The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - America's Most Consequential Election?

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Leading up to election day, the race for the next president of the United States of America has been closely tied. Now, a day after the most important night of the year for Americans, what can we expect for the future of American democracy? The Agenda invites top experts in political and election science to discuss a Trump presidency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A little over half of Americans have been rejoicing today as their tribune, Donald Trump, won a pretty solid victory in the presidential election. A little less than half of Americans are in a state of shock, wondering how their fellow citizens could have given a mandate to such a, by traditional standards, flawed and disreputable candidate. What did Americans say with their votes? And what are the implications of Trump's win for Ukraine, for the Middle East, for China, and yes for us in Canada? Let's find out from in Atlanta, Georgia, Laura Dawson, executive director

of Future Borders Coalition. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Martha Croft, professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. And in Washington, DC, David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic. And we are delighted to have. Oh, OK. Matthew is here as well, so I'm going to add him to the mix.

Matthew, pronounce your last name, Lebo. OK, terrific. And you're hearing me OK. I did not hear you. Can you? There we go. OK. Okay, terrific. And you're hearing me okay? I did not hear you. There we go. Okay. And in Montreal, Quebec, Matthew Liebow, professor of political science at Western University. And I want to thank all four of you for gathering on this

day after Election Day, or it might actually still be the night. We're about to find out whether we can do a show on two-hour sleep here. I have great faith in all of you that we can. I want to start with a very neutral question. David Frum, get us started here. What point did the American people make last night? The message they may have sent, and although of course we're talking about tens of millions of people who can't aggregate them, it may not be the message that will be heard.

What we are now on a path to global trade conflicts, one of the things that Donald Trump is committed to doing is raising tariffs, other countries will retaliate. This is very much the end of the line for the cause of Ukrainian independence. Donald Trump has made it very clear that he will cut off assistance to them and force them into a deal with Russia. And that means submission. For the Middle East, it means a green light to Israel to do more or less anything it wants. And for Canada, it means a very uncomfortable relationship with a United States that is

going to adopt protectionism as a serious tool of national policy and will not be exempting its immediate neighbors. Laura Dawson, what point did they make with their votes last night? as a serious tool of national policy and will not be exempting its immediate neighbours. Laura Dawson, what point did they make with their votes last night? I think the point that they made is that Donald Trump somehow connected with a sense of insecurity, of concern about America's role in the world, concern about employment, concern about opportunities. They just do not feel as well today as they did four or five years ago.

America's role in the world is uncertain. And I think the voters were reflecting that in their votes last night. Martha Kropf, what say you? Honestly think that they weren't thinking about any of these things. What they were thinking is what, uh, one of Bill Clinton's advisors once said, uh, it's the economy stupid. I've talked to a lot of people here are really concerned about the economy,

really concerned about their ability to buy the house, to have the American dream, and they considered it vital. Um, there is a few Donald Trump voters that probably, uh, see Donald Trump house to have the American dream. And they considered it vital. There is a few Donald Trump voters that probably see Donald Trump more as a savior or some sort of apotheosis. He's the God. But I honestly think for the typical voter, it was about the economy. Matthew Liebo, what do you say?

Yeah. A lot of these things apply to different voters. I think the economy is certainly really important to a lot of voters. Voters are really just frustrated. People have lost a lot of faith in institutions, in the media, in the ability of government to get involved and help them. And Kamala Harris is just part of the incumbent administration, so dissatisfaction with the

way the economy has gone, or at least the higher costs of living certainly has a big effect. Other voters are unhappy with Joe Biden's policies towards Israel. That cost them votes. Perhaps that cost a lot of votes in in states like Michigan a lot of younger voters are unhappy that they don't see either party working to make that their lives better and and so the the the younger vote is not as strong as Harris needed. Let's do another round here with again another nice short punchy neutral open

ended question. David Fromm as you were watching the coverage last night, what made you sort of stop in your tracks and say, hmm, that's really interesting. I didn't expect that. The magnitude of the Democratic defeat, it was in every, in so many different constituency groups. Again, I want to stress, I don't think it's the useful question to say, what did the voters mean to do?

What matters is what they're going to get. They are going to get a very different set of things from what they wish for. And a big part of what happened last night was that problem of not taking Donald Trump seriously, that spread through the electorate. They don't take seriously. What they're going to get are tariffs. What they're going to get are tariffs. What they're going to get is the crackup of NATO.

