Legislative and Executive branches of government, meaning that Trump and the Republican party would reach the desired Trifecta. President-elect Trump also decisively won the popular vote (75.5M to 71.9M as of this posting). Combining that with the present Conservative control of the Supreme Court that was achieved during Trump’s first term, he would have the rarely-achieved control of all three branches of the US government, and the ability to do what he wishes.
Yet in this blog, I will try to make the point that the American Constitution constructed the American government in one of the most resilient ways that can be imagined and that President Trump will have only two years to prove that he deserves the country’s confidence. If he fails, he will be paralyzed from further changes, and unable to prolong his rule because of the two-term limit in the presidency. It will also mean the likely removal of the Republican party from the Legislative branches of government (removal from the control of the Supreme Court will be more difficult). Anyone opposed to Trump’s policies has to learn to be patient and carefully plan how to open the door for a transition. President-elect Trump figured out that the best way to counter all the criminal and civil charges that have piled on him after 2020 was to win back the presidency in 2024. The first step in the strategy to achieve this objective was to stretch the judicial procedures beyond November 2024, which he did successfully. Now it is his opposition’s turn to strategize to stop the parts of his policies that they don’t like. In 2026, the election should focus on the continuation of Trump’s policies without Trump. This should be a winnable terrain for Trump’s opposition.
The first issue to address is what president-elect Trump promised to accomplish if elected:
Immigration – “seal” the southern border, and launch what he calls “the largest deportation program in American history,” invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Abortion – veto a federal abortion ban but allow each individual state to restrict the procedure as it wishes.
Economy – “end inflation” and plans to pass what he calls “historic” tax cuts for workers and small businesses. He said this will include no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security benefits and a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or loved one Trump said he will work with tech mogul Elon Musk to eliminate “every single” federal regulation that he says raises prices and kills American jobs. And on the topic of regulations, Trump has promised to end 10 federal regulations for every new one created. Trump has also promised that under his administration, there will be no tax on the first $10,000 of costs associated with education for parents of children who are homeschooled. Trump has promised American companies will get “the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burdens, and free access to the single best and biggest market on the planet.”
In September, Trump called for reinstating the state and local tax deduction, commonly known as SALT. In 2017, Trump signed the legislation that capped the previously unlimited federal deduction at $10,000 per filer. The policy hit people in blue states the hardest. Even though Trump signed that measure, he has pledged to undo it.).
Environment – For cars made in the United States, Trump said he will make interest on car loans fully tax-deductible. He said he will terminate an electric vehicle rule published by President Joe Biden’s administration in March that makes EVs more available and affordable over the next several years and makes it more difficult for gas-powered cars to keep up with an increasingly stringent Environmental Protection Agency’s standard. Trump also wants to, once again, withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a major international climate treaty.
Foreign policy – He will end Russia’s war in Ukraine within a day. stop “the chaos” in the Middle East and prevent “World War III.”.
Cultural Wars –“On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the shoulders of our children,” Trump has said. “And I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.” Trump said he wants to “get rid” of the Education Department as it currently exists and allow each state to individually “handle education,” as he put it.
Retaliation- Prosecute and jail anybody who went after him during the four years that he was out of power
All of that (even some of that) will take time. Let us figure out how much time the president-elect has. The details are derived from the governance outlined in the US Constitution.
The principle is simple: presidents are elected for four years, with a maximum of two terms. Senators are elected for six-year terms and congressmen for two-year terms. There are no federal term limits for senators and congressmen. In 1992, California passed a term limit that never materialized because it was not approved by the Supreme Court. The counts as I write this (Friday, November 8th at 3pm) are: House – 201 Democrats and 212 Republicans. 218 are needed for a majority. Senate – 52 Republicans and 44 Democrats. 50 are needed for the majority. Between 33 and 34 senators are elected every 2 years. So, although every senator has a tenure of 6 years, the rotation means that a majority of the Senate is running for election every 2 years. This is especially important because majorities are almost always much smaller than the number of senators elected every 2 years. As the map at the top shows, most of the senators that need to be elected or reelected are from red states. The reverse was the case in the 2024 election.
So, if President Trump and the Republican Congress do not perform as promised, the American people can reject congressional majorities in 2 years and leave the president to govern through executive orders that can be nullified in 4 years by a new president.
One of the major issues in this election was the presumed danger that the other guy’s election might destroy our democratic system. One can find a short history of democracy on Wikipedia. It shows that the American Constitution established one of the earliest modern democracies. However, democracies, in one form or another, became the leading mode of government only after the dismantling of the imperial systems following WWII. The universal participation of adult citizens in selecting the American government only reached its full scope after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which secured women’s vote. Another key event in the process was the ratification of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War. The sequence of these ratifications is summarized below:
The American Constitution – ratified in 1788
The 14th Amendment – ratified in 1868
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The 19th Amendment – ratified in 1920
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[1]
My favorite take on the main value of the democratic system is Karl Popper’s book, The Open Society and its Enemies. As Wikipedia summarizes it:
Popper advocates for direct liberal democracy as the only form of government that allows institutional improvements without violence and bloodshed.
To my knowledge, the only exception to this rule within the confines of American presidential elections was the Trump-inspired attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, when Trump lost his 2nd term election bid to Joe Biden.
What to do?
What president-elect Trump promised to accomplish, based on which he got the decisive public support to lead the US over the next four years, was summarized earlier. The objective should be to give him a chance to govern productively and follow closely the impacts of his actions on all of us. Two years from now, our collective job is to vote for a Congress that will either continue to support him or try to freeze him. The next presidential election is four years away. The additional advantage that the Constitution left us with is the federal nature of the US. The roles of the individual states and the federal government are clearly stated. The advantages and disadvantages of the separation of power are already visible in the present attempt to adjust to Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe vs. Wade and remove abortion decisions from mandated constitutional protection. Many blue states are now busy in discussions over Trump-proofing as much as possible before his inauguration.
The first test exploring and navigating Trump’s governance started yesterday. Monday marked the start of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The COP (Conference of the Parties) annual series of international meetings (this will be the 29th meeting) are organized through UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). This blog has covered these conferences since I started it. For COP28, go to the December 12, 2023 blog. For reference, one of the first environmental actions that President Trump took after his inauguration in his first term was to take the US out of the Paris Agreement that was created during COP21. One of the first things that President Biden did after his inauguration was to rejoin the agreement. It is logical that President Trump will be consulted on any agreement that will be negotiated in Baku. President-elect Trump devoted many of his objections to the energy transition that is now taking place to mitigate climate change. He especially objected to the shift to electric cars that is now taking place. However, Tesla, the largest manufacture of electric cars, is led by Elon Musk, who became one of the most vocal supporters and probably the largest funds provider to the president-elect. We’ll see if that changes his outlook. Meanwhile, COP29 should be the first stage to examine how or if Trump’s dynamics on environmental issues have changed.
In the next few blogs, I will try to focus on COP29 and its implications.
