Confirmation, Hearing

I was and remain delighted at the defeat of Kamala Harris, but that has never meant that I was pleased at the victory of Donald Trump. His nominees for foreign policy positions are Israel Firsters, China hawks, and in at least some cases Russia hawks. His choice for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, ticks all three boxes with gusto.

Therefore, on the pertinent issues, how would Harris's nominee have differed from Rubio? How would her nominee for National Security Adviser have differed from Michael Waltz? How would her nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security have differed from Kristi Noem? How would her nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations have differed from Elise Stefanik? How would her nominee for Ambassador to Israel have differed from Mike Huckabee? One of those would have been Lynne Cheney, and all of them might as well have been.

We now await Trump's nominations to economic policy portfolios. Again, expect disappointment for the young men and the black men, the self-organised working class and the Left, whose abstentions, third party votes, and votes for Trump, expanded him beyond his 2020 vote that, if repeated on its own, would have repeated the 2020 result. But again, whom would Harris have had? Stephanie Kelton? Hardly!

And everyone has always expected this. It has never been the point, which is that the marker has been put down. Young men and black men, Latinos and the Native Americans who voted for Trump by two to one, Muslims and Christian Arabs, the working class and the Left: you cannot win without those, it is probably now fair to assume that you could not lose with them, they are all now firmly in play, and whoever was the next President will be a first termer.