OPINION: The 2024 election is finally past; now what’s next?

This column was written six days before Tuesday’s elections, edited four days before, printed the night of that election and is being read the day after.

What’s happened?

This election was not about Donald Trump.

Trump is like the red cloth, the “muleta,” used by a matador to taunt the bull in a bullfight. It’s flashy, it moves, it is unpredictable: anything to distract the bull from the matador. Trump is truly a “reality TV” star and has become impossible to resist talking about for most of the media, from The New York Times to “X” (formerly Twitter). He is a showman, a ringmaster and a P.T. Barnum on steroids.

The election was not about Kamala Harris.

Harris burst onto the scene on July 21 when President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 election and endorsed her. She was California’s attorney general, a U.S. senator and U.S. vice president, but was relatively unknown. Most vice presidents are unknown, yet 15 have become president, almost one-third of the total. If she wins, she will have convinced most Americans who did not want an inarticulate old guy as our leader that she can do the job. Will she become the next Harry Truman, an overshadowed vice president hailed by history as president?

This election was about the end of one of the great American parties.

This election was about the rise of the MAGA party in American politics. There is no longer a Republican Party in America. The MAGA partisans have determinedly and cleverly taken over the traditional GOP, “lock, stock, and barrel” (an apt phrase as it refers to guns that are one of MAGA’s concerns). What will traditional GOPers do?

This election showed the enormous impact of technological change.

Because of the Internet, cellphones and social media, the amazing antics of our politicians become national known in minutes. We are getting a crash course in “direct democracy” and a stress test on the social bonds that are the necessary core of our American society. Restoring the “personal” contact in those bonds, by keeping children away from cellphones, is a possible step in the right direction.

The election was about scaring American citizens into being afraid.

Whether it was MAGA being told that hordes of people were sneaking illegally into the U.S. or Democrats being told that fascists were going to create an authoritarian state, Americans were being sold the terrifying and effective elixir of fear. We need practical ways to combat the fear that is pervading our country. As with all good foundations, the change will need to come from the bottom up.

The election was about women in our society.

The role of women in our society, in our families, our religions and our workplaces has become a very personal motivation for many of our voting decisions. The disconnect between the Dobbs decision of the Supreme Court in 2022 and American opinion impacted both the 2022 congressional elections and yesterday’s voting.

The election was about who has power in the U.S.

One sector of the public, represented by MAGA, thinks they have lost their importance in American life. Another, represented by the Democrats, fear that they are going to lose their influence. The winners, represented in both groups, are the very large mega-corporations that are dominant in all aspects of our lives.

What’s next?

Our economy is posed to do well. Compared to the rest of the well-off world, our GDP has grown 3% during the last year, the fastest in the world. While that has happened, our economic inequality ranking sunk to 113th in the world. The contradiction between a country growing richer and most of its people not sharing in that wealth needs to change for us to survive.

Our governing system has been, and is, very stressed, if not broken. The much-praised balance of power among legislative, executive and judicial branches is battered. The reality is that half the country says it doesn’t trust the system. The election will probably not change that distrust in the near future, regardless of the outcome.

Our social system has been buffeted by the challenge to public education, which used to bring us together; by the challenge to the individual rights of women, which have changed drastically since 1900; by the challenge to individuals rights to determine their children’s choice of religion, with the proposed addition of religious books in schools; and by the challenge to our electoral system, as shown in the refusal of many to accept the outcome of the 2020 election.

Some things are going to happen whether we like it our not. The climate is changing. Maybe we can save the future and soften the blow in the present, but it is going to happen. Putting your head in the sand might give some short relief, but it won’t help the people in North Carolina, Florida and Arizona. Extreme weather is the symptom of climate change, not its cause. Wildfires, floods and 120-degree heat are wake up calls to the fact that what people have caused, people can fix.

It’s also inevitable that the composition of our population is changing. But those changes do not have to change our society; we are still the “American Dream” for most of the world. A continuing functional society will only happen if we treat all human beings with equity and good will, in order that everyone can be part of that dream. It is the right thing to do.

International relationships are not going to improve overnight. American overreach in the Mideast, with an unresponsive and self-important ally in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offers little in the way of a peaceful solution. Confrontations in Eastern Europe and Asia are part of the ongoing repositioning of strategic power in the world. Will climate change force the major powers of the United States, China, Europe, India and Russia to work together? Climate disruption remains the greatest threat to our well being.

My own bias is that if we want stability and predictability, we need to elect candidates who want to govern and are capable of doing so. Around the world, Americans are known, and respected, as problem-solvers. Let’s be part of the solution.

Nelson lives in Moscow where he volunteers for the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre and supports libraries.