Election Episode 2024
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On the talk to me direct podcast, public policy expert NaTasha communi speaks with policymakers, activists and change makers across africa about how storytelling, technology, social media, A I and Moore can help promote democracy and civil society in africa today. Join natacha as he explores various perspectives on the important questions with eight leading african voices. Listen to talk to me direct wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, and welcome to ones and two F P, S economics podcast. Every week we take a couple data points, use them to try to explain the world. I'm Cameron, a body fps deputy editor with you in farlin, germany. As always, joining us is fp uncommonness and columbia university professor adam tooth is with us in new york high.

adam, a high time. So we have .

one data point for you all today. Obviously, we are coming to you on a different day of the week. The Normal we are recording this on a wednesday rather than thursday, of course, that is one day after the U.

S. election. And the data point there is the obvious one, two hundred seventy electoral votes. That is the number, at least that has been earned.

McDonald trump, he's already clear that number, which means the Donald 的 trump will be the next U。 S. president.

I proc become. The fifth president of the united states .

voters express defragment tion with the van administration and for a president trump and the future for a second time, this time after having served for four years, then disputing the twenty twenty election our .

country has never seen before. Nothing like this. I want to thank the american people for the extradited honing elected your forty seventh president and you're president.

Obviously, we spent the past year talking about Donald trump in various ways. And in fact, last week we talked about just how much he may be changing the trajectory of the U. S.

economy. Today will be talking about how a new trump administration may affect the rest of the world. Or at least that's mostly what will be talking about. But first, adam, before anything else to talk about this election in terms of the U. S.

Economics, before return to the rest the world teams necessary you there has been a lot of talk about inflation as the number one factor on the U. S. Poll's mind.

Do you think that inflation is a the number one economic factor that that help tip this election in in downtown m savers or the other, uh, economic issues? Do you think that play a bit all? I mean.

people say this election wasn't about substance, which I think is fair. But I think the economic issues were on the ballot here in a weird kind of way. I think there were three right.

Inflation was one insistently harped on by the J. P. And to quit, considerable effect. I think the others were protectionism on tariff s whatever the most beautiful word, or whatever trump, nice to call IT. And then migration and, you know, view from the point of view of a holistic understanding of economic policy, all of those are economic policy issues. And I think they all went trumps away.

And I think it's fair to say that the camera Harris team, if he had strong points, IT, was not in field in questions on economic policy, and they did not manage to craft a robust narrative that separated them from the by administration. And so I think they got hurt on, above all, the inflation issue on protection, as you could, that the G. O.

P. Was even more protections less than the democrats are on migration. The republicans hamed, the democrats hard.

But the fact of the biden record was fairly restrictive, least in terms of the intention of policy. The top managed to cook up an issue around migration. And of course, that is so heavily affraid. We talked about IT in the life recording in dc like it's so had privately framed with race that it's a little bit abstract to talk about IT a simply an issue of of economics. I do think the economic issue per excels of this election was inflation, and it's it's a really sensitive issue also within the democratic camp because as we know, we we discuss this on the show as IT like there was a raw going on within the democratic coalition about what good economic policy was in in the post mortem that already begun to appear.

There is fingerpointing in saying, are you screw this up because you did that big early stimulus? And so if you think of policy, if you think of inflation as a variable, as essential, driven by policy, then you might be tempted to say the democrats, that by the administration, criminally underestimated the significance of inflation and should have done more about IT and should have been more conscious in their macro policy. And because in the end, that's what killed them.

And I think that's a consistent point of view. I just don't think it's terribly accurate about this particular presidency. My own view is that these were two presidents in no sequence to incubate that were basically failed.

First, trump in twenty twenty, who at the beginning of that year was you all on to win by a large margin. And I think the biden presidents cy as well, which on the basis of the matter, economic evidence, you would say, shouldn't been as strong shoot as well. But in fact, it's the roller coaster of covered, the covered shot, the supply side shocks that did for both of them IT did for trump first.

And then the Price shot that came afterwards was not, in my view, in march part and result of policy errors. IT was largely something that was an inner capable. And so the choice facing that by administration was not more inflation.

You know, shall we pursue an aggressive policy at the cost of inflation IT? Was the inflation coming? Shall we throttle the economy to try and stop that? Or should we run a relatively high risk with full and toilet oriented strategies that at least when the inflation hits, we're not suffering, you know, unemployment crisis as well.