What they're going to get are the reenactment of the Trump tax cuts of 2017. And what they're probably going to get is not economic growth, but a recession, because tariffs are very bad for the world economy, and retaliation will make the tariffs worse. Laura Dawson, what stopped you in your tracks as you were watching the coverage last night? Well, for weeks, I've been kind of the skunk at the garden party telling my Canadian and American friends, look, I really think Donald Trump is going to win.

I don't think Kamala Harris is as strong as you think. And seeing that my sort of dire predictions were being realized, I think that was the biggest surprise. I kind of wanted to be wrong. But all indications were that Donald Trump was on track to be the next president. Martha Kropf, how about you? That's a tough question to answer.

I think I spent the last few several days in Western North Carolina, where they are just now recovering from a big hurricane. And I think it wasn't the coverage that last night that got me, but seeing the emotion and the passion of people coming out, because it was such an important election. David, you are obviously right.

These voters aren't voting for something that they see that's going to happen, right? That, oh, tariffs, yay. They're voting for what they see as this economy is just so bad. Inflation has been so bad. And they're not looking beyond their current situation to see that it probably would have been, I mean, we don't have a crystal ball, but you know, it's unclear if Trump, if he had been elected in 2020, would have been able to do better and certainly all signs point to he would not have given us that soft landing.

And so his, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it was surprising to me that level of passion about, uh, Donald Trump and the Republican administration. Sorry, Matthew Liebo, how about you? Yeah, just to see the broad strength of Donald Trump across every state, you know, the red states got redder. State like Florida now, you know, looks just unreachable for a Democrat. New Jersey was only four or five percent. That should be much bigger. Just so many steps back, you know, county by county and state by state, Harris doing much worse than, or at least, you know, noticeably worse than Biden did in 2020.

You know, Donald Trump got 46% in 2016, 47% in 2020, and for the last four years and post-January 6th and the last few weeks for him to get up and maybe win the popular vote is just really stunning. David, one of the things that I heard on one of the channels I was watching was somebody making the following point. Okay, you Democrats, you keep talking about pronouns and trans rights and meantime, this other guy

who is a completely disreputable candidate has been eye on the prize on the economy and what he's going to do for you. And that's why he won. Do you think this is the death of identity politics in the Democratic Party, given the results last night? Donald Trump's economic message was a chaotic mess. He said he's going to abolish all sorts of taxes. He's going to extend his 2017 tax cut indefinitely. But he's going to, while delivering this giant increase in the deficit, he's going to somehow restrain

the growth of prices. And oh, by the way, he's going to stop international trade. And anyway, most of the time, he was not talking about the economy. Most of the time he was talking about his grievances and his plans for vengeance. So the idea that he had a coherent message of any kind, a message that was connected to real things in the economy, that's not true. Now, the Democrats did collapse for many reasons.

They govern a messy coalition, many parts of which don't like each other. And I think one of the things that we have seen is it's going to be very hard to hold Latinos and African Americans in the same coalition into the future. And I've been writing about this for a long time. The idea in the early 2000s that there was this concept called people of color who were all going to get along. Well, the history of the European continent is to show that people of the same ethnicity, the same race are able, very able to fight World War I and

World War II against each other. And you shouldn't expect that people of other backgrounds are going to be any more harmonious. But, of course it was Republicans who talked much more about the trans issue than Democrats did. That is something that is happening. The trans issues are happening very much in the culture, in schools, not at the federal level where I don't know that the government of the United States has done anything about

it one way or the other. Martha, can you follow up on that? Do you think this is a shot across the bow of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? Well, so certainly the Democrats are this, they like to say they're this large umbrella. And Harris's strategy was largely based on white suburban women. And so women's identity, women's protection of women's health. And I think it's pretty clear that that strategy was not that successful for her. And so, I mean, I think this raises a question for women in gender politics. You know, when are we going to have a woman president? And

can we, can women come behind a woman politician to support her to press to the presidency. We certainly didn't see it in 2016. We didn't see it this last year with Nikki Haley and we didn't see it further on. So in that sense, you know, I think women are going to have to that identity anyway is going to have to stick around. As far as identity politics, we were talking about race. I mean, I certainly think that I mean, Harris didn't do too badly. I

mean, she actually held on fairly well at least my quick first look at the exit polls. As for you know, gender and identity, gender identity, that's just a tough one. And I'm not sure what that's going to mean for the Democrats moving forward. Let me follow up with Laura on something you said in the midst of that answer, which is the abortion issue clearly was not the vote winner or vote getter for the Democratic Party as they thought it would be. Laura, do you have any theories on why that is?

