William Watson: Fifty ways to lose an election 

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Singer-songwriter Paul Simon once wrote about how there are “50 ways to leave your lover.” The analysis I’m reading this morning after the U.S. election suggests there are also 50 ways to lose an election. (For those who favour cultural references from this century, Miley Cyrus covered “50 ways” in 2015 and it has been covered at least six more times since.)

As of this writing, the popular vote stands at 51.0 per cent for Donald Trump and 47.5 per cent for Kamala Harris. Good for Trump! That’s over half, which doesn’t always happen and hasn’t happened a lot lately. And it’s more than Harris got, which Republican winners also haven’t always done recently. One concern about the election was that the result would be ambiguous, which would lead to various kinds of social unrest. The result wasn’t ambiguous, and the counting and, in these first hours at least, aftermath have gone well. Fervent supporters of democracy, both Republicans and Democrats, cannot oppose the result of what seems clearly to have been a free and fair election.

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And yet, though unambiguous, the result was close. If one person in 50 had changed their mind, the popular vote would have been basically tied. If one person in 25 switched, it would have reversed. That might not have been enough for Harris to win, given the lop-sided importance of the swing states. But it does suggest how it may be hard to figure out which straw exactly broke the Democrats’ back (sheaf of straws, really, as it wasn’t that close). As of mid-morning yesterday, CNN had the total vote at 138 million. One-in-25 of 138 million is 5.5 million. What was in the minds of those 5.5 million people? Why did they vote for him and not instead tip the scales toward her?

You only get one vote. Each candidate is a mix of personal characteristics, policies and who knows what associations in voters’ minds. I suspect very few of us are true single-issue voters in the sense of “If I know their view on abortion, I know how I’m voting.” Most people juggle many considerations when they look at candidates.

Imagine you did your grocery shopping by choosing between two lists of 20 products each prepared for you by strangers. Your only choice is to buy list A or list B. You can’t pick and choose the products you actually want. You do need groceries so you make a choice between the lists. But what causes you to choose A rather than B? Is it the blueberries, the feta cheese, the bran flakes, the tacos? Everyone will have a different answer. If the exercise is repeated millions of times, the people who make the lists can use sophisticated statistical methods to figure out what’s tipping the balance, on average, and adjust the lists accordingly. But much better, of course, to let people make their own choices, buying what they want and leaving aside what they don’t. Thus do markets maximize consumer satisfaction.

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Politics could be more like that if we had direct democracy and people could vote on individual policies (though not on individual candidate characteristics: Kamala, please stop laughing so much!; Donald: a lighter shade of orange, please!). But direct democracy involves disadvantages, too, including that people pay even less attention. On the whole it may be better to elect a representative to handle the detail, even if that produces the bundling problem.

What combination of characteristics and policies have marginal voters endorsed by sending the Trump bundle back to Washington and giving it, not an “unprecedented” mandate, as Trump claimed in his victory speech, but a supportive Congress?

Stronger borders, which isn’t a bad thing, though mass deportations — like separating children from their families in 2017-18 — won’t survive the first few disturbing videos. Tariffs — which is ironic since they’ll likely bring more of the inflation that so many commentators believe soured voters on the Democrats. A lowering of other taxes, which will be good for economic growth and employment (and Canada, thus partly offsetting the damage from tariffs). Even more-energetic attacks on the administrative state than in the first term: also good for growth and employment (and us).

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But, in addition: a hard ride for NATO members (like us) who don’t pay their way. Appeasement of Vladimir Putin. Abandonment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Economic confrontation with China combined with a military pullback. Aggressive renegotiation of USMCA-CUSMA, which means supply management will be on the table (good!) no matter what the Liberals and Bloc agree to about taking it off.

And, of course, Trumpian chaos: late-night tweets, boorish denunciations of opponents, ALL-CAPS rants, possible prosecution of opponents (in the Biden tradition), outlandish threats, rampant unpredictability (which can sometimes be good strategically), consolidation of MAGAism, and, if he serves his full term, an 82-year-old president.

“Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” was released on the album “Still Crazy After All These Years,” which on this morning after Trump’s re-election also seems apt.

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