The physics of American elections
The pendulum swings and demolishes the Blue Wall
Introduction to the physics of the pendulum
In a democratic republic, voter preference and tolerance for a political agenda swing back and forth like a pendulum. Think of the common sense of the American voters being the equivalent of the force of gravity that causes the pendulum to oscillate back and forth between policies that will be acceptable to the general public. Eventually, the friction of the political process dampens the amplitude of the oscillations resulting in smaller departures from the centerline. If the pendulum of the political agenda goes too far in one direction, the gravity of the voters’ common sense will swing it back toward the center. At the pendulum’s highest point, it momentarily halts before beginning its swing back in the opposite direction. For that brief moment, the kinetic energy of the pendulum is zero, but the potential energy is at its maximum. Little swings can be tolerated, but if the swings go too far in one direction, then the recovery forces will be that much stronger. There may be several oscillations before the pendulum finally reaches a point of stability.
How the physics of the pendulum governs present politics
We have seen that work historically. After Nixon stepped down, voters thought the pendulum had swung too far and the result was the election of Jimmy Carter. After four years of Carter’s foreign policy weakness and naïveté, the Country thought we needed the strength of Reagan. Reagan and one term of Bush I were then followed by Clinton, who was followed by Bush II, who was followed by Obama, and so on.
We have seen the physics of the pendulum swing in operation this week. Biden-Harris pushed the pendulum of voter toleration for political trends further and further to the left. Its apogee may have been the day just before the Biden-Trump debate. But during and after that debacle, voters began to realize that those whom we should have been able to trust on matters of national security, had been lying to us for years. Voters naturally began to consider what other lies they had told us. The Biden campaign lost all any remaining momentum by the end of that debate, and the reverse swing began in earnest.
The “progressive” Democrats, led by Biden, Harris and God-only-knows-who-else, had dragged the country far to the left. Too far, in fact, for Americans who recoiled at being called “garbage,” and who do not support men in women’s sports, wide open borders, rampant inflation, a feckless foreign policy, appeasement of our enemies, mutilation of minor children’s sex organs in the name of tolerance, and some undefined economic theory they call “Bidenomics.”
“It’s a term we are very proud of, I must tell you. Because Bidenomics is working; it’s working.” Voters heard Harris assure them that Bidenomics was working. But they knew it was baloney. The reverse momentum was building.
The pendulum reaches its peak energy and destroys the Blue Wall.
The “progressives” pushed the pendulum of voter toleration higher and farther to the left. That extreme variation from the norm, combined with most voters’ awakening to the extent of deception practiced upon them, caused the voters’ common sense to begin to act as the gravitational counterforce. It pulled the pendulum back toward the center of gravity.
But because pendulum of voter tolerance had been pushed too far to the left, it did not return slowly. It accelerated faster and faster until on November 5, it blew a massive hole through the so-called “Blue Wall.” That Blue Wall, of course, was composed of the states that the Democrats relied upon to prevent a Trump victory. Key rocks in the Blue Wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — all went for Trump. Once that wall was destroyed, the election and Trump’s victory was assured.
The extent of the damage.
Before the election, all the self-styled “experts” assured us that the election would be a nail biter, that the winner would chalk up the narrowest of victories. Wrong again. As of this writing Trump leads in the electoral vote count, 295 - 226. His lead may go even higher, since Nevada and Arizona with a combined total of 17 electoral votes, have not yet been called. But Trump leads in both states by margins of 51 - 47.2 and 52.3 - 46.8, respectively. And he won the popular vote decisively, currently leading Harris by nearly 5 million votes.
So, commentators of all stripes are correctly calling this a “decisive” victory for Trump. The pendulum swung back, devastated the Blue Wall, and still has momentum.
So, what will the Democrat party do?
What would you do if the American people decisively rejected your agenda, and the electoral map looked like this?
Rational people might take a sober, clear-eyed look at their platform and strategy to determine whether there is any chance that maybe, just maybe, their positions have become too extreme. They might ask themselves whether the American people really want ❶ socialism, ❷15-minute cities, ❸ mandatory electric cars, ❹ more wars, ❺ more government spending and inflation to buy votes and appease the “climate change” religion, and ❻ DEI programs that require promotions and other outcomes to yield equal results for everybody, regardless of merit and work ethic. If they do engage in such introspection, they might decide that socialism and its beloved brother, Marxism, has never worked and that trying to bribe voters with free stuff bought by other peoples’ money, and appeals to race-based elections are not a winning strategy.