So what they avoided was stagflation, and they opted to run the economy hot by any reasonable measure. IT was an actually goldie to a american workers. The vast majority come off where ahead.

But that's not what I felt like on the roder coaster. The hawks are saying, implicity, well, you should then have done you to think necessary to stifle the inflation. I just think they totally underestimate the Price of doing that.

And that alternative scenario is not wanting which divide administration triumph by way of staff inflation is warning which the administration loses because IT has a full on recession on its hands or stallions on its hands. So I think these were both. This was actually a difficult hand that was dealt to the democrats in twenty twenty one. And in terms of mr.

Economic management, they handle that about as well as anyone could have, and in the end, what they should really have done is, you know, broken early, would buy nominated a new candidate, and that person should have run hard against the bike ministration on this issue, know for twelve months saying we're going to do everything differently and know distancing themselves, building some political space, which would have given them a chance perhaps to shed this income dency effect, which they ve otherwise become victim to. So that would be my own read on this. Inflation clearly hurt.

I think it's unfair to attribute to the administration's policy, but that's the nature they won by virtue of trump being blind sided by covered. They lose by being blind sided by post covered Price shocks. You know, that's the nature of this game.

We would have taken a far more far sighted than less precious, less self satisfied democratic leadership to say, know, we gon to have any chance at all in twenty twenty four. Need to, we need to start prepping in twenty three. And of course, that was well beyond the political capacity.

okay. So let's then turn to the rest of the world, starting with europe. Europe does seem like potentially the big loser in this election. There's A A lot of talk i've seen already about how this is a wake up call for europe and and they don't on me that people have been talking about these wake up calls now for many years. In fact, you know, at least eight years since trump was first selected to be president, i'm curious whether in fact, you know empirically is you're a Better prepared or prepared at all to autonomously defend itself and is interesting now, uh, compared to eight years ago when trump was first selected, if not just you know of the truck, how can that be the case? I mean, what then has you're been doing in that time?

I mean, it's such a fair question, cam. As you say, like the wake up call, metaphor just brings home like this thing in a europe been hitting the snooze for decades, literally over, over again, this messages being sounded out. And you are, you know, in berlin at the heart of the dope as part of the european bital system.

Right now, we know germany boasts of having raised its defence spending in the last couple of years to two percent of G D. P, but he only gets there basically by some fancy foot work in the budget. The regular defense budget of the edge of germany is still stuck at one point two percent of GDP, and the rest is ad ones in the form of a special budgetary fund they created and counting money they give to ukraine as as german defensive expenditure.

There has not been, despite all of the rhetoric, a fundamental shift in the understanding of what defense would involve. And that would be not, you know, germany breaking out of, you know, the existing factors. But IT would be moving defense spending to something closer to three percent, which would take IT to one hundred and twenty billion euro, is a year which would be enough to give germany the chance to rebuild the damage done to its defense capital stocks through neglect over many years.

IT might give the merchant of hiring some people, and they could buy some new military kit and become the truly CoOperative and large ale player in the european system, which is where this was also to go, because we will, together, the european, and spend enough money, easily, enough money, pushing towards three hundred billion euro or more now to provide for their own defense against russia easily. But they do actually need to do IT in a concerted way when there are players in the system which are doing that. I mean, poland, for instance, has raised its defense budget to five percent of GDP, given that the polish economy is much smaller than that of the german.

That now means that pod's defense spending is on the par with the regular defense budget of germany. And that just means germany is not even trying. So you know you could argue about whether it's healthy for the polish economy dispended five percent that one in twenty of all euros or sleety spent in the posh economy or on defense related, that's that's a heavy burden.

That's cold war air in the united states in the late is something like that, but that's an indication of democracy. Taking this problem seriously, and they should answer to your question is no because germany in particular, that just refuses to understand the history, will require IT to change the budgetary framework that IT is stuck within. I'm not even, to be honest, particularly saying went about the prospects of the political system.

They are sorting itself out. We may have course to do an episode about germany in the not to distance future of the coalition, therefore alls apart, but they just give up, you know, concrete strain of what happens. So germany and twenty two realizes of god, no, we don't have the capacity to defend ourselves.

What do we need to defend ourselves against? Well, just assume there isn't the ground invasion. What is that, that russia might do, what I might love, missiles like it's doing at ukraine. So then what should we have where we need some sort of miss our defense system. So let's launch, let's launch miss our defense system.

