November 6, 2024

One of the only truism of election outcomes in liberal democracies like the USA is that the Wrong Lessons will be learned.

As is expected, there are a lot of takes on the election. Everything from blaming specific groups to party strategy and tactics will be done to expand a political position. They will almost all focus on the wrong things.

The political and economic implications of the election of openly fascist Republican Party is difficult to digest.

I would suggest that we must look at the objective measures of where we are instead of trying to read the tea leaves.

This is a very bad result for the left, I think more than most people probably realize at this point.

This is not just because an emboldened far right make it objectively more dangerous to be an activist in the USA, it makes it more dangerous to be a leftist everywhere.

There is only one response: we must organize, present an alternative, and expand the struggle for socialism.

For materialists, the election result is an emergent property. You cannot look at the result and work your way backwards to get the reason, you must look at the reasons and ask how they form together to get to the result.

Below is some exit poll data.

Again, a lot will be read into this. Namely through the racists, classist, and sexist lens of the media. Americans love to use data to justify all stupid ideas that they have. Some will be correct and others will be nonsense, but you will not be able to tell which from the data presented.

Namely, they will look at the size of the shift and uncritically claim that there is something to the smaller or larger aspects of that shift.

What is clear is that the Republicans expanded their position across every group across the entire country over the previous 8 years.

Looking at the exit polls shows some remarkable consistency when it comes to a shift away from the Democrats and to the Republicans.

That link goes to the CNN three year analysis, the only one I can find that shows this so clearly. Do not read the comments, just look at the graphs by looking at the trend and looking at the numbers from left to right.

These graphs do not explain anything beyond the numbers and it is important to not assign reasons to the numbers. They simply indicate a trend.

The proxies in the USA election have been sentiment on immigration and "The Economy", because most elections are about blame.

There will be more graphs, but I think that clarity in result is important to understand that there was a general tendency.

I think that this is the graph that the left need to keep in mind.

We have been outlining in the Brief that the American worker has been facing a recession. This is in spite of the Democrats and the liberals being focused on general/average economic growth as a good news story.

The economic winners of the election in the short term are equity investors (and related betting markets like bitcoin).

Equities have already rallied because the mix of economic policies mean profit subsidies and pumping-up of the capital-side of the economy. More money for rich folks means more money in the markets.

In the longer term it is going to be a bit of a question. The neoclassical analysis is that while protectionism and debt-financed profit subsidies are nice for capital, the medium term is higher inflation risk.

How does this lead to inflation why do they think this? Tariffs.

Orthodox neoclassical economics says that:

• tariffs are a tax on exports
• tariffs hurt domestic investment (lower competition)
• tariffs hurt productivity growth (lower investment)
• are similar to when interest rates and quantitative easing by central banks created zombie companies

Neoclassical theory also says that printing money creates inflation.

From our point of view all of this lands with a "depends".

Pumping up profitability—just like pumping-up demand—will have a short-term impact on economic output and growth.

Where that money is invested determines what happens next.

It is unlikely to go to a massive expansion of capital investment in the country, but no doubt there will be some.

The prediction is that capital has won its saviour for the short and medium terms. Higher profitability will be sustained through this short-term economic policy.

In the longer-term the program to continue to sustain profitability will be more of a political one than a strictly economic one. Suppression of wage gains in the face of output growth will be the goal.

The attempt will be made to hide this continued growing disparity between capital and labour's share of the output by simply pointing out that there is any growth of incomes and blaming immigrants and "others" for an downside.

The problem is that we do not know which playbook of Trump's will be implemented to make accurate predictions of where this all ends up.

Project 2025? A variation of that? What he says, what (new) finance capital wants?

Or, something completely different.

Elections and war are always a strange thing in the USA. There is no doubt that external conflict weigh some on the voting intentions of the population, but not as much as most people think.

That doesn't mean that the impact of voting for Trump doesn't change the risk of war.

Tariffs will shift geopolitical frames for years to come.

But, the loss of support for USA involvement in the short term rhetoric will always give way to the state supporting USA capital interests.

When it comes to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, Trump's program will increase the risk of conflict in the medium term.

Forget it.

There is no livable planet from the modern fascist orientation to the environment and the future.

The market will rule, so there will be investment shifts locally. But regulations, international cooperation, and climate programs involving the USA do not look good.

This is less climate change denial. This is future denying economic policy.

It is too early to tell what the impact will be on our economy.

I say that because there is no way to know how the next few years will go politically inside Canada.

We are facing the same economic conditions that are taking out incumbents around the world. But, the sands are shifting under our feet to make accurate or informed predictions.

We can make the future we need.

But, to do that the left must focus on organizing.

That means clear analysis, a political and economic vision that speaks to the working class, and doesn't make excuses for the liberals and fascists that block our path to a better future.

There is no other way.