As it turns out, rallies aren’t a very good predictor of political success.
Kamala Harris’ rallies in the closing days of this campaign were high-energy and packed to the rafters. Donald Trump’s last rallies seemed to be increasingly listless, with more and more empty seats.
It didn’t matter. In decisive manner, the American people chose Trump to lead them Tuesday. The rally-goers who filed early out of his events nevertheless voted for him in large numbers. Many words will be written analyzing how that came to be, but the most pressing questions have to do with what happens in the months ahead.
The first shock waves from a Trump presidency will be felt abroad, where Ukraine hangs by a slender thread, Taiwan wonders about its fate and the NATO nations now contemplate going it alone against Russia’s provocations. Soon, however, the implications of this election will be felt very close to home.
In Atlanta, which has the largest number of federal employees outside the D.C.-Baltimore area, what’s it going to mean if the next administration returns to something like the old political spoils system and guts the civil service, as outlined in Project 2025?
What’s it going to mean for employees of the Centers For Disease Control to report to Robert Kennedy Jr., who has said he’s going to go to work on day one to get fluoride out of the nation’s water systems, and remains hostile to vaccines? Trump has promised to “let him go wild on the food” and “let him go wild on the medicines.” He hasn’t been specific about what post Kennedy will fill, but he said he will “work on health and women’s health.”
Elon Musk’s comment that his cost-cutting plans “would necessarily involve some temporary hardship” and his agreement with a comment that they would crash the stock market got less attention from the press in the last week on the campaign trail than Joe Biden’s “garbage” comment. Considering that polls have shown the economy to be voters’ biggest concern, that’s astonishing.
On paper, the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world at this moment. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low and inflation is going down. Most voters were thinking of it less favorably in this election, but it’s hard to think of any precedent for a nation turning from an economy this solid to one which even its promoters say would cause much more pain. Georgia’s economy depends a lot on foreign trade and immigrant labor, and more recently, electrification. How are tariffs, mass deportations and a retreat from electric vehicles going to affect it?
Speaking of Georgia’s economy, has Gov. Brian Kemp earned Trump’s gratitude for endorsing him, or will their relationship return to a frosty distance? Trump’s victory is likely to have an enormous downstream effect on politics in Georgia for many years to come. And was anyone in the country more relieved to make an early call in the presidential race than Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger?
While Trump was nailing down an unchallenged win in Georgia, Fani Willis was sailing to re-election in the race for Fulton County district attorney. Will she pursue the case stemming from the 2020 election, or could the Young Thug decision presage another agreement?
Because of the collective decision the American people made this week, these are not hypothetical questions.
