When an angry and fearful electorate wakes up the day after Election Day on November 6, it is unlikely to know who will succeed President Biden as the 47th U.S. president. Vote counting rules in in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia virtually guarantee it will take several days at a minimum to determine the winner.
Whatever the outcome, the climate is likely to remain sour for many Americans. That was the message that Bruce Mehlman, partner at Washington, D.C.-based Mehlman Consulting, delivered on October 1 to attendees at the Investment and Wealth Institute's Strategy Forum in Chicago.
Mehlman, a former assistant secretary of commerce in the George W. Bush administration, offered several reasons why the national mood across the political spectrum is bordering on toxic. The rise of technology, social media and now artificial intelligence has created what the McKinsey Global Institute called a “superstar economy,” where tech giants create levels of wealth and power for themselves that leaves the rest of the population feeling powerless and insignificant.
The initial euphoria surrounding the introduction of innovations from the personal computer to the internet to the iPhone to AI all too often gives way to social dysphoria and a universal feeling of being manipulated. “We’re not their customers, we’re their products,” Mehlman said.
Hyper-globalization has also disrupted the lives of ordinary citizens around the world. Between 1991 and 1994, the entire former Soviet Union joined the global economy. China followed shortly thereafter. Multinational corporations discovered new markets and, for a brief time, it seemed prosperity could be shared, albeit unevenly.
But the upbeat mood at the turn of the millennium didn’t last. Mehlman said it soon gave rise to new voices, once seen as out of the mainstream, like Sen. Bernie Sanders and former president Donald Trump.
Cultural change has been conspicuous. In the 1970s, America was primarily a “white, Christian and non-college educated country,” Mehlman said.
Today, a host of different nationalities and cultures a hold varying degrees of prominence in different parts of America and the population as a whole has higher levels of education. “New voices have emerged” but others “feel stifled,” Mehlman continued.
The result is a “backlash against the pace of change,” he said. A ”lax border” makes some people “feel like a stranger in their own country,” he maintained.
All this is reflected in disruption at the voting booth. Many people view the two decades between 1960 and 1980, when America experienced political assassinations, the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, Watergate and hyperinflation, as an era of dramatic change. Yet Mehlman noted that only three of 10 elections in that era were change elections. In contrast, fully 10 out of 12 elections since 2000 would be considered change elections.
It’s only gotten more poisonous in recent years. “Inflation hasn’t been an issue for four decades,” he said. Assassination attempts of presidents or former presidents haven’t occurred since 1981 until this year. And confrontations on various issues hasn’t been so intense in decades.
After the June 27 debate between President Biden and former President Trump, it seemed like “a blowout was brewing,” Mehlman noted, adding some polls indicated reliably Democratic states like Virginia and Minnesota were “in play.” This playing field was shifting away from Biden despite his “huge legislative accomplishments” and a relatively strong economy.
Ironically, Vice President Kamala Harris was the most “disliked vice president in history,” more unpopular than Biden was as president, he claimed. And yet in the two and half months, Harris engineered a remarkable turnaround. The nation hasn’t “seen a net favorability reversal” of this magnitude in recent memory, he said.
The upshot is likely to result in “a photo finish,” Mehlman predicted. All the swing states are too close to call. At the time he was speaking, Mehlman noted that Trump’s biggest lead was in Arizona where he was up by 2%, well within the margin of error.
Given the national mood, it’s not surprising that both nominees are trying to position themselves as change candidates. Mehlman said that Trump would win if he could make election “a referendum on the last four years.” The only problem with that strategy is that Roe vs. Wade, which was favored by two-thirds of the public, happened in 2022, and it is largely associated with a Supreme Court filled with Trump appointees.
If one looks at the race Harris ran as a candidate in 2020, she ran as “a San Francisco radical,” he said. Yet she has managed to move towards the center quickly. Nonetheless, she would represent a dramatic change. Forty-five of our 46 presidents were white, and all were male, he noted.
Whatever the outcome, a huge chunk of the population is going to be angry and downright skeptical, he said. Mehlman said that after the 2016 election, 33% of Hillary Clinton voters considered it illegitimate. And after the 2020, more than 60% of Trump voters shared that same feeling.