Published on 11/7/24
The highly anticipated and polarizing 2024 presidential election has come-and-gone. Going into November 5th, it seemed to the public that the race was a true tossup between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Pollsters electoral expectations were all over the spectrum, with some considering the race a coin flip, and others predicting a landslide victory for either Trump or Harris, depending on the polling organization.
The presidential election itself played out in a similar fashion as the 2016 race between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Like 2016, Trump in 2024 owned the battleground states, flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia all back from the 2020 election against sitting President, Joe Biden. The only battleground state that Trump did not carry in 2016 like he has this time around was Nevada. Furthermore, as he did in 2016, Trump will have the luxury of working with a Republican controlled House and Senate.
In every single state, Kamala Harris performed worse than Joe Biden, which was reflected through usual Democratic strongholds such as New York and New Jersey veering hard to the right, but still ultimately ending up in the Democrats' basket of electoral votes. Donald Trump, against all odds, came back to reclaim the White House as the 47th President of the United States of America. Let's talk about what that means for the future of the country.
The United States of America, as has been the case for most of the 21st century, is a deeply, deeply divided country. The rise of social media, and, with it, misinformation, has contributed greatly to the chasm we see in the country's electorate. Moreover, Donald Trump's etiquette during the 2016 election cycle to both Democrats and his fellow Republicans set the stage for increased vitriol by many in the American political theater. When looking back at the conduct of past presidents and runners-up like Bush, Gore, Kerry, Obama, McCain, and Romney; they were in disagreement with their counterpart, yet respectful. That changed during the 2016 election with Trump, especially as Hillary Clinton followed suit with Trump's demeanor. Now, does having an inarguably "bad" person leading the country mean that America is doomed? Absolutely not. However, the precedent that 2016 set and what has followed since then can and likely will lead to future political misfortune in the United States.
Moving on to actual policy, this is where things become much more difficult to analyze or prognosticate. Congress will be led by Republicans in both the House of Representatives and Senate--but narrowly. Because of that, the existing Senate filibuster will allow minority Democrats in the Senate to prevent the majority Republicans from enacting the sweeping legislation that Trump has promised. However, with the ability to utilize executive orders to allow federal agencies to carry out at least some of Trump's agenda, there will be changes made. During his first term, Trump enacted 220 executive orders--a relatively average amount for the 21st century, and much higher than Biden's 143. Furthermore, based on the presidential immunity decision made in the Supreme Court in July and Trump's promise to wield every ounce of power his position allows, and potentially more, we can expect much of the Republican agenda to pass at some point during his term.
Starting with the economy, Trump plans to enact a tariff rate of 10-20% for American economic partners, with an even higher rate being levied on China, which America has a trade deficit with. This means that prices will once again increase for the American consumer, potentially adding several thousand dollars in annual expenses for the average American based on the tariffs. From Trump's perspective, the logic behind placing these extreme tariffs, especially on China, is to lower our trade deficit with the country, thereby influencing manufacturing companies to re-shore to the United States, or remain on American soil. However, according to many Nobel Prize-winning economists, this plan would be detrimental for the state of the American economy. Furthermore, other experts argue the cost of offshoring manufacturing, even with the tariffs, will still be cheaper than coming to America. Therefore, prices will go up for the consumer with no tradeoff.
In terms of tax cuts, Trump plans on utilizing his 2017 tax plan that benefitted the oligarchs in America, including Elon Musk, who will likely serve in his administration to some extent. Speaking of Musk, he himself said that Trump's tax plans will place a "temporary hardship" on average Americans in exchange for long-term prosperity, but did not care to explain where the future benefits would come from, nor how long they would take to go into effect. If taxes continue to be cut for the ultra-rich in America with no benefit to the middle or lower classes, then the wealth gap will continue to increase, and the every day consumer will continue to face greater monetary deprivation.
Immigration is another key aspect of Trump's campaign, and possibly the most chilling. He aims to deport as many undocumented immigrants from the country as possible for security reasons, which, on the surface, is somewhat logical. However, this will likely not fix the issue of illegal immigration. During Trump's first term in office, he vowed to deport every illegal immigrant in the country, but failed to do so. Furthermore, he deported fewer immigrants than President Barack Obama and roughly the same as Joe Biden, giving little credence to his plan to deport immigrants when he returns to the Oval Office, as he already failed to do so in his first term.
What needs to occur is an overhaul of the current naturalization system. According to the Library of Congress's Research Division, there are multiple aspects of our current naturalization process that provide indirect incentives for immigrants to come here illegally. The reasons include the application process costs and ensuing fees, a lack of information by the immigrants on the naturalization process, the language barrier hindering the immigrants from knowing how to carry out the application, and a complex adjudication process to finalize naturalization creating barriers to entry. The current system looks even worse when considering the fact that around 87% of all submitted naturalization applications in the United States are accepted. When application fees were waived, application submissions increased by 41%. However, because of the barriers to apply, only about 9% of all eligible applicants finalize the process legally, instead risking living in America illegally. Therefore, if the Trump administration would focus on overhauling the current system and its barriers to apply rather than repeating the failures of prior administrations, illegal immigration could cease to be a major issue in American politics.
Overhauling the naturalization system would help prevent the guaranteed economic fallout from deporting immigrants, as those people statistically make up a large portion of the American economy. According to Cornell University's Worker Institute, illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars annually in taxes while making up 25% of farmers, 19% of maintenance workers, 17% of construction workers, and 12% of the food industry. If you remove these people on a whim from the economy, what is the plan to replace that productivity? To put it bluntly, there isn't one. That is why this would be a massive misstep by the incoming Trump administration.
Beyond repairing the naturalization process, one aspect of Trump's proposed deportation plan that is of major concern is his denaturalization plan. The policy has been discussed ad nauseum by one of Trump's closest political advisors, Stephen Miller. In short, the goal is to put in place increased denaturalization programs, which would allow for the Trump administration to effectively pick-and-choose who they want to deport from the country, even if they have already been granted citizenship. Furthermore, if the Supreme Court immunity case provides Trump with the power to carry out any policy he sees fit, this could spell disaster for the future of American civil rights and economic prosperity.
The previously mentioned aspects of Trump's economy that could be disastrous are not even the most concerning subjects of his return to power for some. The reality of the situation is that key civil rights granted to many Americans could once again be infringed upon. Abortion protections under Roe v. Wade have already been sent back to the states by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court and reversed in many Republican-controlled states. Moreover, Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision granting the right to gay marriage, could face the same fate as Roe. Transgenderism could be outlawed, and has been discussed as a possibility by many of those close to Trump, and even by him. Basically, many of the people in the country who don't fit the mold of what the Trump administration, and, by extension, Stephen Miller, considers to be "American," could face extreme hardship by the incoming regime. A video of Miller's comments at Trump's recent rally at Madison Square Garden in New York will be embedded below.
Although many of the topics discussed here could be damaging to the integrity of America's economy and civil rights system, it must be acknowledged that the American people have spoken with the election. Donald Trump dominated Kamala Harris in the Electoral College, and he will return to the White House. His administration will have the opportunity to right many of the wrongs that Trump and his supporters believe the Biden administration imposed on the country.