Around September, I made a series of political posts in the run up to the 2020 election as to my thoughts on the outcome and future of US politics. Now that the election is all said and done, I want to return to these posts and recap.
Perhaps the most notable blunder on my part is predicting Trump over Biden (probably for the better). Apparently, my media theory had one caveat — negative press can be a damning thing. I thought that since most of 2016’s coverage of Trump was negative, that it wouldn’t affect him — but 2020 was even more damning, and it seemed to cross over just enough to kill Trump’s chances. Still, I believe the media theory would work as a ‘good enough’ prediction engine — it just won’t win every time.
On the other hand, I believe the chances for positive nationalism is now much higher. It’s clear that Trump’s form of nationalism was toxic, preferring certain identity groups over others. Now, it seems like we can go back to the true definition of ‘the soul of the nation’, with the help of both liberal and conservative viewpoints. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s core base stays upset for a few years after, though.
Speaking of identity groups, I think this will be the most interesting trend to follow in the next few years. It is pretty clear that the election served more as people wanting Trump to lose rather than wanting Biden to win. Now that Biden is president, the focus moves to him — and it’s very clear that the Democrats still haven’t learned to come together. Progressives are still in conflict with moderates, a battle that may come to high stakes in future elections. The Democrats now have control of the government — the question has become whether or not they’ll keep it.
