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Three Ways the 2024 Election Changed my Views About Politics

Some initial thoughts on how I am rethinking my priors.

Dan Pfeiffer

Jan 5

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One of the challenges of my work as a podcaster, newsletter writer, and political commentator is the pressure to react to major events before I’ve had enough time to fully process them. Within eight hours of the networks calling the election for Trump, I had already written a newsletter and recorded a podcast sharing my thoughts on what had just occurred. There is value in reacting in the moment, while emotions are still raw, but over time, you gain more perspective and additional data — allowing for a deeper analysis of what happened and why.

Over the last six weeks, I’ve probably thought about the election more than is healthy. One question, in particular, has been stuck in my mind. Crooked Media has a Discord server where our Friends of the Pod subscribers gather to discuss politics. One of our listeners posed a challenge to the hosts of Pod Save America: to reflect on how the election changed our views on what works and what doesn’t in politics.

I didn’t have a great answer when I first saw this comment. On Pod Save America, we had discussed the election extensively—what happened, and what we got wrong. As readers of this newsletter know, I wasn’t shocked by Trump’s victory. While I overestimated the impact of Trump’s chaotic campaign finale, I had described the race as a virtual coin flip in a political environment that strongly favored him.

A Republican defeating the Democratic vice president to an unpopular incumbent during a period of widespread economic dissatisfaction shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s the outcome most consistent with a historical understanding of politics. But Donald Trump isn’t Mitt Romney, Nikki Haley, or even Ron DeSantis. He’s a convicted criminal who attempted to violently overturn an election. And yet, the country shifted eight points in his favor.

If that’s not a cause for self-reflection, I don’t know what is. With that in mind, here are three ways the 2024 electoral results changed my thoughts about politics:

1. Trump’s Coalition Is a Majority (For Now)

After the 2016 election, I firmly believed that America was defined by a growing left-of-center majority whose power was being undermined by significant anti-majoritarian flaws in our political system. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million but lost the Electoral College by about 60,000 votes across three states. Similarly, in 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote by a whopping 7 million votes and barely won the presidency. The Electoral College was biased towards Republicans. The Senate gave equal power to small, rural, lily-white, and large, diverse states. The House of Representatives had been gerrymandered beyond recognition. Trump and MAGA Republicans were succeeding by exploiting flaws in our democracy, winning despite representing a shrinking minority. Trump was seen as an aberration—an accident of a broken political system...