Donald Trump has been elected for a second term as US president. International affairs editor Rachael Jolley spoke with US expert Thomas Gift, founding director of the UCL Centre on US Politics, about what Americans will expect the president-elect to do once in office, and what he will prioritise.
- What was the significance of Donald Trump’s election win?
This wasn’t just a victory for Trump. It was a resounding victory. Although the country is too polarised for a true landslide any more, this was as close as one can come to a thorough shellacking. Trump didn’t just backdoor himself into the Oval Office again. He bolted through the front, and pulled off the most consequential political comeback in modern US electoral history.
Although Kamala Harris was his opponent, this election was ultimately a referendum on Trump. Trump took the popular vote by about 5 million votes, won nearly almost single swing state, and improved his vote shares in nearly every state compared to 2020.
Moreover, Republicans retook the Senate, and there’s a good chance they’ll also keep their majority in the House of Representatives. That would give Republicans a clean sweep in this election, and, combined with a right-leaning Supreme Court, solidified control of Washington’s power corridors.
- Why did so few experts see this coming?
One thing’s clear: Trump has been consistently underestimated. Over and over, his political resilience and ability to rebound have been discounted by Republicans and Democrats alike. Americans have heard repeatedly that Trump would eventually meet his political demise. Impeachment 1.0. Impeachment 2.0. Scandal after scandal. Allegation after allegation. A defeat in the 2020 presidential election. A major underperformance for Trump-backed candidates in the 2022 midterms. Criminal convictions. And yet, Trump defies the laws of political gravity.
Trumpism has become a force in American politics that the country perhaps still hasn’t fully come to grips with. Trump is a uniquely iconoclastic politician. His distinct brand of grievance politics has realigned the Republicans as the party of the white working class, while picking up sizeable vote percentages among minorities. That’s nothing if not politically successful.
- Was there anything Harris could have done differently to reverse the outcome?
Although opinions differ, there’s reason to think that Harris campaign erred by casting this election as fundamentally being about “democracy.” Rightly or wrongly, data show that democracy is an abstract concern for most Americans. According to pre-election polling, majorities of Americans said they thought that democracy was at risk in the election. However, the percent of voters who said democracy was the top issue facing the country was in the low single digits.
Almost always, elections are about concrete policy issues. And that’s what we had here. There was clear dissatisfaction with the cost of living, anger with a broken border policy, and trepidation about US engagement with the wider world. This election cycle was marked by a strong anti-incumbent sentiment. Harris arguably never differentiated her platform from President Joe Biden’s or presented a compelling, specific vision beyond simply not being Trump.
- What will Democrats learn from their defeat?
Democrats will certainly undertake a post-mortem into what went wrong for the Harris campaign. How the party could lose to a leader who’s been impeached twice, who’s been criminally convicted, who’s been tarred by scandals, and who whipped up an insurrection at the US Capitol four years ago, is a burning question.
Some point to racism or sexism. Yet Barack Obama, the first black president, was elected twice in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton, the first woman candidate to receive a major party’s presidential nomination, won the national popular vote in 2016. Others will point to procedural issues in the primaries. After Biden was pushed out of the race, Harris became the nominee despite never winning a single primary vote. But at its heart, it’s hard not to see the Democratic failures as a product of being out of touch with the American public on core kitchen-table and cultural issues.
- What can we expect as Trump takes office?
This next four years will be Trump unleashed, and unfettered by the prospect of another election in four years (as no president is allowed to stand for three terms). First thing’s first, Trump has said that he plans to use the federal government and state apparatuses for vengeance against his political adversaries.
While some critics have projected apocalyptic scenarios, many of Trump’s threats are rhetorical, although Trump will likely push for investigations into the Biden administration. Trump will continue to fight what he calls the “deep state” – government workers who aren’t abjectly loyal to him. As part of this effort, he’s pledged to cut the jobs of tens of thousands of federal workers. Trump has said that he wants to nominate Elon Musk, an outspoken advocate for Trump, to head a task force to audit the federal government. Others within Trump’s inner sanctum – like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard – will also likely be given high-profile executive appointments with mandates for reform.
- What are Trump’s key priorities within the US?
Much of Trump’s domestic policy platform is standard Republican orthodoxy. Trump will try to make his 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire next year, permanent. He wants to lower the corporate tax rates from 21 to 15%. He’ll push for more deregulation within the administrative state. He also wants to impose fewer constraints on US energy production.
Perhaps most controversially, Trump has pledged to impose upwards of 10 to 20% tariffs on all imports to the US, and up to 60% tariffs on imports from China. He’s also promised massive deportations of undocumented migrants. Both would be inflationary. Tariffs would lead companies to pass higher prices onto consumers, while large-scale deportations would spike the cost of labour. Trump won’t get all of that done, but with the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress, he’ll have a better chance of achieving major overhauls.
- Which policies will Trump advance abroad?
Trump has vowed a return to his “America First” foreign policy, which is sceptical of international institutions and working with traditional western allies. In Asia, he’s pledged a “tough on China” approach, which plays into his plans to ratchet up tariffs on Beijing.
In Europe, Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine on day one in office, which would likely entail pressuring Ukraine into land concessions and blocking off a future pathway to Nato for Kyiv. While Trump has threatened to pull the US out of Nato, recent legislation passed by Congress will make that more difficult.
In the Middle East, Trump professes strong support for Israel’s right to self-defence, and while he supports an end to the Gaza war, he is arguably less sympathetic to protecting Palestinian rights and aspirations than the Biden administration. Trump will also likely endorse a “maximum pressure” policy on Iran, and will push for a normalisation deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, backed by a US defence pact.
Thomas Gift is an Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL
