Today I'm going to be talking about my experiences following the US elections as a European. So keep in mind when reading that I am writing this from the perspective of someone living in a relatively comfortable social-democracy. I wrote this in the early morning of november 6th in Europe, when Donald Trump had not yet been declared the winner, but his victory is imminent.
Waking up on the morning after the US elections has been a nerve wrecking experience for me the past three elections. Us Europeans go to bed on election night when voting has not yet finished in most states and we wake up eight hours later when a good portion of the votes have been counted already. In 2016 I woke up being confident that after 'pussygate' American people would do the only right thing, which is to vote for Hillary Clinton instead of a racist, sexist, bigot. However that is not what happened. A majority of Americans made a protest vote against the establishment which they felt had been ignoring the 'ordinary' American. In doing so, they helped an autocrat to power.
In 2020 I woke up the morning after hoping that Joe Biden pulled it off, but initially being disappointed looking at the vote counts in the swing states. However, CNN assured us Europeans that mail votes had not yet been counted and things could still turn around. I spent the next two days biting my nails, waiting for the confirmation that Donald Trump had indeed lost the election. In 2020 we also saw what happens when an autocrat has to face defeat. He denies it. We witnessed an attack on democracy like we have never seen before in a country like the USA. Fortunately, there were just enough people, such as Mike Pence, who kept their cool and fought against this attack succesfully.
What followed were four years of Joe Biden. Biden was a modest president compared to his flashy predecessors Obama and Trump. I don't think people give him enough credit for his accomplishments. One of the most important things happening under the Biden administration is the reinvigorated FTC with Lena Khan as their public face. If Americans complain that life is too expensive and the economy is bad, then oligopolies are one reason as to why that is. Lena Khan was given the go ahead by Joe Biden to try to break up corporations such as Amazon and Google, but also grocery store chains, that have become too big and powerful. I don't have much hope that Khan will keep this mandate under Trump and his tech bro buddy Musk. Biden also kept the US economy in a relatively good state, when compared to a lot of other wealthy nations. There is often a lag of a few years between the state of the economy and ordinary people reaping the benefits of a good economy, which may have been crucial in today's imminent victory of Donald Trump. The exit polls show that people's main reason to vote for Trump was their worries about the economy, but I don't think lower and middle class Americans are going to be better off financially under Donald Trump.
On november 6th 2024, this morning, I woke up feeling pretty nervous. I turned on the TV and what I saw shocked me. Maybe it shouldn't have, because I have been in this position before, but it did shock me nonetheless. I was confident that Americans would surely do the right thing this time and not vote for someone who has proven to be antidemocratic in his core. I was wrong. I will never understand how anyone, let alone a majority of people in a country, could vote for someone who might never give up power once it is given to him. Trump 2.0 is going to be so much worse. He installed his Yes-men in all positions around him. From the beginning of next year, they are going to launch their 'project 2025' where they will actively start their work breaking down the fundaments of America as a democracy. Not to mention the effects on the Geopolitical situation. Trump in power means Russia is going to feel empowered to push forward into Ukraine and perhaps other nations on the EU border. Israel is going to feel pretty comfortable to continue their ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
But what I worry about the most is the morning after in 2028. How am I going to wake up in four years? Will there even be an US election result to wake up to? Or is Trump just going to appoint one of his cronies as his successor? Will Trump have allowed current global conflicts to further escalate in to God knows what? Will I be waking up living in the middle of a third world war? Maybe this is all a bit too alarmist, but it is how I am feeling right now, on the morning of november 6th 2024.