Back on Tuesday 23 January there was posted on Switzer Daily an article by me titled “Trump will not get a second term” https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/trump-will-not-get-a-second-term/. I find myself now somewhat regretting writing that article - although it did contain some interesting historical information. The question raised, however, remains, and it is this: to what extent can we compare the 1884, 1888 and 1892 presidential elections with those of 2016, 2020 and 2024?
One similarity quickly springs to mind. The Democrat Grover Cleveland (!885-89 and 1893-97) is presently the only former President to have served two non-consecutive terms. In my article “Nixon and Trump: two failed Presidents” https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/malcolm-mackerras/donald-trump-the-worst-most-failed-us-president/ I showed a table of presidential greatness as measured by historians. It rated Cleveland as “high average”, coming in at number 13 out of 44 past presidents. He was the 24th and 26th President, the Americans counting him as two men. By contrast with Cleveland, Donald Trump sits at number 44 out of 44 past Presidents. In other words, American historians rate Trump as the worst former US President, a view with which I agree.
It is now clear that Trump will get a second term after all. He will be described as number 45 and number 47, with Joe Biden as the 46th President. How will historians then rate Trump? I think I would find myself compelled to place him at number 14, just one rank below Cleveland. That would make Democrat James Buchanan (1857-61) and Republican Warren Harding (1921-23) the two worst Presidents.
Readers who go to my January article will note the title I gave to it. That title was “Trump will not get a second term.” I have never previously predicted in public print who would be elected on Tuesday 5 November 2024 - only who would not be. Here I must confess to wishful thinking. While in private conversation I would typically say that Biden would be re-elected in 2024 I was hoping all along that Biden would give way to Kamala Harris. That was quite a strange hope to have.
It certainly shows how superior our Australian democratic system is to the American. Yet many Americans would claim their system is more democratic. The highest office in the US is the President and every American voter participates in that choice, both in the primaries (which determine who would be each party’s candidate) and at the general election in November. The highest office in Australia, by contrast, is the prime minister and he or she is chosen by an electorate to be their local member and by the party to lead it. Who are we to say that our system is more democratic? My answer to the question is to assert that our system is not more democratic than the American, but it works much better. That is why at Australian referendums the result we so often get is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, that being a suitable Americanism to describe our situation. Australia is the lucky country.
So, what about this fond hope I have had that Biden would give way to Harris? Clearly, I have not been the only election analyst to entertain such a hope. As recently as last Saturday morning, the Democratic election guru and strategist James Carville was quoted by two journalists in The Weekend Australian on pages 17 and 22. The full quote is: “Joe Biden is going to be out of the 2024 presidential race. Whether he is ready to admit it or not. His pleas on Monday to congressional Democrats for support will not unite the party behind him. Mr Biden says he’s staying in the race, but it’s only a matter of time before Democrat pressure and public and private polling lead him to exit the race. The jig is up, and the sooner Mr Biden and the Democratic leaders accept this, the better. We need to move forward.” To see that quote in the paper see Paul Kelly on page 22.
The problem is the very democracy of the Americans. Biden won a whole heap of primaries giving him all those delegates to the Democratic National Convention at Chicago in August. Are they to be ignored in the pretence that really the American system can be converted into the Australian? Idiotic though the American system is that is the reality.
This article is titled “Thursday 27 June and Saturday !3 July were days that gave Trump the 2024 election.” The former date is when the debate took place between Biden and Trump at Atlanta, Georgia. It was shown on Australian television on the morning of Friday 28 June and universally thought to have been a disaster for Biden. Last Saturday 13 July was when the assassination attempt was made on Trump’s life at Butler, Pennsylvania. The debate effectively killed Biden, the hope of the Democratic Party being alive only by virtue of the fond one mentioned above. Then the shooting last Saturday meant that Harris will not want to hold the poisoned chalice of being the Democratic candidate. Nor would Gretchen Whitmer. Nor would Gavin Newsom.
So, how will the presidency of Biden be seen by historians? I would say that he has been an excellent president but that he has bungled the politics of the 2024 election as comprehensively as could be imagined. That is why he has been left holding the poisoned chalice. So, no one else now wants to be the Democratic candidate in 2024. Historians will see it that way. He has made his bed, and he must lie upon it. He must also contend with the opinion of historians that he behaved selfishly by continuing his campaign. He should never have sought a second term. Once it became clear that he was not fit for a second term he should have released his delegates at the August convention.
And what about Trump? I see him as someone of questionable character and with radical policies who wants the presidency so that he can pardon himself. Like his friend Vladimir Putin he does not care about ordinary people. They are losers to him. For Putin they are cannon fodder. For Trump they are voters fit to be manipulated. His achievement has been to place himself above the law with help from his mates on the Supreme Court which he has stacked in the past and will stack in the future.
For the Democratic Party there is one reason for hope about the future. Trump will not be able to be a candidate in 2028 so both big parties will go through the democratic processes of primaries and the rest. The person who wins the nomination of the Republican Party (presumably Vice-President Vance) will carry the baggage of Trump who will surely suffer a disaster at the mid-term 2026 elections as big as the disaster of the 2018 midterms. The Democratic Party candidate, by contrast, will be in a pretty good position. Mark my words: the second Trump aberration will be just as bad for America as the first. Therefore, the Republican candidate in 2028 will be rejected just as comprehensively by the voters as Trump was in 2020.
Some day in October I’ll contribute another article for Switzer Daily giving details of my predictions. For the moment, however, I am predicting that the electoral college will divide 327 votes for Trump and 211 for Biden. In 2020 the division was 306 for Biden and 232 for Trump.