So the german chance to, in August twenty twenty two, launches this single skye shield, and apparently without serious consultation with the french and the other partners, proposes that the money for the sky shields should be spent on us patrons and israeli. Systems which you know on the face of IT, you know, these are good kid to buy where they didn't. They didn't coordinate this effectively with the french.

And so the french go off in in assault, refusing to co Operate with the germans and try and launch their own program. And then two years later you have the polls in the greeks proposing an E U. Funded program for the entire, you know, european area.

So that's the kind of canada gans that go on where germany says right with, you know, site mend the change of times we going to spend tens s of billions of years is on the missile defense system. The logical way to do this is, is a pan european one. But that would require you actually do do the political work of building that coalition.

And do they do IT? No, they don't. They can. They go to the politically opportune binding of israeli. They signed a deal with the israeli is just weeks before over seventh. And um the american patridge system. Now these are good systems, but if you're IT wants to be strategic, the autonomy worth investing in its own capacity. And europe hasn't even reached the chAllenge of actually having any kind of deterrent counter strike capacity of its own.

So it's building itself a shield, notionally at least if they can agree one of which one of the three projects they can pursue but is not actually acquiring what we now know all waging requires, which is the capacity to strike your enemy. That question isn't really even being seriously approached. In the end, it's quite likely that equip than you have thirty five years with cruise msi es there by tomahawks, american kit.

Something like that. And as you say, like this question was, you know, really put on the table in two thousand seventeen, one of, you know, these famous, the dis functional nato summit early on, the trump, and he really looked like he was gonna storm out and break up the entire alliance an angle. The mural at the time said, well, w, we know we really are going to have to stand on our two feet.

And have they actually shown, as under her administration, any more than under shelf, any real determination from where the real money power is in europe, namely in berlin? Deduct on this. You really can't say they have.

So they're ta commit to him to be absolutely onest. AmErica really does have other priorities. It's not at all unreasonable for you up to aspire to all to be asked to deliver on its own defense.

I really have profound sympathy here with the american position, which is quite bad parties. And at this point in every of respect is incomprehensible. It's opposeth mature sovereignty rope's states just basically don't provide further indefensibly. Of course, you're going to say we're not doing our fair enough, but in that case, why waste the money? They do waste, but really opped one way or the other.

okay. We're going to take a quick break here for now, but we will be back in the second to continue talking about the second trump administration and its effects on the rest of the world.

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So what are we to shift perspective a bit further east to ukraine, namely, that is a country that has also been part of from platform he promises to and the war in ukraine on terms that seem to include allowing russia to keep the territories IT is already occupying, probably does not include security guarantees for ukraine or further U. S. Support for ukraine's defend. Some curious you know is, is conceivable that ukraine, you know, in some version of a ceasefire arrangement under those terms that trump could pursue, is a conceivable that ukraine could just get over run entirely by the russian military at some point in the future.

I think that was the fantasy we had. We didn't know what ukraine actually was and clear there were some experts who had a much Better than your average know you person like me just looked at ukraine's GDP numbers and thought this place doesn't work. And I think this was the prevAiling view also in washington to be onest, and for most of the capitals of europe, that somehow ukraine could fall in that way, right?

That IT would simply this integrate, and that russia will be able to establish political power in key, and then they will establish some compliant government. And and that was obviously profound misreading of the place that you craye had become since twenty thirty, and which was a much more resilient, much more committed, much more organized and capable, and therefore also capable of resistance of state, which really was a state. And if we're in that world, however exhausted ukraine is after the sacrifices we've already made, and given the experience they already gathered, the prospect of russia occupying or over running ukraine, especially given the depleted state of the russian electric, this point just, I think, becomes entirely unrealistic.

I mean, you, they have an army in the field of hundreds of thousands of men, even occupying and dominating a city like key, which is a city of two point nine million people, would be a huge chAllenge, let alone a country, a really big country of thirty seven million. That's the same population as a place like iraq. And we know how well amErica did in controlling iraq.

So I think overrun is not on the cards under what I expect the russians to attempt any such thing. And they're also shown very little aptitude for long range, long distance. And we we will be talking hundreds of miles deep penetrations.

They're really not shown much aptitude to interest in doing that kind of manana. Uva, which is very high risk, exposes you to flanking attacks of the ukrainians could summon any kind of resistance. The russians would be very, very nero.

