I was somewhat alarmed at the title of Dan Drezner’s latest piece in Foreign Affairs, “The End of American Exceptionalism”. I was relieved to learn that he didn’t actually mean “American exceptionalism” but something that has come to be associated with like a barnacle on a ship’s hull—Wilsonian foreign policy, i.e. “spreading democracy”:

Trump will navigate world politics with greater confidence this time around. Whether he will have any better luck bending the world to his “America first” brand is another question entirely. What is certain, however, is that the era of American exceptionalism has ended. Under Trump, U.S. foreign policy will cease promoting long-standing American ideals. That, combined with an expected surge of corrupt foreign policy practices, will leave the United States looking like a garden-variety great power.

The emphasis is mine.

Actually, I tend to agree with him in that I don’t believe that Donald Trump is likely to pursue as Wilsonian a foreign policy as did Biden or Obama and I agree that he and his appointees are likely to follow the same pattern as federal government officials in recent administrations. Here’s what he means:

Trump’s reelection augurs two trends in U.S. foreign policy that will be difficult to reverse. The first is the inevitable corruption that will compromise U.S. policies. Former policy principals in prior administrations, from Henry Kissinger to Hillary Clinton, have profited from their public service through book deals, keynote speeches, and geopolitical consulting. Former Trump officials have taken this to a whole new level, however.

I think it would be hard to equal the record of the Clinton Foundation and Bill and Hillary Clinton, generally, although Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner come close. I question such largesse but I suspect it would be hard to crack down on it. I think we should be willing to try.

However, at most it will be a hiatus in our mostly futile attempts to “spread democracy”. The internationalist interventionists are not out they’re just down and will continue their possibly well-intentioned efforts in due course.

At ABC 7 Chicago Barb Markoff, Christine Tressel and Tom Jones and Chuck Goudie report on a valedictory interview of States Attorney Foxx by Chuck Goudie:

In what amounts to her last closing argument, Foxx sat down with the I-Team for a spirited review of her eight years in office as a so-called “progressive prosecutor,” marked by controversial reforms, high profile violence, wrongful convictions and a made-up celebrity crime.

One of the things that struck me about the interview was that in listing her accomplishments, Ms. Foxx could not have made what I’ve been saying all along more clearly. She has been disinterested in prosecuting, more focused on defense. What I have said in the past is that she viewed the Cook County States Attorney job as being “public defender at large”.

Among the things not mentioned in the interview were:

• The Jussie Smollett debacle, blandly referred to as a “made-up celebrity crime”, might not have become the cause célèbre if she had not given it credence
• An unprecedented number of prosecutors resigned on her watch, citing the job’s failure to meet their notions of justice
• The large number of felony cases dropped by the States Attorney’s office during her tenure
• The rate of violent crime increased in Chicago during her term although the reporting problems I have spoken of in the past make it hard to be certain

Hopefully, Eileen Burke O’Neill, Ms. Foxx’s successor, will take more interest in the job.

Every time I hear exchanges on support of working people to which the response is that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president ever I have to laugh. 6% of private sector workers belong to unions. Being pro-union is absolutely not identical to favoring working class people. It means you’re pro-public sector unions and there may be no area so in need of reform as public sector unions. Public sector unions contributing to political campaigns is an inherently corrupt practice. In essence it is recycling tax dollars into political contributions.

I don’t think that public sector unions should be forbidden but I do think they should not be allowed to make political contributions in money or in kind.

BTW the president of the CTU is paid more than $400,000 per year.

In my assessment President-Elect Donald Trump’s promise of a “mass deportation” of illegal migrants was his biggest campaign promise. At Outside the Beltway James Joyner considers the prospects for such an action:

President-Elect Donald Trump placed “the border” at the center of his re-election campaign, pledging “mass deportation.” At least 11 million people are living in the United States in violation of our immigration laws. Many of us have argued that there’s no feasible way to deport all of them and that any attempt to do so would be at a horrific humanitarian cost.

We’re about to find out the administration’s actual policies and how much support he can get for them in a Republican-majority Congress.

He goes on to consider the political and legal prospects for “mass deportation” and what the president-elect’s transition team is doing. James writes:

Here, I haven’t the foggiest what the courts will do. The overwhelming number of those claiming asylum are gaming the system, as they rather clearly don’t qualify for the exceedingly narrow provisions of the applicable law. But there is, in fact, applicable law—including international treaties ratified by the Senate—that would seem to require at least some modicum of due process to ensure that we don’t deport legitimate claimants. That the system is being gamed is extremely frustrating, but I don’t see how we can simply ignore the law.

with which I am in material agreement.

What I favor is rendering people here illegally materially incapable of working legally in the United States. I believe that alone would result in mass self-deportation. Tightening considerably on those here illegally working will require some form of eVerify with severe penalties on employers for non-compliance. Donald Trump has opposed those measures in the past.

I’m completely against the nightmare scenario that I suspect many envision: jackbooted immigration enforcement officers going house-to-house and dragging those here illegally (or whom they believe to be here illegally) out to waiting railway cars. BTW something not unlike that happened in the 1930s under presidents Hoover and Roosevelt. It included many who were here legally and even people born here.

