What are the causes of Donald Trump's victory?What mistakes did the Democrats make?What will be the consequences of the US presidential elections for Europe and its strategical autonomy? IjWhat strategy should liberals adopt for populists?Leszek Jażdżewski (Foundation of Liberte!) talks with Garvan Walsh, a political strategy and entrepreneur, founder of the pro-democratic company AI Article7 Strategies and co-founder of Unhack Democracy, which works to build an entrepreneurial civilian society in Central and east Europe.
Leszek Jażdżewski (LJ): What is your first reaction to Donald Trump's triumph in the United States presidential election?
Garvan Walshe (GW): The question was whether polls exit polls They did, and it turned out they didn't. Turns out Donald Trump managed to win a fair victory. There is no Russian disinformation, manipulation or fraud this time.
He just managed to attract more of his supporters to the polling stations than Kamali Harris. And this is 1 of the lessons we request to think about. Sometimes we lose elections and there's no point in complaining about why we lose them. However, we request to consider how to get more supporters, how to build a political coalition that will supply our candidates with office and power.
The polls were within mistake limits. The results could have gone anywhere. The key question was whether Donald Trump would be able to encourage more young men, especially young blacks and Hispanics, to support him than had happened before, and whether Kamala Harris would be able to encourage more women to support her. And it looks like Trump won that mobilization battle.
The polls may have shown that the elections were even and Trump won them. It's not a surprise. In the meantime, there were many godly wishes and many people hoped that specified a consequence would not materialize. Nevertheless, Trump has already won the election once. Although he did not win in the general vote at the time, he won the election itself. Last time, he lost clearly, but not with a large lead on Joe Biden. And this time it seems he won clearly, though again not with a decisive advantage against Harris.
America has for a long time been a country divided in half, and even large victories, specified as Obama, have managed to accomplish only a fewer percent in terms of actual participation in the votes.
LJ: Democrats, mainstream media and academic experts warned that these were elections of crucial importance to democracy. At the same time, the Democrats decided to stick to Joe Biden as their candidate much longer than it seemed profitable or necessary. It was only at the end of the run that they issued the candidacy of Kamala Harris, who – being from the mainstream Democratic Party, possibly a small to the left of the organization center and firmly to the left of the nation center – was not truly the most qualified candidate to win these elections. So did the Democrats deficiency intelligence to win these elections?
GW: Of course Biden, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, remained in office for besides long. That's typical. Politicians, and even judges of the ultimate Court, are usually people with a very large ego, otherwise they would not have come this far, so convincing them to step down from their position is highly difficult. It would be much better if Biden stepped down and allowed the primaries to take place. Harris was a good candidate, but most likely not the best Democrats could have – and surely not the best candidate against Trump that Democrats could have.
There were another possible candidates. I immediately think of Josh Shapiro, due to the fact that elections usually besides affect aesthetics. This isn't just about politics. These are not political seminars. For Democrats to be able to win against Trump, they needed individual who looked a small more right-wing, a small more conservative. Kamala Harris wasn't like this, despite her achievements as a prosecutor. It appears as a reasonably standard American liberal with all the strengths and weaknesses that this word awakens in people's minds.
Some voters supported it, others did not. We must remember that politics is simply a game of appropriate casting. If you choose good candidates, it's a brick win. We have besides seen this in the case of the Turkish elections in Istanbul and Ankara, where Ekram Imamoglu and Mansur Yavaş were able to win, while erstwhile Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was staged as the main candidate (which is like Biden in Turkey), he lost rather a lot, despite the fact that the country itself is rather powerfully balanced.
Moreover, erstwhile Democrats talk about democracy, 1 of the problems is that they have already raised false alarms in the past. erstwhile they campaigned against the actual pillars of democracy, specified as John McCain or Mitt Romney, 1 of the most decent politicians who always applied for presidentship, hanged dogs on them and suggested that the American lifestyle was threatened if McCain or Romney were elected. This kind of hyperbole later retaliated on them due to the fact that many people who are in the political center or in the centre-right began to perceive Democrats as those who say the same thing over and over again, while in fact they already said so about McCain, so why should they now believe what they say about Trump?