So that seems an unlikely scenario. But one of nibble of threatening, of creating impossible situations for civilian life to continue. All of that, I think, is what we should expect to see.

And a consolidation of a russian group and an expansion of the russian group in the territory will already occupied. But the sort of scenarios of them over running ukrainy, I mean, help. We've been wrong so many times about this war. I feel like i'm setting myself up to be wrong again, but that just does seem like an an old idea that came from the era when most western analysis, obviously also the people around putin. Imagine that you just have to sort of push u traine and IT would fold, quote unquote, collapse, quote unquote.

And then you would overrun IT and that we know now that that not how this goes down, right? So even if, Frankly, my concern is if the government, in key attempts and negotiated peace, will large chunks of the ukraine an population, or large enough chunks of its population and political military even be willing to go along with that? Will they attempt last ditch struggle, sabotage? Could this turn into a bit of civil war between parts of ukrainian establishment, polite and society that are willing to, at this point in some way, settled, and will feel that the pressure from the U.

S. Decides that. And the last ditches, if you think about, you know, processes of disputed peacemaking like this, that's the sort of scenario you have to begin to worry about. And as recently as twenty twenty one, right ahead of the invasion, when key dispatched ukraine and negotiators to deal with, I think IT was the governments of the occupied territories. They, in particularly the odious and the legitimate entities.

There were forces in the ukrainian liamine that then have those people brought up, I think, countries and charges, because they were polling with the enemy at a time of all. And that was before the war, and that was before the sacrifices and the heroic c resistance that ukrainians mounted. So the difficulty is building a political front for conciliation within ukraine.

Not I don't. I'm sure there are people who are saying more, you know, thank god trumps being elected at at least somehow this will come to an end now because we can't go on. But and you know, you could not how could you blame them given the prospects at this point? But there are gonna people like that and there are going to be last teachers who simply can't accept that outcome.

And they will have friends in the west as well and in europe. And so you know is already quite a lot of kind of you know up editor of that type going on a little thing time rumbling. So we have the makings here of a real running a sore. I think, to use a rather unfortunate image.

well, to shift to a different issue, I wanted to ask about climate change and climate policy. To the extent that trump has a climate policy is really more like the absence of a climate policy, IT seems pretty certain that he would have the united states exit the paris climate accord and i'm curious just overall, if the united states rolls back all of its regulations and laws meant to pursue climate policy and also exit international framework for pursuing, uh, international climate goals, and what will that mean for climate policy in a global sense? I mean, will IT be impossible to sort of keep the current framework of pushing to stop climate change in an international sense of the sort that we've we've had with the paris client agreement so far?

Well, the paris climate agreements have a flexibility that already been tested because they were signed with great ruhar with the obama administration very much playing a leading world in two thousand fifteen. And then within, you know, short space of time, amErica was exciting, and they continued on anyway, in both europe and china gathered climate policy momento very dramatically from twenty eighteen on.

Mads and the chinese made their historic commitment in new charity by twenty sixty, austan tatius sly, before the american election, as if to say this is, well, I mean, this is to can project this onto them is already to suggest perhaps too much american concern as part of beijing calculus. But IT was as if they were saying to washington, we do climate policy regardless of where you're coming at this from, because this is china's problem. To a huge extent, this is asia's problem, to an even bigger the united states is an important factor, but he isn't any longer the dominating factor.

And whether or not as an industry market for america's oil and gas exports to be ultimately on its customers, not on the united states, that, of course, the united states producers, canada they have been doing, keep cutting costs and trying to stay competitive that way. But they are ultimately going into the teeth of, you know, saudi I N katari a competition. So good luck with that.

That's gonna be a really tough road to hope. So I think it's worth it's important to say that despite the rhetoric about leadership from the band team, no one who serious about climate policy, the global level has been counting on america. Structurally speaking, it's not a credible, credible in the sense of game theory of economic policy credible player.

Because if you look at america's underlying interests, which now include the largest oil and gas industry in the world, why would you be expect a country which is a series sly Foster that interest in that industry to be a reliable, you know, next zero player? You've just, just, just a sort of foolish to imagine that you can, of course, from the liberal point of view, you in the us. Do your best to drag amErica in the direction of the Green energy revolution.

But there are gonna very powerful count travAiling forces. And trump, very deliberately, very explicit, articulates all of those. The really peculiar thing is he is now obviously the best buddies with IT or mask, the center piece of whose fortune is a truly world, historically important innovation in the Green energy space, which is huge in china.

