The Big Lesson of the Election

I have read, skimmed, or glanced at dozens of articles and opinion pieces purporting to explain why Trump won. Some of them made a persuasive case that, if Biden, Harris, Walz, Democratic Congressional leaders, and Democratic political strategists had done certain things or not done certain things, they would have performed a little better, or even considerably better, in the election.

Lost in all the assignments of blame has been the monster in the room. None of the lapses on the part of Democratic candidates and strategists come within even a remote distance of offsetting the extreme unfitness of Trump to be President. The big lesson of the election wasn’t that Democrats campaigned ineptly. It was that a majority of the voters were so lacking in mental and moral competence or in an understanding of what was at stake that they made the appalling decision to vote for Trump.

The genesis of Trump’s victory was not, as one conservative columnist had it, because Democrats were “priggish and pontificating,” but in the deterioration of our culture to the point where cruelty, criminality, and mendacity became normalized to a degree that a demagogue with such a ghastly life record and manifestly debased character as Donald Trump could appeal to a sufficient number of voters to regain the Presidency and pursue his goal of replacing American democracy with autocratic rule.