However, there’s something that those opposed to mass deportations should remember. If all of those here illegally who have committed crimes other than immigration crimes here or in their countries of origin were deported, it would still be the largest mass deportation in American history. I think that’s a good place to start.

Let’s start with some data:

Source for information on Jamaicans
Source for information on Nigerians
Source for information on black Americans

Since the category “black Americans” is inclusive of Jamaicans and Nigerians in the United States and their incomes are higher and poverty rates lower than for black Americans generally, that means the lower incomes and higher poverty rate for black Americans exclusive of Jamaicans and Nigerians are even more disparate.

Most black Americans are what the late sociologist Charles Moskas called “Afro-Americans”—blacks the descendants of American slaves. While there are genetic differences among Afro-Americans, Jamaicans, and Nigerians to be sure, there are cultural differences among them as well. Anyone who numbers Afro-Americans, Jamaicans, and Nigerians among their friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, should be able to tell you that.

I don’t attribute the differences in income, poverty, crime, incarceration rates, etc. among these three groups to genetics. I attribute them to cultural factors. I further think that we need to focus our attention on Afro-Americans rather than on Jamaicans or Nigerians. Unfortunately, the solutions we have utilized to help black Americans have actually benefited Jamaicans and Nigerians at the expense of Afro-Americans (I think that white folk dig the accents).

While most of the reaction I have seen in the major media outlets about the election results has expressed shock and dismay, more thoughtful commentary is beginning to trickle out. I think that David Brooks’s most recent New York Times column may be one of his best ever. He opens with a disposition on the trends of the last, say, 40 years:

We have entered a new political era. For the past 40 years or so, we lived in the information age. Those of us in the educated class decided, with some justification, that the postindustrial economy would be built by people like ourselves, so we tailored social policies to meet our needs.

Our education policy pushed people toward the course we followed — four-year colleges so that they would be qualified for the “jobs of the future.” Meanwhile, vocational training withered. We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees. The financial and consulting sector mushroomed while manufacturing employment shriveled.

Geography was deemed unimportant — if capital and high-skill labor wanted to cluster in Austin, San Francisco and Washington, it didn’t really matter what happened to all those other communities left behind. Immigration policies gave highly educated people access to low-wage labor while less-skilled workers faced new competition. We shifted toward green technologies favored by people who work in pixels, and we disfavored people in manufacturing and transportation whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels.

I’ve been complaining about this for decades. Why? My answer is in the title of this post: it’s the numbers. The country with the largest proportion of college grads is Canada at 54% (Russia has the same percentage). The percentage of college grads in the U. S. is around 44% while 61% have “some college”.

I don’t conclude that all is well for 44% of Americans from that. I conclude that something between 15% and 30% of Americans don’t have jobs that actually require college degrees and are saddled with educational debt they will never be able to pay off. And as I’ve documented here in the past, an astonishing percentage of the “educated class” are employed by the government in one form or another. Not all by any means but a very large percentage.

Here’s the rub. There are more people with college degrees in India than there are people in the United States and they all speak English.

What it means is that the “knowledge economy” leaves 2/3s of Americans behind and bitterly unhappy with their lot. That’s no way to run a railroad.

Mr. Brooks goes on to describe exactly that situation:

Nine days before the elections, I visited a Christian nationalist church in Tennessee. The service was illuminated by genuine faith, it is true, but also a corrosive atmosphere of bitterness, aggression, betrayal. As the pastor went on about the Judases who seek to destroy us, the phrase “dark world” popped into my head — an image of a people who perceive themselves to be living under constant threat and in a culture of extreme distrust. These people, and many other Americans, weren’t interested in the politics of joy that Kamala Harris and the other law school grads were offering.

and

Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. I guess it’s hard to focus on class inequality when you went to a college with a multibillion-dollar endowment and do environmental greenwashing and diversity seminars for a major corporation.

concluding:

Donald Trump is a monstrous narcissist, but there’s something off about an educated class that looks in the mirror of society and sees only itself.

a very good turn of phrase and almost precisely my view.

Here’s Mr. Brooks’s summary of the election:

As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His Queens-born resentment of the Manhattan elites dovetailed magically with the class animosity being felt by rural people across the country. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.

In 2024, he built the very thing the Democratic Party once tried to build — a multiracial, working-class majority. His support surged among Black and Hispanic workers. He recorded astonishing gains in places like New Jersey, the Bronx, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. According to the NBC exit polls he won a third of voters of color. He’s the first Republican to win a majority of the votes in 20 years.

which is remarkably similar to what Ruy Teixeira has been complaining about for some time.

He then declaims that the Democrats need to do some humble self-analysis:

Can the Democratic Party do this? Can the party of the universities, the affluent suburbs and the hipster urban cores do this? Well, Donald Trump hijacked a corporate party, which hardly seemed like a vehicle for proletarian revolt, and did exactly that. Those of us who condescend to Trump should feel humbled — he did something none of us could do.