But the leftists’ initial reactions show that such critical thinking may be in short supply. We see this daily, even hourly. I will not occupy your time with all the examples of loud Democrat voices that continue to shriek about how Trump is going to destroy the country, send people to camps, etc. I will just offer a brief glimpse of a few things I saw and heard the morning shortly after the major networks and other news outlets called the election for Trump.
With a combination of curiosity and schadenfreude, I tuned in to several networks, including CNN and MSNBC, to gauge their reaction. Both networks, of course, had been squarely in the “Trump is a fascist threat to democracy who will destroy the Constitution, and the Country will never recover” camp. I therefore was interested to see how they would react to their decisive defeat.
They were all over the lot, even on the same network.
Joe Scarborough may have been the biggest surprise, although in retrospect, it should not have been a surprise. Scarborough was trying to cover his a**. His schtick was that of course he had always opposed things like allowing so-called trans-women, that is to say men, to beat down over the competition in women’s sports, from boxing, to swimming, and even powerlifting.
Scarborough also said that he knew that Biden’s economy was a basket case, and someone should have blown the whistle on that. Funny how I never heard him or anyone else at MSNBC doing that. Dripping with phony I-told-you-so-ism, Scarborough chastised the Democrats for not admitting or alerting the country to the same problems for which Republicans have been castigated as racists, garbage, or Nazis when they pointed them out. Some of his panelists appeared shell-shocked at the turn-around they were hearing, although Mika nodded along gamely. This, too, shall pass.
Relatively soon after MSNBC had called the election for Trump, another panelist on a show moderated by Jen Psaki became so angry that I thought he might start spewing spittle, à la Lawrence O’Donnell. His rant can be boiled down to a few familiar epithets: Trump is a fascist, a racist, a convicted felon, and so on. It was basically an over-caffeinated repeat of all the personal attacks that the left has made on Trump in recent past years. He became so unhinged that when he finished, Psaki was moved to lean over and pat his hand to comfort the poor dear and relieve his stress. Psaki: “First of all, we’ve been friends for a long time, and I feel like you’ve just captured what a lot of people have been feeling.”) But the unfortunate fellow gave zero indication that he had learned a thing from the drubbing they had just received. To paraphrase Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand’s description of the 19th century French Bourbon monarchs, “He has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”
Over on CNN there was a smidgen of clear thinking and balance, but only a smidgen. One panelist argued that the Democrats had lost their focus on the things that matter to the middle and working classes and that they needed to rethink their positions. But he was in the distinct minority. For the most part, what I saw and heard can be summed up in the words of one talking head: Trump won because he “was racist and sexist.” This was not just the lunatic fringe. Such establishment luminaries as David Axelrod agreed that racism and sexism were clear factors in the election. But there was nary a mention that voters knew that it was the Democrats who had engaged in racist and sexist behavior such as, for example, Biden’s commitment that he would only have a black woman and no one else as Vice President. Other than his sole voice, I heard no one who recognized the slightest possibility that they had driven off their former party base with their unhinged rhetoric and socialist policies.
There are, of course, many more examples but I do not propose to try to list them all. We will see them on TV and on the web for the next several months and throughout Trump’s term. Others in the Party may recognize that the shellacking they just endured is a call to reevaluate their class warfare agenda. But if they do, then the likely result will be a civil war within the Democrat party. From what I have seen since that Wednesday morning, it is already beginning. It is all Biden’s fault. It is Obama’s fault. No, Harris was the worst Vice-Presidential candidate ever. And so on….
Ever since the election, I have heard so many of them continue to screech their fascist/nazi/racist/misogynist themes. Many seem determined to double down on the same strategy that has repulsed millions of Americans. I predict that if they do, the pendulum will continue to wreck them.
Most of what I have heard from the post-election Democrat wailing reminds me of a snippet from Governor Sarah Huckabee Hutchinson’s response to President Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address: "The choice is between normal or crazy."
A final question
I have always understood that women spend a great deal of time picking out just the right outfit for important parties, appearances or sometimes even shopping trips. With that thought, what is going on here?
The Left is militantly un self-aware. They firmly believe it's not they who have a problem, it's everyone else; and they're already vowing to conduct another "Resistance" to disrupt Trump's legally elected Administration.
They're too blinded by their self righteous arrogance and they can't see that the vote taken on Nov 5 not only repudiated Kamala Harris, it was a vote to repudiate the woke, extremist Progressive ideology these holier than thou scolds want to force on the rest of us.
At some point, conservatives are going to react to liberal's constant insurrections.
It's past time they do.
Thanks for a great post John. I certainly have more hope for the county after this election. Heck, I might even stop using my he/she/it pronouns. 😂