Democrats did not hold cold blood and were not prepared for the future, and this is 1 of the reasons why their later allegations against Trump were considered little crucial than they should have, even though Trump actually allowed the mob to effort to disrupt the result of the election last time and indeed said he admired authoritarian leaders, which was a manifest contempt for the American constitutional condition. So the Democrats have already utilized up part of their repertoire.
LJ: 1 of the strongest slogans of these elections was “Kamala is for them, president Trump is for you.” Do you think that trying to specify who is closer to “the average voter” was the decisive minute of the campaign? How is it that Trump, an authentic billionaire, has succeeded in convincing voters that he is simply a better candidate to address the issues on which average US citizens care?
GW: Donald Trump is very good with slogans and emotions. Even if the words he uses are somewhat unconventional, we always know what he's after. It's 1 of his unquestionable skills.
Trump understands the power of visualization and modern communication much better than anyone else. And that allowed him to introduce himself as an average man, at least in a cultural dimension. Yeah, he's rich, and he keeps pretending to make his own money, even though he inherited everything from his father. But another people want to be rich, too, and he's selling them these aspirations. Moreover, it besides sells hope – the hope of American capitalism, which the Democrats forgot to mention. He besides sells a certain amount of distance, doesn't take himself very seriously.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris gives the impression of a individual who may take himself besides seriously even though he laughs a lot. She started her run very well – speaking about freedom, her function as a prosecutor and utilizing the slogan “Vote for the prosecutor, not the criminal!” But then that message got a small lost. Within 2 months of the campaign, after the convention, she slowed down a bit. She failed to deliver her message to the end.
Even in fresh weeks, people have been asking what is Kamali Harris' main slogan? What does she stand for? It was inactive very vague, even for people who are mostly informed and curious in politics. any of these people were behind Trump, others were against Trump. They said, "Look, I'm voting against Trump, but I don't truly know what Harris is about." Of course, she did not have much time to specify herself, but she should have defined her message much more clearly, explain why she advocates freedom, why she advocates better America. And she missed that opportunity.
LJ: possibly 1 of the lessons of this run is that if you truly want to defend democracy, you should not talk to voters about democracy.
GW: erstwhile you find yourself in the heat of the campaign, almost all the people who consciously decided before themselves that the opponent is simply a threat to democracy are already on your side. Yes, they inactive request to be reached, they request to be encouraged to vote, we request to make certain they show up at the ballot boxes. But you must besides offer something to another voters, something that can compete with what the another candidate offers.
Perhaps this time in the American case it would be an economical run based on an economical program. It was not clear what Harris was proposing in consequence to the increase in inflation. Meanwhile, people kept talking about inflation. They felt the price level was higher. What was Kamala Harris' answer? Did she always say something like, “Actually, possibly it’s all Trump’s fault, “It’s the pandemic’s fault” or “I’m going to do it and do it to counter this phenomenon”? No specified message always came out of her mouth.
Perhaps she should have spent more time talking about it and little time talking about democracy, due to the fact that democracy has already hit susceptible ground. According to the polls exit poll That was the main reason people voted for Harris. This argument went to quite a few people, but I fishy it reached those who would vote for it anyway and already had a strong motivation to go to the polling stations.
LJ: What lessons come from this run for liberals and democrats around the world? Do you think that being ‘woke’ Or the fact that any of the ideas we care about have been taken over by the far left is simply a problem?
GW: First of all, they must be more liberal in a European sense than centrists. They tend to be people who talk on 2 sides of the dispute and are themselves in the mediate – which is fine erstwhile you regulation most of the time, but if you campaign, it may mean that it is highly hard to specify you. People don't know what these guys are saying, they think they're offering complex political solutions, and they don't have a clear story.
Regarding the phenomenon ‘womanness’, it is harmful due to the fact that it makes Democrats seem a small foreign, and what they request is simply a fresh kind of language that would let them to talk about any of the concepts behind being ‘woke’which are rather universal and to which people can relate. If you're talking about pronouns "she, they, they, you, me," just call people what they want to be called, it's okay. You don't gotta go into any very ideological way of talking about it. Yes, there is an ideological faction of the Democratic Party, but by God, there is an ideological faction of the Republican Party.
