The economy, immigration, and abortion rights became the main issues that decided the overall outcome of the November 5, 2024, US election. Further analysis of exit poll data showed that the economy dominated the realm. The discontent of the working Latinos and Black males and the loyal MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters made Trump victorious with his Congressional cohorts. To better understand this outcome, we must travel to December 2019.
Sometime in late 2019, Covid-19 descended on the Earth. Wuhan, China, witnessed the first recorded case of this deadly disease that had spread like wildfire. The virus caused enormous death and destruction over four years until vaccines, medicines and careful hygiene tamed it.
The reported death was over seven million, but the estimated death could be over 18 million to 33.5 million. The pandemic devasted the world economy, disrupted the supply chain, and significantly reduced business and financial activities.
When Trump left office, the pandemic death toll reached 401,000 over a little more than one year. That is a staggering one-third of total US deaths in the pandemic. To his credit, Trump helped develop two effective vaccines during his presidency by authorising a fast-track approach. That saved a lot of lives.
Trump inherited a strong economy with unprecedented job growth over nine years and five months, beginning in October 2010 during Barack Obama鈥檚 presidency and ending in March 2020 during Trump鈥檚 presidency. In that same year, 2020, the pandemic ravaged the job market by decimating nearly 22 million US jobs in March and April 2020, about nine months before Trump鈥檚 tenure ended. However, he restored 57 per cent of the lost jobs during the last nine months.
Annualised inflation during his presidency was 1.9 per cent, coupled with a wage increase of 15 per cent over a four-year term. Low gasoline prices and affordable cost of food and other essentials contributed to a bearable lifestyle for ordinary folks until the pandemic changed the picture. Remember, economic prosperity started with Obama and reached an exuberant euphoria during Trump, which lasted the first three years of his tenure at the cost of a high national debt. The last year was a negative transition with more debt.
Then came Biden and Harris in January 2021. All hell broke loose with an intensified pandemic and a war waged by Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine during the peak of the ravaging pandemic. The supply chain was disrupted, the oil price skyrocketed, and the cost of food and other essentials went through the roof. Unemployment, price gouging, lack of supply, and business closures invaded the land. Biden-Harris provided nearly $4.6 trillion as pandemic relief and recovery, almost 17 per cent of the current US GDP of $27.36 trillion, to cope with the situation. Some critics say it was overkill. But at that moment, it was not the perception of millions of needy Americans, especially the working class and poor, who lost their jobs and had nothing to survive.
However, the flow of $4.6 trillion into circulation caused severe inflation. The Federal Reserve tried to address the inflation problem by raising the interest rate a few times and squeezing the money supply through quantitative tightening. All these efforts lowered inflation to over 3 per cent at the end of the Biden-Harris tenure, but it was too late.
When people are in economic distress, the incumbent government is usually blamed. The Biden-Harris team failed to articulate their efforts and that the economic ills were not of their making. The fact that this disaster was primarily an act of God did not resonate with the suffering masses. With painful pocket-book issues, their resentment kept on growing.
On the other hand, Donald Trump, the wizard of Mar-a-Lago, and his powerful surrogates won the hearts of the suffering working class, especially working Latinos and Black males, who have a hard time making ends meet. Donald Trump convinced the working class that the Biden-Harris administration was the root of their economic losses and he could remedy their problems with his magic wand, although he did not offer any specific solutions to mitigate their sufferings. The spin machine of Trump and the Republican Party has been much more effective than Democrats. November 5 proved that this magic of the information war worked well, giving a decisive victory to Trump, his Senate, and the House of Representatives in the US election. If Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz was fact but not fiction and she could travel to Mar-a-Lago on the wings of an Atlantic hurricane, she would be mesmerised!
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Dr Mostofa Sarwar, a scientist and poet, is a professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans. He was dean, provost, and vice-chancellor of Delgado Community College and served as a visiting professor and adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.
