Date: 2025-08-20 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00027976
TRUMP
TRUMP WINS THE PRESIDENCY
Trump’s Populism Is Unleashed After Resounding White House Comeback
TRUMP WINS THE PRESIDENCY
Trump’s Populism Is Unleashed After Resounding White House Comeback
Original article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-11-06/trump-2024-election-win-how-populist-politics-won-the-white-house
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
The commentary is being added In earky February 2025, some three months after Trump won the election.
The 2024 election was a low turnout election with Democrats choosing not to vote at higher levels that usual ... giving Trump the win.
I believe that Biden stepping aside in favor of Kamala Harris was the right move, and I believe that Kamala Harris delivered a very good campaign and in most situations, it would have been enough to win. The low voter turnout explains the Harris loss. But what explains the low voter turnout?
The Democrats are a 'big tent' party ... meaning that there are all sorts of different groups that generally are voters for the Democratic Party candidates ... and this is how the Democrats get to become a majority. There are a huge number of diverse agendas that enable Democrats to win with a majority of the vote ... both popular vote and the electoral college.
For some reason a large number of voters who normally vote Democrat chose not to vote this election cycle. Why was this?
To me, it seems that there were some serious issues where it was difficult for Democrats to be in favor of all sides of a complex set of issues ... and most of all to do with the real politic of the Middle East where Israel was engaged in a hot war with Hamas in Gaza, with tens of thousands of Palestinians killed and massive physical destruction of the area. Biden and Harris were supportive of Israel in the aftermath of the October 7th massacre of Jews in Isreal by Hamas operatives which was a reasonable policy position, as was US support for retalitation against Hamas.
I consider the initial Israeli response to have been justified and reasonable ... but not the subsequent escallation and essentially genocidal conduct of the Israeli military against Palestinians in Gaza. American voters with Palestinian backgrounds were outraged that the USA was doing everything in support of Israel while ignoring the impact this support was haviong on the Palestinian population.
This week Isreal's Orime Minister Netenyahu was in Washington visiting Trump and the new administration ... essentially celebrating Israel's military 'wins' in his region ... Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iran ... and taking a victory lap, with the full support of Trump!
But this is likely a big mistake ... for Israel and for the United States.
Netenyahu is a big part of the problem that Israel and the region has to confront. I remember being 7 years old and looking at pictures of Palestine as it then was in a magazine called the Illustrated London News! This was my introduction to geopolitics. I wanted my father to explain to me why there were so many destroyed buildings ... and soldiers ... and ... and ... and ...
At that time, I knew something about war and its destruction ... but that was only about the Germans versus the allies during WWII ... and that was over and we had won! But now I was seeing pictures of war in a different area of the world ... in Palestine.
Fast forward almost 80 years and Israeli Jews are at war with Palestinians ... mainly Arabs who follow Islam.
And Netenyahu has the added problem of facing all sorts of criminal charges if he steps down or otherwise loses political power!
Sincew the October 7th Hamas attack ... more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. That is a lot ... perhaps not compared to the Nazi death camps in Europe during WWII ... but certainly in this modern world.
THIS NEEDS EDIT ...
Peter Burgess
The decisive victory shows Trump’s first term was no aberration. Now, he takes the White House fully schooled in the levers of executive power — and with more leeway to govern as he pleases.
Written by Mike Dorning
November 6, 2024 at 6:30 AM EST ... Updated on November 6, 2024 at 1:13 PM EST
Donald Trump is on his way back to the White House. He crashed through many of the informal guardrails governing US political life during his turbulent first term. This time he’ll be operating with even fewer restraints.
And he’s said he’s out for revenge.
The populist idol’s victory culminates one of the most stunning comebacks in American history. Trump left Washington four years ago defeated and disgraced — spurned even by members of his own cabinet, two of whom resigned in protest over his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Since then, he’s been indicted multiple times, found liable for sexual assault and convicted in a New York state court of 34 felony counts.
Yet he’s strengthened his hold on the Republican party and swiftly dispatched rivals in a presidential primary. As of early Wednesday, he was on track to win the popular vote, only the second time a Republican presidential nominee has done so since George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump told supporters as the results came in. PlayPlay1:37 Watch: Trump rallies supporters, pledges to help country “heal.”
In less than 11 weeks, he will take the oath of office on the same Capitol steps where a mob of supporters battled police in a failed attempt to override his 2020 election loss.
The improbable Trump restoration marks the triumph of a grievance-based populism driven by a working-class backlash against transgender rights, the shift to a service economy, trade globalization and a wave of immigration that has pushed up the share of foreign-born residents in the US to the highest level since 1910. His second victory shows his first term was no aberration.
The 78-year-old will be the oldest person ever elected US president. His win flashes a warning sign on US voters’ tolerance for transformative change as global warming raises costly challenges and recent leaps forward in artificial intelligence tantalize investors with the promise of revolutionary upheaval in work.
And it leaves Ronald Reagan’s corporate-friendly party of free markets, free trade and optimism on the ash heap of history.
Trump and his running mate JD Vance on election night.
Photographer: Evan Vucci/AP Images
Trump’s victory reverberated through financial markets, sending US stocks rallying, Treasury yields jumping and the dollar surging the most since 2020. Bitcoin spiked to a record, while the Mexican peso, Japanese yen and euro all slid. A cohort of Wall Street investors have wagered his promises of corporate tax cuts, deregulation and tariff increases would boost stocks and could fuel inflation, spurring bond yields and the dollar higher. Crypto is seen as benefiting from Trump’s public embrace.