Because they certainly had enjoyed a number of referendum victories in a row after the Supreme Court threw out Roe versus Wade. It wasn't the vote winner last night. How come? I think they focused on it. It was important to do so. I know here in Georgia it was a very important issue and they had this the Post- Note campaign, where you would go into a ladies room and on the back of the stall there would be information saying, you can vote for Kamala Harris, it's about women's reproductive rights, your husband doesn't have to know. So they were definitely doubling down on that issue. But in some respects, I think women were saying, yep, I don't want my health to be dictated by a man.

But I think there may be other options through state-based opportunities. And I really think it is immigration and the economy that were the primary drivers of voters of all genders last night. And Matthew, let me follow up with you in this regard. Many had made the point that after Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden,

and then the Republicans did worse in the midterms, it looked like the Republicans and Trump were on an inexorable downward decline. And yet, last night took place. I wanna know whether you think gender is still, well, let me just put it this way. Is it impossible for a woman to get elected president in the United States these days?

Well, you know, if we compare what we think might have happened if Joe Biden was on the ticket, yeah, Joe Biden would have gotten some votes that Kamala Harris didn't, but there were some votes that she got that he wouldn't have got. And really, I think the underlying factor is that it's a very evenly divided country. More people identify with the Republican Party now than identify with the Democratic Party. Having an incumbent Democratic Party just naturally increases people's identification with the out party.

And so by just being out of office, people naturally tend, you know, their dissatisfaction leads them to the out party. And so the balance now favors Republicans. And 2022 was, you know, Donald Trump wasn't on the ticket. You have really a midterm election where the people who are voting are the ones who are most interested in politics. Last night, a lot of people who don't vote in midterms are less interested in politics

but are unhappy. They go to the polls and so that also tips things away from the incumbent. David, can I get you on that as well because we remember in 2016 people said it wasn't that they didn't want to vote for a woman, they didn't want to vote for that woman, Hillary Clinton. Well, now this is two female presidential candidates that have been rejected by the American people and apparently this time you could argue a female candidate had her best shot ever to win.

Is this country not ready for a female president yet? I think we are seeing in the United States and across the developed world a widening polarization between the sexes. They're much less likely to be married to each other. They're much less likely to live together. There is a lot of, you see it in the way young people talk about each other in social media. There is a lot of mutual bafflement. And I think Donald Trump was a candidate who mobilized a lot of male resentment. He's a candidate who spoke about violence in a way that many men found exciting and women found more threatening.

So I wouldn't dismiss this as a real problem. That gender politics, maybe in the 21st century, the story's going to be that race will matter less, sex will matter more, and gender politics will be polarized. And perhaps the way it happens is that when the United States does get a female candidate for president,

a successful female candidate for president, that she will have to run on the right-hand party and not in the left-hand party. Certainly that's how it was in Great Britain and in Canada. It was the conservatives who nominated women, not the liberals or laborers. And we note the conservative party at Great Britain has gone to a woman again.

David, we're going to lose you in two minutes, so I want to ask you one more thing because I know you have another commitment to get to and we're grateful for your time. Here's, okay, here's a bit of setup here. No normal presidential candidate who was as narcissistic and sociopathic with authoritarian tendencies as Donald Trump could normally win an election. So clearly he's different. What, I mean you've been trying for a long time to convince Americans not to vote for this guy. What has he got for him?

What has he got going for him that has apparently allowed 51% of the country to ignore the downside that comes with him? That comes with him. Look, authoritarianism is deeply appealing to a part of the human brain. And one of the reasons that authoritarian politics has been boxed out since the Second World War is that so long as memories of fascism, communism, the Second World War refresh, there is I think a broad consensus among people who participated in politics at the most active level not to open the door to this kind of behavior

but In in times past that Donald Trump would have met by a united refusal of Democrats and Republicans the way authoritarian politics advances is Somebody in the political world decides I can work with this I can use this to my advantage That's almost always a miscalculation decides, I can work with this. I can use this to my advantage. That's almost always a miscalculation, but it's a calculation that Republicans made, that they could get more from Trump than they could from a more acceptable candidate, a John McCain or a Mitt Romney. And that was true. He was able to operate a glitch in the electoral college in 2016, and this time score a genuine

victory, popular victory, and he's going to deliver a lot. And he's also going to deliver a lot for himself, a high level of corruption, a high level He's also going to deliver a lot for himself, a high level of corruption, a high level of authoritarianism, but that was a deal that the Republican Party of the 2010s and 2020s was willing to make, which their fathers and grandfathers would probably not have been willing to make. Do you feel like all your work has gone for naught? I feel like, what did Rudyard Kiplick say, when you see all the work you've done turned by names into a trap by fools. Look, I think the conservative movement, as I know it, is definitively over.

