Ramparts has been silent for some time. Personal priorities and external events stole the self imposed discipline needed to drive creative essays developed in solitary, to be read by only a hardy few.

Excuses aside, sometimes it takes just a little jolt to get the fires burning again. An old loyal reader in casual conversation stated, he and his wife missed Ramparts post-election essays and felt this most recent U.S. national election deserved a Ramparts revival. Revivals are not unique to America, but are part of the spontaneous combustion of renewal that envelops this country time and again. In religious terms, American revivals have been conceived as Great Awakenings, the first in the 18th century enlightenment that codified religious liberty, the second, a mid- 19th century revival that sought to restore the core message and personal relationship of individuals to God in a time of moral decline.

Politics lives in the real world where it is difficult to associate any piety to its evangelizers, or purity to the motives that drive political movements. A striking cord of revival, however, underlies the 2024 electoral season that can’t be denied. A form that harkens back to the days of the Awakenings was realized in the cast of the “large tent” rallies, where people came together not so much to be politically converted, as to feel the synergistic energy of shared belief. At a time when most political observers had assumed cynically that money dominated mass media message control had replaced the communal need for fervor or enthusiasm in search of renewal, the 2024 election stands athwart. Ramparts finds this restoration of an age old human need for meaning , a worthy subject to inspire its own reawakening.

The 2024 U.S. national election is rich with thematic treasure that will deserve in-depth treatment by historians and political scientists alike. Ramparts is as always better suited for initial, but vivid impressions. A few threads come to mind.

Trump the Invincible – Any attempt at analysis has to start with the chief protagonist of this dramatic election. Nothing creates tense fervor in a drama so much as a singular hero challenged near destruction by the coalescence of enormous hostile forces, only ultimately to be strengthened by them. Donald J Trump has faced untold efforts to destroy his political viability, much less his very existence. An incomplete list includes efforts to brand him as a traitor through deep state hoax and insurrection claims, constant media invective, a blood-lust, destruction-fueled dive into his personal life, business, and taxes meant to eliminate his wealth and destroy his stature, multiple impeachments, scores of indictments designed to impoverish and imprison, and, at its apogee , multiple assassination attempts. The last accentuated the semi-religious veneer of this flawed man. Facing near certain death with the spontaneous impulse to fight, fight, fight…drew admiration even from his detractors, and fuel-injected his ground support. The overwhelming impression was that, in the face of incredible and repeated assault, this was a man who fights to the brink of martyrdom, and would therefore fight for you. Thus was cemented an invincible, irresistible and ultimately undefeatable patina to the Trump persona. Any other interpretation as to the core contributions to his victory pales in comparison.

Diverse voters, shared concerns – In 1992, James Carville notoriously framed the presidential election with the laser focused mantra, “Its the economy, stupid!“. The discipline in message allowed Bill Clinton to defeat the incumbent George H.W. Bush, who only 18 months before the election defeat carried a 90% job approval rating. In 2024 this clarifying message to the voter was expanded by the Trump campaign into a tetrad that appealed across a culturally and race diverse electorate, casually assumed by the Democrat party to be their exclusively loyal core voting constituency. The assumption was that this constituency was forever divisible into factions permanently energized by the Democrats cynically generated race, gender, and religious categorizations and associated identity victimhood. The smug elite Democrat assumptions that tribal loyalty would remain inviolate, proved instead etherial. The Trumpian tetrad of economic woes, censorship, loss of border integrity, and an increasingly dangerous world manifested as- dare I say it- intersectional.

The tetrad political message of 2024 did not require the subjective and time limited measures of a statistical 1992 recession to focus voter interpretations. The previous four years leading to 2024 delivered hard truths as to cause and effect in judging the incumbent ticket. Massive inflation purposefully injected into the economy by 6 trillion dollars of unfettered Biden Administration spending crushed business and individuals alike. The suffering was only intensified by the callous disregard, gas lighting and irresponsibility by the incumbent administration and candidate. Censorship grew in leaps and bounds as “experts” derided free expression as “misinformation”. Suppression in social media, lawfare, and governmental obfuscation presented ominous hints of a coordinated ascendance of an elite “new world order”. The collapse of the southern border was anchored to the federal government not only by the federal government’s unwillingness to uphold the rule of the law, but in catalyzing the continuing invasion through income support, housing, medical care, and even non-citizen voting rights. This appalled citizens across the racial spectrum. The best exemplar was Starr County in Texas, a border county whose demographic makeup is 97% Hispanic. Starr County had been a Democrat voting bulwark since 1896, and as recently as 2012, had voted for the Democratic presidential candidate by a 75% margin over the Republican. In 2024, Starr County voted for Donald Trump by 57%!