This fact in itself should not be a problem, but the candidate should know how to symbolically neutralize this attack from political extremes, show that she (I mean Kamala Harris here) is simply a more "normal" kind of man. We are back to casting again, and this is something that Kamala Harris of California will find hard – compared to individual from the Midwest state in the U.S. or Virginia, or states where election results like to hesitate.
LJ: What should we anticipate erstwhile it comes to Trump administration's political proposals? Will it be a Trump 2.0 project, unscrupulous and dangerous, or will it be something completely different?
GW: Political proposals are not necessarily the most important, but the nature and kind of the presidency are very crucial here, so we can anticipate Trump to effort to implement his main demands. For example, we can anticipate it to impose duties on China. We can besides presume that he will effort to drag Europe into this, most likely by threatening with his own tariffs, as a consequence of which Europe will impose its own duties.
An effort to control this trade war will be crucial. What Trump will do will have a very destructive impact on the United States. Even if he is not peculiarly curious in pursuing an unstable abroad policy, Washington's attention will be distracted. They will not be able to keep up with crises and will not necessarily be able to hire the best people to effort to manage these crises, at least in the beginning.
Perhaps we will be witnessing a period where Trump will simply go all the way, and then he will gotta effort to bring people who are a small more competent into the administration to deal with the crises that will come.
We can besides anticipate Trump to prosecute a different policy towards NATO, towards European defence. Biden's administration was not as strong as many people hoped for Ukraine. This is why, in a sense, it is not that it will become horrible from the “perfect American government”.
Apparently Donald Trump respects things. It respects “the display of strength”, not necessarily actual strength – but respects the appearance of strength. So it would be crucial for Ukraine and its allies (such as Poland and the Baltic countries) to show commitment and strength.
Of course, the increase in defence spending by Poland is very important. There may be an argument that North and east Europe should work more straight with the Trump administration.
I fishy Trump and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will not get along due to the fact that they do not have a akin view of many issues, even if, ironically, they can agree on the policy towards Ukraine. But psychologically they are very different, almost very different people.
Therefore, if we want to sustain European strength, we must do things that will show that we have good technology, good soldiers and a mostly strong military. In Trump's case, much of this comes down to appearances and visual aspects. If we can convince him that something looks good, he'll believe it. But if it is simply a boring political paper or a mention to abstract concepts (such as rules based on global order), it will not realize what they are about.
Trump is always afraid that people will trick him, that they want to screw him. Thus, he is very suspicious of things he does not see.
LJ: Trump's first presidency ignited a discussion on strategical autonomy. Will the second word consequence in a real creation of a strategical European defence?
GW: We are dealing with a certain paradox here that countries that talk a lot about strategical autonomy (especially France) do not supply the resources essential to accomplish it. In the meantime, countries that may not want to do so – due to the fact that they do not trust the erstwhile – are actually spending money on it.
It will be a challenge to get France to importantly increase its defence spending, as it has a immense budget deficit. Germany has its coalition problems. France and Germany do not see the Russian war in Ukraine as an existential threat (as is the case in Central Europe and the Nordic countries).
Therefore, it may not be a question of developing strategical autonomy, but alternatively an increased defence effort from north-eastern Europe. If the countries of this region do their best, they can do so. This is adequate to halt Russia – especially if the British were besides on this side. But this would be highly difficult, and of course it would be good to see the contribution of France, Germany and Italy in this respect (with French, German and Italian industries contributing to the provision of appropriate solutions). These countries have so much talent in the field of military technology and equipment that if Europe were to arm itself, this would besides have a affirmative impact on these industries (and mostly on the economy) in the industrial regions where this defence manufacture is located.
LJ: What should we do as individuals who want liberal democracy around the world? How to fight populism and defend democracy at a time erstwhile the United States one more time ceased to be part of the solution and became part of the problem?