So maybe in that trump way, in the end, you know, the weird mix of the cocktail that he brews up will be slightly less toxic than IT seems at first. Broadly speaking, I think this is a continuation of american policy, which is, you know, famously as obama, but at all of the above, amErica will do fossil and it'll also do Green know. It'll also do batch pad energy.

It'll do IT will like in texas, it'll do oil and gas and it'll do Williams and solar. why? Because amErica is about more, right? And so it'll just do more and more and more in that vein.

And I think that's gonna be the continuity as far as china is concerned. They're during the Green energy of revolution cause no, it's a hugely innovative, important well transforming technological set in which they completely dominate. And there was always something slightly quick.

Oh, and I criticized the empty in the exaggerated talk by the biden about trying to establish sh amErica as a competitor in that space. And you know there's a sort of dash of realism and trump trigger and going, you've got to be kidding except of course, teslas there and has there really is a big player. And so I think it's it's open ended from the point of view of the climate cause as a commitment to net zero and treating climate change seriously.

It's staggering, right? But that's no longer what plan at politics is about. It's about Green energy at this point. So you know, this is sort of ambiguous response.

IT is, he mean, surely will go down in history as a very remarkable fact that that as the election was being held of amErica was hit by these double hurricanes, which did huge damage, two large parts of the united states, which can be in a fairly straight td way, attributed to the oceanic warming, and precipitated just vast damage. You know, we think the highest estimates are enough, hundreds of billions of dollars and a havoc. And yet climate wasn't the issue in the election.

The winning side was was particularly skeptical among trump supporters. I think ten percent admit the climate is a serious issue for them, which is a kind of demonstrative screw you to everyone else. Now it's kind of a remarkable incident of post factual politics. So you could say in twenty twenty, the same with covered and the cops basic refusal to get on board with vaccination despite the fact that it's trumps great triumph. But, you know, so there's a trend here. And I think the rest of the world has to just recognize this fact about american politics that, you know, things like vaccinations are good for public health or climate change is real and a real pressing danger for real people and not to be well socialized in the united states.

Yeah that I mean that that is maybe why I wonder whether to the trump administration policy will sort of be indifferent to sort of energy transition in some center or not, like ideologically opposed to IT in using trade policy to actively like oppose you know the spread of Green technologies and you know I can imagine that being the case yeah.

that's a key point because what trump s certainly will do is give fossil fuel interest space for their regard action. It's not quite as agree just as IT was in twenty sixteen where he actually held on coal as the field that he was going to you know, support.

And I mean, we're not quite in that space, but he did have the meeting, didn't see IT my logo where he basically offered to sell energy policy to the fossil field, interested for the billion dollars. In the end, IT seems that he got the deal that he wanted with the loans, and that sorted out his finances. But yeah, that is one of the real lies.

The problem, of course, is that the bite administration had its doors open to fossil field interest tone. In fact, the various points was ageing, the one to increase. So, you know, even if that were the case, that fossil little field interests have an even more established on tray, I wouldn't bet against the possibility that the next era, or one of these Green players, could get trumps era as well.

And if you explain to him, you know, how much I M just could have anyone asked, this is my aleo have solar panels like, you know, if someone explains to him the benefits of actually just kitting out your manches with solar panels, do we really think Donald will say, no, he doesn't seem like that kind of guy like, you know, if you actually explained him that it's free, you know, and it's cool technology. My sense is that he's the sort of person that maybe probably somebody he's already investigated this and there's an answer to this question. But I don't think I think we should misunderstand him if we think of him as a dogmatic at that level. But but who know .

that point? Well, then I wanted to end by asking about the perspective on this election from china. You mention china in the context of climate policy, in the energy transition.

I'm i'm curious and more general sense whether china was invested in this election so much at all. You know, we talked about IT last weekend more generally, often in the u. Unit states, the most consequently election in U.

S. history. You don't did a team that way from from china. And when I came down to this choice between Donald trump kala Harris, and maybe another way putting that is, you know, do the chinese take U. S. Democracy seriously from a kind of historical perspective in the first place?

Yeah, it's very interesting actually visiting china over the summer and and watching the way in which the chinese follow american politics is almost the way that a lot of chinese men in particular follow. European soccer is like men. Soccer in china is notoriously bad, but they are heavily invested in the fate and fortunes of european clubs.

