The Observer view on US election: lessons for the left in wake of damning defeat

Donald Trump’s unexpectedly clearcut victory in last week’s US presidential election is a wake-up call for the progressive left in America and Britain. The hard-right Republican nominee made gains in almost all voter groups, including in swing state cities, middle-class suburbs, working-class manufacturing centres and rural and farming communities. Black, Latino, Native American and younger voters, on whose support his Democratic rival, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, had pinned her hopes, also went for Trump in larger than anticipated numbers. Polling suggesting a dead heat was wrong. Trump scored an undeniable nationwide triumph, winning both the electoral college and the popular vote.

The Democratic party’s inquest into what went wrong must honestly confront some uncomfortable truths. One concerns identity. It’s plain, on this showing at least, that membership of racial and ethnic minorities can no longer be blithely assumed to translate into support for a progressive left agenda. Another concerns priorities. Top-down policy agendas pursued by entitled and privileged social “elites” can alienate ordinary voters from all backgrounds. They simply cannot or will not relate to them.

Likewise, Harris’s belief that support for abortion rights, while laudable, could be used as a decisive wedge issue to attract female voters was confounded by the 45% of women who backed Trump. For them, bread-and-butter issues mattered more. A CNN exit poll also found Trump’s support among college-educated and first-time voters, who usually favour the Democrats, rose, too. Unsurprisingly, most white men went with the white guy. Again, worries about prices, the economy, jobs and security might have determined their vote. But, sadly, many might have rejected the idea of a woman of colour as president.

This was a comprehensive defeat, not only for Harris but for her boss, President Joe Biden, and for the Democratic party, which also lost control of the Senate and has probably failed once again to take the House of Representatives. It’s true that Harris had little more than three months to make her case. It’s possible that had the unpopular president stepped down earlier, as the former speaker Nancy Pelosi suggests, Harris or another candidate might have done better. It’s certain that, as usual, the economy was the top issue, and that most voters blame the Biden-Harris administration for doing a poor job. But if the significance of this debacle is to be fully understood, it is necessary to look beyond such conventional explanations.

The heart of the problem is that Democrats have lost touch – and no longer seem to understand where at least half of all Americans are coming from. Harris’s brave show of positivity and her stress on inclusiveness, unity and joy jarred badly with the joyless, negative everyday experience of conflicted and divided voters. They complained that high inflation is ruining living standards, food is unaffordable, secure, well-paid jobs are a rarity amid influxes of cheap migrant labour – and that their current leaders disrespect and ignore them, and simply do not care about them. If this sounds familiar, it’s because similar grievances are fuelling the advance of Reform UK and European rightwing populist parties, which welcomed Trump’s victory.

This fundamental disconnect is evident in other areas. One recent poll found that 45% of Americans say democracy does not do a good job protecting ordinary people. Trust in institutions, such as the justice system and the media, is eroding. Long gone are the days when three national TV networks and a clutch of self-important newspapers dictated the news agenda. Trump understood this. He took his campaign to popular podcasters and talk radio. He mostly avoided big set-piece interviews and risky prime-time debates. And, despite attempts on his life, he hosted raucous open-air rallies, defiantly offensive to the end.

Laced with ever-increasing vulgarity, his speeches offered a deliberately gloomy, dark and angry contrast to Harris’s upbeat vision. He was, Trump said, “mad as hell”. He was going to get even. He would take down the elites. And he would make America great again. This furious narrative of victimhood, unfairness and retribution reflected the nation’s sour mood. Trump said he would fight for them – and enough of them believed him. Most thought the country was heading in the wrong direction anyway. They wanted a change. So, having fired him in 2020, they hired him for a second time – even though, according to the CNN poll, 54% view him unfavourably.

“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump claimed – and this prospect is truly daunting. His mandate to “save the country” includes mass migrant deportations, unfunded tax cuts, sweeping import tariffs, expanded oil and gas drilling, abandoning the green agenda, repudiation of Nato, a free hand for Israel, betrayal of Ukraine to Russia, and promised Stalinist purges of political opponents, journalists and anybody else he dislikes. Britain, estranged from the EU, now faces a potential collapse of its US “special relationship” despite Keir Starmer’s awkward schmoozing of the president-elect. What a mess!

Right now, Trump is in the pink. He has won a famous victory. But let’s not forget for a moment that he remains a fundamental danger to America and the world. At some point, Britain and the other western democracies may have to draw a line, even do the unthinkable and break with the US. As we have said before, Trump is unfit to hold the office to which he has just been re-elected. Proof of that contention will not be long in coming.