The appeal of democracy, the appeal of constitutional law, we are into something very different. It's a different chapter. That doesn't mean you stop working. It means you have to work harder in a new ways. David, thanks for making time for us. Appreciate you very much. That's David Frum from The Atlantic, and he's got a great piece up today. You should go to The Atlantic website and read that.

Okay, Laura Dawson, let me follow up with you on that same question. How is it possible that somebody who, for so many people, is a non-starter as a presidential candidate could manage to convince more than half the country to vote for him. What is that superpower that Trump apparently has? Well, I think one of the superpowers certainly is creating outrage and then tapping into it. So finding people's anger points

and then saying that other person is not gonna solve it for you, I've got the secret sauce. But I think that in the broader picture, Americans are feeling like the rules are stacked against them, that they signed up for one sort of an arrangement that they would have an opportunity to raise the kids and have a good job and have some respect in the world. And then China and then all sorts of things change and they don't have those same opportunities anymore.

And I think that he's presented this message that the rules are stacked against Americans. And I think in particular, you know, we were talking just a bit ago about identity politics. He real the Democrats really misperceived first-generation immigrants, really trying to press the message that open borders were somehow going to be something that Mexican Americans, Indian Americans, Arab Americans were going to support. No, those people came in following the rules

and standing in a long lineup. And it drives them crazy when other people flaunt the rules and skip the line. And that was something that I think the Democrats missed for quite a long time. They did a pivot a little bit later, but Trump, you know, his solutions are crazy. But he tapped into that anger that somebody else was jumping in line ahead of you and it wasn't fair. Matthew, have you got a view as to why he seems to be able to break all the rules and yet come out ahead?

Yeah, you know, there's a lot of different pieces to his coalition, the voters who supported him last night. So he's definitely tapped into a lot of anger among white voters, especially among men, white men who feel that, you know, the country has put them out of the hierarchy. They used to see themselves at the top of the hierarchy and they don't anymore. And so there's resentment there. You know, Kamala Harris does well among people with college educations, but that's not enough. So in 2016, Trump brought a lot of angry white voters into the Republican Party.

And then he kept those people for a long time. You can see at the rallies the kind of voters, the kind of anger that he can stir up. But that's not his whole coalition. So in addition to those people, he's also got the support of people who traditionally vote Republican, think of themselves as Republican, and, you know, buy the lines about what Kamala Harris and Democrats stand for. So, when Donald Trump says things that are outrageous about what she would have done as president, they either convince themselves that he's telling the truth or, you know,

that there's something there. They just can't support a Democrat. They just can't cross the line. So that's another big chunk of his support. But last night, there was also support among Latinos and a really big chunk of Latinos. And I think that that is a reaction to immigration and policies on immigration coming from the two sides and Donald Trump's ability to as was just said exactly that people who came in legally and patiently really resent any implication and whether it's true or not or different under Democrats or Republicans that other people are doing things outside the lines outside the law.

Martha, maybe you can give us some insight into this. You know, normally if you're a candidate for president and you've been found guilty in a courtroom of sexual assault, you know, your political career comes to an end, particularly if you're caught on tape saying other rude things, which he dismissed his locker room talk, but which was a lot more than that. Can you help us understand why so many women voted for Donald Trump?

So it's a fascinating question. And it's one that's sort of interesting, especially here in North Carolina. I'm sure you can recall that one of our candidates, the Republican candidate for governor here, was Mark Robinson, is Mark Robinson. And he lost the election rather decisively last night after another network found out some pretty awful information about him and even Republicans wouldn't support him then. I mean, we're looking at people who are perfectly willing to support Donald Trump. But then here's Mark Robinson and he's just out. Now he does happen to be black, which could be part of the reason for that sort of strangeness.

But yeah, I mean, goodness sakes, Gary Hart was kicked out simply because he was on a boat cheating on his wife, right? Howard Dean did a yell and out he went. And I think we're going to be spending a lot of time talking about it. In other words, I have no idea and I've been studying political science for 25 years. That's a solid answer. I got to respect that. And I've been studying political science for 25 years. That's a solid answer.

I got to respect that. All right. Let's hit on the head here. One of the biggest themes that emerged from the Democratic Party's campaign, and that is if you put Donald Trump back in, you're going to lose your democracy. That the guardrails that protect democracy are going to be chipped away, chipped away, chipped away. He's going to throw his political opponents in jail.