So there's a sort of vicarious participation in democratic politics as you through A A glass wall or something um where that's what happens there when you watch IT because it's you know fascinating for political science in the and their own politics doesn't yelled that kind of excitement. I actually happened to be having breakfast today with two china watchers slash amErica watches from china and the consensus there was a that trump actually has a fair number of fans in the united states. His kind of hyper masculine is business oriented, brash political style goes down well, we're the certain chinese audience.

In fact, some folks were willing to go as fast to say that if you know the denis ends of wbo or one of the other chinese social media sites were fully in franchised in chinese citizens, you know, china would have had a trump the day after, you know, day before yesterday, like that kind of politics would go real well. And the consensus in over the breakfast table was that they would have made an attempt to invite taiwan some time ago, because, you know, if you actually unleashed the forces of populist democracy in china, IT would be an awesome spectacle. So there was also that kind of resonance.

Sitting more coolly and looking at this, I think the consensus is probably that there was some hope at the beginning of the by administration that the biden team would walk back from the place that the trump team had ended up in twenty twenty because we've really traveled a long way right from the beginning of the trump administration where trump s. Position on china was trade policy oriented, tariffs, quotas, that kind of thing, to the redefinition of the pentagon's mission in terms of the chinese pacing threat, two phase one of the trade deal, which was still trump in the a deal kind of mode, to the escalation of anti china policy on a very ideological geopolitical kind of level in the course of twenty twenty and with panel and o brian and the whole you know tears of like ultra hawkish I ideologically driven anti china folks within the the trump s administration and there was some hope that biden and his team would walk amErica about from that. And of course, nothing of the sort.

In fact, what's happened is there was a sort of sorting out of moca heart, but in the end, no less confrontation, aggressive position from the us, less possibility to think in the end of a deal with trump. I think the consensus is that the chances are, you know that the range of options is wider on both ends. You know, trump might be somebody who sponsored real and genuine confrontation.

And after all, he did take phone calls from taiwan, nor the ornery previous presidency, which was a real shock to people in the china policy establishment. So there is the real possibility of confrontation, but there's also the possibility of a deal of some kind, which I don't think was there ever with the bad administration. You know, at breakfast, one of the things that came up is, in fact, you know, if trump brings back some of the old team from twenty twenty, their antagonism towards china, which include open talk about regime change, was such that in the end that chinese government sanctioned them.

So if figures like on peo were brought back to prominent positions in trumps administration, that would be here the embarrassment of what to do with the fact the leading figures in american government was on on go to in china. So there was, you know, a kind of tempted reaction, which, but more broadly, I think you know clearly amounts the chinese intellectual class. This confirms the shock that was extremely real in twenty sixteen, where for many years, even if you were in the regime change liberal kind of camp, nevertheless, western oriented chinese intellectuals, or maybe we should just call cause Apollo in chinese intellectuals, no, took american politics extremely seriously as a Normative idea of of how to do modern politics.

And that was broken in two thousand sixteen. And surely this outcome will only confirm just how comprehensively this, this, that idea, that vision of american pound politics is done. I mean, and we should mean this was always my message throughout this whole campaign, which is whoever want IT.

The fact of the matter is this election was close, you know, in the election between a fairly cookie cutter standard mainstream candidate like Harris and the increasing the outlandish figure that trumpet is a convicted felon after all, who really, in some of his campaign speeches, is no rambling in a dangerous way. This was a close election and in the end actually won IT. And we think he's gonna.

You know, he's to have a solid popular majority as well for the first time decades. And that's amErica like this is no, no flinching from IT. A substantial chunk of americans chose not to vote at all in this election and have those that did, the majority voted for that man.

And you know if you're all if you're looking at this from the outside, from whether from china or anywhere else, that's the thing to take in. Even if haris said once, you would run by the likely of margins. Bitings Victory was tiny and in congress, again with in one of the effects of this outcome, is that IT makes that conclusion harder to escape. Made a Harris win. A narrow Harris win, like the narrow biden win, would have left folks, sort of, I think, you know, still clinging to illusions about what the nature of modern amErica and political culture is and that these outcomes up robs one of that possibility.

Well, um this is the start of the trumpet administration, obviously, or the new trumpet administration. I imagine we will be talking about the government in more detail once we know who's in IT eeta. Oh yeah, lots to look forward to in that sense or yeah, look forward to with some red and perhaps, but otherwise we will be back next week on our usual time of the week.

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