Finally, the previous four years had reinvigorated the age old reminder that a progressively dangerous world requires only perceived weakness from the United States for ignition of chaos, and for authoritarians to thrive. Bellicose aggressive acts from Russia,China, and Iran through its proxies, among others, resulted in hot wars in Ukraine and the Middle East with real risk of escalation. The calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan as a massively self inflected wound of the Biden Administration only accentuated the image of weakness and lack of competence when placing troops in harm’s way. The risk particularly resonated among minority groups that increasingly contribute to the core of U.S. armed forces, and are progressively asked to defend our interests on foreign soil. No such hostilities found succor under the previous Trump Administration , and the contrast between the candidates as to who was in a better position to lead us out of the morass grew stark.

The intersection of the tetrad resulted in marked increases in Republican support by Black males, Hispanics, Asians, White non college educated males and white Women, Indigenous people, young and first time voters, Millenials, and inconceivably, Jews and Muslims. The voting result was manifested in massive shifts towards Republican tallies in blue states and ultimately, a plurality of the national vote to Trump.

Democracy and the Candidates – The political mantra has always been present that the Democrat party holds fundamental advantages in demographics, party identity, ground game and money. The huge advantage in money remained in 2024, with the Harris campaign ultimately exceeding 1.4 billion in spend, four times the Trump campaign spend. It appears money may be able to buy you anything, but it can’t buy you love. Money proved grossly ineffective in controlling the message that ultimately persuaded voters. Harris additionally proved to be a horrendous public exponent of the message, negating the vast money difference.

Two weaknesses beyond her personal talents (or lack thereof) are worth noting. Harris’s entry into the race was an initially manufactured success, but ultimately fatally flawed. For a candidate espousing the “threat to democracy” Trump represented in his post 2020 electoral loss denialism and intransigence indirectly culminating in the calamity of January 6th, 2021 , Harris’s very presence in the race required a flagrantly undemocratic party-led coup against a sitting President, who had democratically and convincingly won the party nomination through the primary process. Kamala Harris, the candidate who had in her own Presidential race in 2020 suffered defeat before the first competitive primary absent even a single democratically earned delegate, was elevated through back room shenanigans to the position of party standard bearer. Voters found the reality of the “coup” blatantly un-American. Harris then proved inarticulate and incompetent in defending her actions as a supposed critical decision maker in the Biden Administration, while promoting a candidacy based upon vagaries of “joy”, “moving forward”, abortion until birth, transgender radicalism, celebrity, and “Fascist Trump is Hitler”. The result? – Harris did not achieve a single improved vote margin compared to Biden’s 2020 vote – in ANY county in America. I would suggest the Harris campaign and its two candidates embodied the worst campaign concoction in U.S. history.

Shockingly against perception, Trump and his inspired choice in running mates, J.D. Vance, ran one of the most innovative, disciplined and, frankly, best campaigns in American history. Trump’s undeniable talent for the old fashioned “large tent” rally was married to a remarkable performance on the new battlefield of “earned” media. The campaign took full advantage of the massive outreach to voters through long form pod casts, exposing Trump and the intelligent and articulate JD Vance to voters who normally would not be natural fits. It allowed he and Vance to articulate their tetrad of the economy, censorship, border security, and staying safe in a dangerous world in unedited and unvarnished fashion to millions of Americans through a respectful and engaging format, without mainstream media cat calls and overbearing hostility. The passion and energy of the rallies were then turned into digital soundbites, memes, and entertaining video that injected that energy and passion into the nation’s digital circulatory system. No matter what the format, the message stayed disciplined, respectful, reinforcing, and ultimately unifying. The result? – the largest Republican popular vote in history, and massive coattails extending to a majority in governors, legislatures, congress, senate and a clean sweep of all swing states.