It will be complete chaos. Laura, start us off on that. As you look to the next four years, presuming Trump serves the whole term, what are your concerns about the state of democracy in the United States? My concerns about the state of democracy are, well first there's some relief that we probably aren't going to be facing the violence that we saw if he hadn't been elected. I mean that's not a good enough reason to elect him but the January 6th violence and outbreaks are probably not going to be a factor. He is

super well organized this time around. He has got his key appointments, his staff picked out. He has promised to sort of gut the deep state, so that means that we lose a ton of folks that actually operate things that Canada relies on for navigation and law enforcement and borders, et cetera. So that is really worrisome. At the same time, the president's powers are deep and sharp in some areas, but in other areas, he really does require Congress to keep things afloat.

So for example, that 10%- He's got both parties of Congress now, though. Probably. But they're not all in lockstep with Donald Trump. For example, the 10% universal tariff, he loves that thing. But in order to keep that in place as a national security tariff, he is going to need to get Congress to sign on to that over the long term. Congress is interested in longer term interests of business. And anybody who looks at that tariff proposal

understands that it gets not just foreign business but American business as well. So hopefully somewhere in that Congress there are sober second thoughts that can help offset some of Trump's worst excesses. Matthew, he did say during the campaign that on the first day of his presidency he would be a dictator, but not after that. Now of course a lot of people just think that's Trump popping off and they don't take him serious they don't take him literally although they take him seriously. Do you have concerns about the future of American democracy with Donald Trump in the Oval Office?

Yeah, absolutely and you know American democracy has been sliding downhill for 20 or 30 years before Donald Trump was on the scene, all sorts of Democratic norms have been broken or severely bent. So we see, you know, the competition in Congress is just so strong that all sorts of norms are broken. You know, a Supreme Court seat opens up and Republicans refuse to have hearings, or the Supreme Court now, you know, changes the rules about drawing a line so that they can be, you know, their partisan gerrymandering is constitutional. The Supreme Court really no longer reflects public opinion. Roe versus Wade was popular among 60 to 65 percent of Americans,

and the Supreme Court got rid of that. There's all sorts of other decisions that might go forward. There's all sorts of constitutional hardball that can be played between the three branches at the federal level. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the Justice Department, all these things are really at risk. The underlying trust that people have in government, that is extremely difficult to build back. And there'll be four years of Donald Trump, and then it's going to take a very long time

to inch back towards a full democracy. Down to our last few minutes here, and I want to try one more question. Martha, to you first. Do you have to reevaluate what you think the United States is and represents in the world, given that the United States has chosen this guy to be its next president? Wow. That's a great question. And I think yes. I mean, I think that at least, you know, as far as I've seen in history, the United States is this, I mean, we like to think we're this beacon on the hill, and that we are the example of democracy for everybody. And it's not altogether clear that we are that great example anymore.

But I will say, however, that something like that, while the trust in institutions here, and even a broad trust in whatever the United States says for a credible commitment, certainly is declined or will decline. You know, the institution of elections is hyper decentralized and rather strong. We had a really good election yesterday. What does this mean to the world that we had a good election yesterday? Well, we didn't have results that are going to be great on a lot of foreign policy issues, but we held a good election and hopefully Donald Trump's

rhetoric won't tear that down. It does seem to have been a free and fair election and I know many people were predicting it would take days, maybe even weeks, maybe even months before we figured out who won and no we found out in the wee small hours of the next morning. Laura, why don't I give you the last word on this? Are you today reevaluating what you thought you understood or knew about the country in which you're living?

I think that the United States is really a laboratory for democracy, for how things change when communities change. I think the American people are changing in terms of their composition and their identity. They're feeling threatened from other parts of the world, and that's what they're reflecting in their election of Donald Trump. I mean, democracy is a terrible model, but it's the best available. And I think we see that sort of ugliness, sorry, being played out in the United States

and also taking us to something better. Just to note, Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican here in Georgia, ran an amazingly rigorous election complete with Russian bomb threats in the middle of it. So my state Georgia contains both a Brad Raffensperger and a Marjorie Taylor Greene and that's a really good reflection of the challenges of American democracy right now. And Brad didn't get

a call from Donald this time saying can you find me 11,000 votes? Yeah I don't think Brad's taking his calls anymore. Fair enough. I want to thank the three of you for joining us on TVO tonight. That's Martha Croft in the middle from the University of North Carolina, a book ended by Laura Dawson from Future Borders Coalition, and Matthew Liebow, University of Western Ontario. I guess they call it Western University right now, but I'm a little old school on that.

Anyways, thanks you three and we'll see going forward, right? We'll see. Thank you.