“Trumpism” is alive and well no matter who wins the US...

JEEZ, what a night.

That was my heartfelt, and somewhat breathless, reaction as I walked out of the RTÉ television studio early Wednesday morning after hours of analyzing the results that political observers and anyone with an interest in or affinity with the United States had long been waiting for .

When the total number of votes came out, it quickly became clear that there would be no early “blue wave” that would lead Joe Biden and his Democrats to resounding victories across the country. The competition between the former Vice President and President Donald Trump would be an aerial battle.

Notwithstanding the opposition of some partisans on the left and others who denied the methods used by certain pollsters, things got worse. The fact that Pennsylvania-born Joe Biden has spent most of the waking hours there in recent days was an indication that his campaign was aware of a Trump surge.

After a disastrous performance in the initial debate, the President’s messaging improved.

He tried to make choices about anything but his government’s abuse of the pandemic.

Opinion polls showed that his carefree and sweeping layoffs from Covid-19’s severity, coupled with more than one ridiculous and insulting statement about how it should be handled, damaged his reputation, especially among older voters.

The central theme over the past few weeks has been that Biden could be the candidate, but that hard left in his party like Bernie Sanders and AOC would actually be in charge.

His points of criticism were foreboding and deliberately designed to exploit fears and prejudices.

To his intended audience, however, its meaning was crystal clear.

A Biden triumph would lead to outrageously high taxes and related socialist initiatives, a government takeover of private health insurance plans, legalized abortion until the time of birth, the erosion of gun ownership and the inciting of inner-city violence in the suburbs. They have been featured at rallies and on Twitter.

These tactics have helped convince soft Trump and strong voters to return to the group and support the president’s search for a second term.

At the same time, his focus on hearts and minds fostered sentiment elsewhere that the president had not done such a bad job fighting the coronavirus, a global plague he repeatedly and beneficially accused of the Chinese government.

On the flip side, and compared to Trump, Team Biden performed a low-octane surgery that featured the 77-year-old as a responsible adult in the room.

The lack of energy and enthusiasm and what they presented not only to the attendees but especially to those who saw and heard them was overwhelming compared to the pageants and fervor that manifested at every Trump rally.

The word “unprecedented” has been overused in relation to this breed, but it also applies to the outcome.

At the time of writing, it is very likely that Joe Biden will become the next President of the United States in January. He has a very good chance of getting the required 270 Electoral College excluding Pennsylvania votes. In this case, Trump and the GOP’s legal options are limited to recounts and other dubious claims.

When this happens, countless Americans and concerned watchers around the world will breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice that what they would call a nightmare is finally over. The likely conclusion of this difficult chapter in history, however, stands alongside two other truisms: “Trumpism” is alive and well, and the Democratic Party must earnestly seek souls.

What should encourage us all and refute overburdened critics of democratic processes in the USA is the record turnout of voters – especially young people and people of color. Sufficient voting options increase participation; These should be available long after the coronavirus scourge was banished.

Indeed, much of the rest of the world could learn from the land of my birth in this regard.

Conventional wisdom has always been that the more Americans cast ballots, the better it is for the Democratic Party. Not on this occasion. Donald Trump received millions more votes than in 2016.

His numbers among women, millennials, blacks, and Latinos were all better. His politics and personality still resonate. November 3rd did not deliver the rejection so many hoped for. Far from it.

In assessing why Trump remains so popular, one needs to examine what his enemies have to offer. Before this week, the Democrats and their allies in the media were buoyant, quietly preparing to celebrate.

Trump would be defeated; They would regain control of the US Senate. and they would have a larger majority in the US House of Representatives. The party appears to have narrowly won the White House but appears to have missed the other two.

Two realities explain this mistake.

First, the Democrats have lost touch with the regular workers and women who used to be their base. The prioritization of coastal wealthy donors’ cultural agendas may fill the coffers, but it has created a perception that they are indifferent to the plight of those who have suffered most from the furious march of globalization and technology, and the resulting displacement and extraordinary income disparities .

Democrats can reply that they are clearly on the side of these Americans, but share their support for so-called free trade agreements, their support for the abandonment of fossil fuels without giving due consideration to the concerns of those whose livelihoods depend on associated industries, and the widespread intolerance of the socially conservative an opposite story.

Perhaps more damaging was the derisive, condescending, preaching manner in which some prominent figures have frequently articulated this change in emphasis and direction.

Second, they took the support of the Latino community for granted and spectacularly misunderstood what animates them. The assumption had been that they would be just like African Americans: practically homogeneous in their preference for the Democratic Party.

When Joe Biden recently gave up his vigilance and said, “If you don’t vote for me, you’re not black,” a prevailing mindset emerged in the hierarchy.

Engagement with Latinos is a must.

That a proponent of building a wall across the border with Mexico to keep people out of South and Central America received more than a third of the Latino vote shows the depth of the problem.

They are the fastest growing bloc in the US.

Many detest socialism, own small businesses, and prefer the Republican low-tax model of easy regulation, and are people of strong religious belief and belief. A political fulcrum can be to attract their hearts and minds.

The complicated result is largely a natural by-product of a divided America.

When and when Joe Biden is considered the winner, the immense, ungrateful and almost impossible task of reconciling profound differences will immediately confront him. At least he must endeavor to reintroduce bourgeois discourse in a wounded community.

There have been many lows in Donald Trump’s tenure.

His appalling post-election speech, in which he made a number of bizarre and incoherent allegations of fraud before falsely declaring he got his way and sought final confirmation from an implied Supreme Court, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump, Inc. was the nadir.

To me, the lasting image of this wretched year is a crowd of supposedly patriotic Americans screaming and applauding wildly in response to the President’s verbal defecation of our greatest ideals, traditions and institutions. The truth is stranger than fiction.

Larry Donnelly is a Boston attorney, lecturer in law at NUI Galway, and political columnist with TheJournal.ie.