Here’s his conclusion:

Trump is a sower of chaos, not fascism. Over the next few years, a plague of disorder will descend upon America, and maybe the world, shaking everything loose. If you hate polarization, just wait until we experience global disorder. But in chaos there’s opportunity for a new society and a new response to the Trumpian political, economic and psychological assault. These are the times that try people’s souls, and we’ll see what we are made of.

I’m seeing an outpouring of grief and bitter recriminations from Democrats on the outcome of the election. I hope we see more reflection on what led to this eventuality.

1. It wasn’t money

The Harris campaign raised plenty of money. It spent about $3.5 billion.

2. Why are Democratic presidential campaign so expensive?

I have no idea. I could offer some conjectures but that’s what they would be.

3. Why did the Democrats delay replacing Biden as their standardbearer in this election so long?

Joe Biden did not just suddenly become an old man for the debate he had with Donald Trump. It was clear that had been the case for some time. Why did his staff and the Democratic leadership deny it for so long?

4. Why did the party fall in behind Kamala Harris as Biden’s successor so quickly?

Joe Biden’s approval rating was low before the debate. Kamala Harris was, possibly, the least accomplished of all of the 2020 primary candidates for the Democratic nomination. She was among the most progressive candidates running. She was not incredibly popular and her retail political ability was, at least, questionable. The undemocratic way in which Vice President Harris became the presidential candidate undercut the Democrats’ complaints about how authoritarian Trump was.

5. What’s going on here?

I’ve checked these figures and they’re correct. What happened to the 20 million people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020? Did they evaporate? Did they sit this election out?

6. Why did the Harris campaign overestimate the power of abortion as an issue?

It certainly wasn’t enough to carry them across the finish line.

All major news outlets are reporting that Donald Trump has been elected to a second term. Steve Holland, Joseph Ax, Bianca Flowers and Jarrett Renshaw report at Reuters:

PALM BEACH, Florida, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House and ushering in a new American leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.
Trump, 78, recaptured the White House on Wednesday after a campaign marked by dark rhetoric that deepened the polarization in the country, prevailing after two attempts on his life and a late decision by Democrats to run Kamala Harris, opens new tab when President Joe Biden withdrew from the race in July.

Harris, the U.S. vice president, will deliver a speech conceding the election to Trump at around 6 p.m. (2300 GMT), two sources told Reuters.
The former president’s victory in the swing state of Wisconsin pushed him over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. As of 8 a.m. ET (1300 GMT) Trump had won 279 electoral votes to Harris’ 223 with several states yet to be counted, Edison Research projected.

The states that remain undecided at this point are Arizona, Maine, Michigan, and Nevada. Of those Harris is expected to carry only Maine. If that holds true, Trump will have carried all of the “battleground states”. That would raise his electoral vote total over 300, a solid victory if not a genuine “electoral landslide”.

I am gratified by this:

He also led Harris by more than 5 million votes in the popular count.

Maybe that will put the whinging over the Electoral College to bed for a while.

It appears that Republicans will have a majority in the Senate and, possibly. a majority in the House. If Mr. Trump’s agenda is what he said it was during the campaign, that raises some small hope that a few much-needed reforms will be enacted. For example, you should not be able to hide partisan activity behind the Civil Service Code.

My streak continues. In my entire life I have voted in very election but only once for a candidate that was actually elected: Barack Obama in 2008.

I’m seeing quite a bit of sour grapes from major media outlets. I hope they recognize that they’re part of the problem and a major reason that Trump was elected.

It’s still early and I don’t think that Democrats have fully apprehended what has happened to them.

Well, I voted. Yuch. The polling place was busy but there was no line.

John Halpin, Ruy Teixeira, and Michael Bahareen at Liberal Patriot offer some advice on how to follow the election returns:

The upside to the internet is the wide array of good and trustworthy voices looking at politics and elections from multiple angles. We’ll be monitoring the X accounts and news feeds of several individuals and organizations that typically offer excellent, real-time coverage. This includes FiveThirtyEight’s live blog and their senior election analyst Nathaniel Rakich; the Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman; the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Miles Coleman; and Split Ticket’s Lakshya Jain. Ex-pollster Adam Carlson has also put together a great list of around 100 experts that he trusts “to deliver accurate and fast results and/or unbiased and context-heavy analysis on Election Night” that is worth checking out. Perennial greats Nate Cohn, Nate Silver, Ron Brownstein, Henry Olsen, and Patrick Ruffini should be on your check-in list as well. Likewise, TLP’s Ruy Teixeira will be on The Washington Post’s election night coverage and on The Free Press Live festivities streaming on X and YouTube. TLP’s Nate Moore is also working the decision desk at News Nation.

That sounds prudent. Unless you prefer propaganda. You will note that their suggestions include some of my preferred sources.

On the bright side on the way home from voting I went to the local Pan-Asian restaurant (it’s across Peterson from me) and got the Lunch Special: miso soup, gyoza, and chicken pad thai. I feel happy now.