GW: Firstly, we must remember that politics is not a technological seminar on politics. This is about people, and it's about people who believe in democracy being in power. This is how democracy is protected. It is then about the existence of political parties that besides realize that democracy is part of their own values, so that people have an ideological core that clearly states, "These are the things that we intend to do, and here are the things that we will not do."
It is besides about separating democracy from a full, heavy, centre-left human rights agenda. We could observe respective years (especially from the financial crisis to the last European elections) erstwhile people said, "Well, if you believe in the regulation of law, then you must besides believe in the permissive immigration policy." However, these certain views of the government are not necessarily identical to the fundamental structure of democratic society. We must be able to build alliances with people who have different views on peculiar political issues (such as immigration, trade, wellness administration or climate change), while maintaining support on both sides of the spectrum for the continuation of the democratic system.
One of the most effective populist techniques was to delegate all of their opponents and fundamentally question their arguments, while at the same time the defenders of democracy sought not to delegate "other people" due to the fact that they feared fighting in this field. The populists like to bring politics into the gutter, but politics is more of a fight athletics than any political experts would. The political debate so justifies questioning the nature of the opponents.
In democracy, we employment people for public posts. It is reasonable that we are discussing their character much more frequently than the policy itself, due to the fact that their policies will gotta change and adapt depending on the circumstances. The situation keeps changing. This policy is so a way of knowing what specified politicians can do, not a literal promise about what people do.
In the 19th century there was a somewhat outdated saying "Not men, but means." Now we could say that in reality it is the opposite: people, not politics. It should be ensured that those who want to support the democratic strategy are persons who have the appropriate mechanisms of power at their disposal.
Furthermore, it is crucial to realise that the most crucial thing is not to retreat erstwhile we are accused of politicism. This is something that civilian society is worried about, especially in Central and east Europe. The authoritarian demagog raises a fresh issue, and then says to all non-governmental organization that works on it: “See, you must halt politicising the issue!” even though it politicised it first. We should not retreat from this space and we must be aware that unfortunately we will besides gotta take up this kind of political game.
Politics is part of public life and public activity. It's not a specialist profession, like hairdressing. Yeah, for quite a few people, choices take place all erstwhile in a while, but like erstwhile you visit a barber to cut your hair, we don't bother with details. However, in all democracy there must be a certain critical mass of people who are active in the democratic strategy and civilian society in this political way. They must be active in maintaining this system.
Building this critical mass is crucial for surviving various episodes of populist governments or demagogues that are as old as old are electoral systems and democratic systems. All of this goes back to ancient Greece, possibly even further. This is simply a regular feature of democratic policy and we must be able to deal with these situations. In the end, populists usually fail. And erstwhile that happens, people have a right to regret voting for a populist and changing their minds. Teaching them the consequences of supporting crazy populists in power truly doesn't work. We must endure this, defend the institutions, and then choice good, charismatic candidates who can scope a wide scope of people.
Charisma should not be a monopoly on demagogues. Idenmagogue politicians can besides usage charisma for more reasonable and average political purposes and should do so. To be ready for this, political parties gotta train people how to talk correctly and how to win voters outside their own bubble.
In conclusion, we are in a political age powerfully based on personality through social media. Nowadays, people have much more direct channels to build their own support than they utilized to – and that means that personality has become a larger part of politics than it was 30 or 40 years ago.
Things utilized to be more political than they are now. At present, it is primarily about a direct individual relation with the individual holding the office and it is improbable that this phenomenon will change. So we just gotta get utilized to it.
Garvan Walshe was a guest of the last edition of the Freedom Games, an thought festival organized annually in Łódź. This year's edition was held on 18-20 October at EC1 Łódź. The co-organiser of the festival is the European Liberal Forum.
This podcast was produced by the European Liberal Forum in collaboration with the Movieno Liberal Social and the Liberté Foundation!, with the financial support of the European Parliament. Neither the European Parliament nor the European Liberal Forum are liable for the content of the podcast nor for any way of utilizing it.
Podcast is besides available on platforms Sound, Apple Podcast, Stitcher and Spotify
Dr. Olga Łabendowicz translated from English
Read English at 4liberty.eu
