Hyperbolic Tendencies in the 2024 U.S. Elections
In the November 2024 U.S. general election, Donald Trump won the Presidency with about 50% of the popular vote, compared to about 48.5% for Kamala Harris. Since Harris ran up big popular vote totals in California, Illinois, and New York, she had fewer popular votes with which to carry other states; and Donald Trump hence won the Presidency with an Electoral-College landslide (312 to 226 Electoral votes).
In 2024, the Electoral College has again worked as intended, forcing active campaigning beyond just California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas; thereby preventing the appearance that most states are “colonies” without much effect on the federal system. The resulting increase in the area of active campaigning brings effects that are perhaps more psychological than substantial: In practice, California, Illinois, and New York (54+19+28 = 101 Electoral votes) were locked up for Harris; Florida and Texas (30+40 = 70 Electoral votes) were solidly for Trump; and virtually all the campaigning took place in the “seven swing states” of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (with 11, 6, 16, 16, 19, 15, and 10 Electoral votes, respectively, for a total of 93). Ultimately, Trump won all seven swing states and, hence, the election.
The main issues in the 2024 Presidential election were the U.S. economy, the U.S. southern border and immigration, and international security in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Middle East.
Large deficits after the global COVID pandemic led to inflation, which led to high price levels. Inflation then moderated; but without actual deflation, high prices remain high. For example, if a particular product or service incorporates a 9.5% inflation rate for two successive years, then the corresponding price level is 20% higher after the second year, even if the applicable inflation rate returns to zero. That 20% price-level increase will remain in perpetuity even if the applicable inflation rate remains at zero in perpetuity. However, no government will work to achieve deflation, because inflation has been seen as one permanent funding source for government ever since ancient Roman emperors perfected the art of debauching the Imperial currency by shaving coins or recasting coins with baser metals. People are infuriated and are looking for economic growth in order to increase real incomes, thereby overcoming high price-levels for fuel, food, housing, insurance, and much else.
Over the past four years, there has also been a public outcry over the crime and drugs that have entered the U.S. via its southern border. The murder of Laken Riley is a highly visible case in point. Moreover, there has been public indignation over the abrupt U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan, over the ensuing world-wide decline of U.S. deterrence, and over the increasing adventurism of Russia, Iran, and Communist China.
During the recent U.S. political season and its discourse, there have been hyperbolic overtones of outrage, fury, and uproar. It has been remarkable to observe how many claims have been made about the ranking of contemporary U.S. political figures on a “Fascist scale” that culminates in Benito Mussolini or Adolph Hitler. Such corruption of argument has been noted by Alec Ryrie, writing in the November 2024 edition of First Things.
Ryrie relates that, in 1990, a pioneering internet enthusiast named Mike Godwin formulated a “law” that “the longer that an online discussion goes on, the chance that someone will compare someone else to Hitler or the Nazis inexorably increases, and once it happens, the discussion ends.” The present writer would say that “Godwin’s Law” is an emotive theory of language in which “facts” are replaced by “strong feelings that certain states of affairs must have been instantiated.” Ryrie continues by saying that “calling someone a Nazi … ends an argument because it is a punch to the face.” Thus, reasoned replies are not long sought, being replaced by internet pugilism.
Ryrie states that “in a relativist, pluralist age, Nazism is our one absolute reference point.” One might say that, in the Western world, the dominant moral compass - - that had pointed to Jesus as the absolutely desirable moral example to be emulated - - has been replaced by a “moral anti-compass” that points away from Hitler as the absolutely evil moral example to be avoided at all cost.
Ryrie agrees with demonizing Hitler and celebrating the Allied achievement in defeating him. Ryrie worries, however, that replacing attraction to a positive moral example with a repulsion from a negative moral example poses some problems: Attraction to a point provides a clear view of destination, whereas there are many unpredictable paths away from a point of repulsion. This is apparently what Ryrie means when he writes that World War II has graduated from observable fact to a myth (an object of a post-1945 de facto religion that is truly Ersatz in quality and was incapable of opposing the secularizing tsunami created by the various rebellions of the 1960’s). In Ryrie’s view, post-World War II churches faced a terrible loss of faith, as exemplified by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his proposed “religion-less Christianity.”
Ryrie thinks that one may still hold religious values, mixed in with the anti-Nazi moral values of our age; and that this mixture may be accepted by some as the best available result for hopelessly divided societies. (In this analysis, let “one,” “we,” and “our” refer to some reflective members of Western societies.) Ryrie writes that “our myth is that we live in a secular age based on self-evident truths about human rights. But in fact, we live in the age of Hitler. Our religion is World War II.” Ryrie means that the moral values of the Allies in World War II are a good starting place but need to be connected with the values that emanate from religion. As an extension of Ryrie’s analysis - - considering the rhetoric heard during the 2024 Presidential election campaign - - one might say that our contemporary political speech is measured on a Hitlerian scale that does not allow for the nuanced gradations of evil that exist today.