Rhetoric around elections in these United States of America have been getting progressively sillier and stupider since at least the year 2000. “This election is going to be the most consequential of our lifetimes” is what I have been told my entire life. “This time will be different,” even though the constitutional order is mostly stable. Etc, etc. In this latest election of 2024, talk is even sillier because people are reacting to the outcome as though it is some unusual moment in history that defies traditional explanation.

I have a different view. The outcome of the 2024 elections in the United States of America is completely routine in every respect. There is no radical transformation of the electorate or anything else that took place to enable this outcome. The outcome does not stem from some latent or ascendant racism in American society, nor does it foreshadow the specter of fascism finally falling on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, it is better understood as being business as usual.

Much of the drama around this election in particular stems from who the Republican candidate is. That man has the unique power of provoking people who disagree with him into abandoning professional standards in their effort to deny him future office or otherwise defeat him. This process causes people who professionally opine on politics to become very confused in their thinking. Let us consider then, a thought experiment in which that man’s character is not relevant.

Let us pretend that we have a time machine that can take us back to the year 1941, before any candidates in the 2024 election were born. Suppose that we use this vehicle to go to America that year to interview Americans from that time period. During the interview, we will describe the state of affairs between 2020 and 2024 that took place during the current Presidential administration. Specifically, that America withdrew in disgrace from a war, that 2 other wars around the world started, and that the economy was plagued by a sudden increase in inflation that has not corrected itself.

I submit to you that nobody at all that one could talk to would be surprised that the outcome of such an election described thusly would be that the party in power would lose in a wave election. That would actually be the expected outcome. It would be more puzzling if the incumbent party were not swept away to people who haven’t had a constant diet of ORANGE MAN BAD for the last decade. That is because it has been understood that parties responsible for losing wars and a bad economy get voted out of office.

This time is not different after all.