Who’s in Charge? – Some societal forces were beyond the specifics of either candidate, but reflected positively in the perception of Trump as a authentic leader. The Covid pandemic reinforced the impression that unelected international elitists were the true determinants of a future beyond democratic control. Mandatory vaccination, comfort with anarchist free ranging violence and border dissolution juxtaposed by uncontrolled massive migration were enthusiastically engaged by anonymous bureaucrats while captive citizens were restricted in freedom of mobility, ability to secure for their families, and freedom of speech. Climate change settled science elitism put strangulating supra-national restraints on economic activity for democratic countries and third world struggling economies while blatantly allowing unfettered carbon based expansion in others. The authoritarian talking points and directives respected no national boundaries or cultural traditions. The Big Lies reached universal, international pervasiveness and dared questioning individuals to destroy themselves in denying their own rational truths – Gender is fluid, human progress is the mortal enemy of climate, race trumps merit, and freedom offends society. The concern that the world was heading toward a irrevocable dystopia that needed to be stopped inhabited the back caverns of many voters’ minds.

The final electoral straw was the storied myth of the critical and singular role of the chief executive in American democracy. A feeble and progressively senile President Biden was hidden behind a defiant,mendacious cadre of unelected decision makers that may have included a previous President. Despite the obvious evidence of several years of Biden exhibiting progressive cognitive challenges, a compliant media reinforced the perfidious facade of a president engaged critical decision making, with supposed vigorous intellectual capacity and superhuman endurance. The meme that a big lie functions more easily to manipulate a population than a insignificant one, proved true until the ridiculous charade collapsed in Biden’s disastrous cognitive performance before the nation in the summer presidential televised debate. The nation was thus presented with the incongruous spectacle of a President supposedly tasked with running a nation, but incapable of running a campaign. It was clear that whoever was making decisions for the future of the nation, inhabited neither the office or the candidate. Americans did not like what they saw, or the future it suggested.

Why do people come to America? – Massive migration without the rule of law brought out a powerful vote against the policy of open borders in many citizens that had otherwise been immigrants themselves. This stupefied Democrats who assumed that immigration was an economic decision, not a principled one. Asian and Hispanic American citizen populations, like the many immigrant populations of Europeans before them, had personally fled lands lacking individual rights, and equality before the law. They viewed America as a beacon of freedom and a refuge from oppression, and were not about to give up their hard-one rights as citizens to a horde of people who disrespected the intertwined vision of responsibility that accompanies opportunity, and thereby threatened the ideal. The founding principles of the American Experiment are apparently more imbedded than previously assumed, and a powerful renewing force for the future.

Who are the “cool kids” now? – Despite the Boomer status of both candidates, the final death knell of the self absorbed, elitist 60’s boomer generation finally met its match in the 2024 election. Celebrity elites, University professors, Social scientists, and victim culturalists proved no match for the new “cool kids” of free expression, critical analysis, and diverse backgrounds coming together in the form of podcasters, rocket scientists, settled science denialists, and Z-generation opened minded life affirmers that have nothing in common with the navel gazing, antihuman materialists of the Boomer generation and some of their easily deluded offspring. Tom Wolfe, if he were still alive, would already be writing the definitive book. The radical Framers of this nation and free thinkers that they inspired are making a comeback that bodes well for the country and its ability to self correct. All made possible by a flawed disruptor more Sam Adams than George Washington.

Revival – the rally as Incubator – A national revival seems to be underway, though the future remains, as always, unsettled , and the darker forces nowhere near surrender or submission. The radical energy of freedom however is undeniable.

For the first time the’ ‘Big Tent’ is full of people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and walks of life acknowledging the need for a great awakening. The 2024 campaign saw both virtual and communal coming together under an all inclusive tent full of the spirit of renewal and rebirth.

Kind of exciting, kind of hopeful, for the first time in decades. Ramparts likes the possibilities…

As Again-President Trump has on occasion declared at his disruptive best, “We’ll see what happens.”