Since the Clinton presidency, the Democrats had destroyed the Jeffersonian portrayal of a Republican America with rough parity and equality, pushing the average voter towards Trump. The latter highlighted the issue of illegal immigration but Harris who was in charge of stopping it visited the international boundary only after being declared the presidential nominee. She was constantly berated by Trump for having not done anything on this issue as vice president.

In the last four years, 10 million illegal immigrants entered the US. Many of them are on state-sponsored welfare schemes and some have even acquired US citizenship. This failure to tackle illegal immigration for many Americans is similar to the European reaction to the entry of thousands of people within its borders. Biden’s unwillingness to plan a strategy to end the forever wars have spread disaster in Ukraine and West Asia. His belated decision to step aside quite late in the presidential race was perceived by many as a ploy to thrust a candidate who had no time to face the rigour and legitimizing process of the primaries on the electorate. Thus, abandoning the legitimate democratic process of nomination was another important reason for the rout.

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The presidential pardon is supposed to be used rarely, only to prohibit judicial overreach and blatant partisan acts of the Supreme Court but Biden’s use of it to pardon his son is one indication that his party is in dire need of drastic reforms. Trump’s impressive victory is a reflection of his tenacity and the fault lines within the Democratic party establishment which Biden did not address. Trump’s success owes more to the failure of the Democratic party rather than his own success. Ralph Nader blames the debacle of the Democratic Party on the emergence of a dictatorial corporate state which could not meet Trump’s flexible approach.

The party abandoned the Red States whereas the Republicans made inroads even in the Blue ones. The New Deal consensus was sacrificed at the altar of corporations. A centralised party apparatus ignored corporate corruption and public media because of its incapacity to learn from past mistakes and lack of credibility. Sanders attributes the defeat to the deep party establishment and in ignoring working class issues. Biden acted as the last president of the Cold War period. He showed little concern for pressing domestic issues like inflation, unemployment and increasing inequality.

In contrast Trump concentrated on inflation, immigration, reduction of defence expenditure and a solution to the Ukrainian war. Domestic issues became primary in a nation beset with multiple economic and social concerns. Sandel points out that the Democratic party did not address four concerns:

(1) income inequality,

(2) meritocratic hubris,

(3) the dignity of work and

(4) patriotism and national community.

The widespread income inequality has not ensured any upward mobility. “The familiar assurance that those who ‘work hard and play by the rules will succeed’ no longer seems to apply. Society now pays less respect to the work of the working class. The fear is ‘new technologies may further erode the dignity of work, rendering many of today’s jobs obsolete’. Political parties need to grapple with the meaning of work and its place in a good life”. The workers feel betrayed by their country for caring for cheap labour and cheap goods rather than their job prospects.

As a result, there is hatred for immigrants, “a strident nationalism that vilifies ‘outsiders’ justifying the rhetoric of ‘taking back our country’.” The electorate did not take Harris’ argument seriously that Trump was a threat to democracy because of its confidence that the constitutional federal framework allowing different parties to govern could not be altered having withstood a Civil War, and a Depression. The challenges posed by an individual or a group are buffered by the Madisonian principles of the Constitution. The Democrats forgot that a constitutional system that has worked successfully for 250 years has its enduring qualities and mass support.

The states have their powers and functions as a result of which there is no single Centre in US political life, as in a unitary state. The inability to impose gun laws and abortion reflects a nation that Tocqueville described as associational and plural. The structure of the US political process greatly influenced by Locke and Bentham allows for setbacks that are transitory and short. With the mid-term election every two years, the inevitable declining support to the incumbents and especially with Trump promising to be a transformational president, the Democrats have enough space to regain their authority and support within the next 24 months provided the new leadership rectifies mistakes of the last three and half decades.

However, though Trump has the majority both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, the loose American party system allows dissent both within the governing party and the opposition. Dicey observed the similarities between the British and the American systems ensuring continuity of a consensual culture and civic virtue. Brexit and the rise of Trump reflect the common culture of two Anglo Saxon nations. The world has changed too phenomenally to be dominated by a nation, however powerful it might be. Biden tried to extend Cold War politics and reclaim unipolarity with the US at the centre. Trump’s realism on the other hand would enable the US to adjust to a fledgling multi-polar world. He represents forces, whose time as Hugo said, has come.

(The writers, respectively, are retired Professors of Political Science of the University of Delhi and the Jesus and Mary College)