Japanese academic: Trump 2.0 a turning point for diplomacy
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris lost the US presidential election as she was not able to convince voters that the Democratic Party could cater to their interests, says Japanese academic Seiko Mimaki. In the coming era of Trump 2.0, various countries would need to change their mindset and work with “America First”.
Republican candidate Donald Trump secured a landslide victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, capturing all seven closely contested battleground states and surpassing Harris by over three million votes.
With America’s racial composition becoming more diverse, some predicted that amid a decline in the relative proportion of whites in the total population, the Democratic Party with its support from the minority communities would benefit, heralding its golden age. However, this optimism about the future of the Democratic Party has been dashed.
The Republican Party expands minority support
In the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s main supporters were white workers. This time, he not only solidified the white vote but also expanded his support to minority workers such as Hispanics, Asians, and blacks. In particular, over 40% of Hispanics voted for Trump, nearly comparable to over 50% for Harris.
Democrats and their supporters have debated what caused the landslide loss, but the analysis that has resonated the most is that of Senator Bernie Sanders, a radical left-wing Democrat. Sanders ran in the primaries to decide the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016 and 2020, criticising Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as “establishment” and calling for universal health care, raising the minimum wage, and canceling student loan debt, attracting enthusiastic support dubbed the “Sanders whirlwind”.
But at least Trump understands more clearly than Harris that workers’ votes are crucial to winning an election, and under no circumstances can their support be lost while campaigning.
In Sanders’s eyes, Harris’s campaign seemed to be all establishment. Shortly after Harris’s defeat became clear, Sanders declared in a statement posted on X: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” Sanders declared his support for Harris in that presidential election, but when Biden withdrew from the presidential race in late July, he temporarily withdrew his support for Harris, citing her insufficient policies for workers and the poor.
The Democratic Party has forgotten the workers
However, many economists have expressed concern about the Trump administration’s economic policies, such as high tariffs, which will accelerate inflation and make life harder for workers. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration’s economic policies are truly more responsive to the needs of workers than those of the Harris camp. But at least Trump understands more clearly than Harris that workers’ votes are crucial to winning an election, and under no circumstances can their support be lost while campaigning.
A symbolic moment was when Trump turned up at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania in late October, wearing an apron and preparing fries. Harris promoted herself as an ordinary person by saying that she came from a middle-class background and had also worked at McDonald’s, and that she had an effective policy plan to improve the lives of the middle class.
In comparison, few would consider Trump, who grew up in a wealthy family and rose to become a real estate mogul, as a true supporter of the people, with just his 15-minute stint at McDonald’s. However, the episode shows that Trump knew clearly what message he needed to send, and to whom, in order to win the election.
Having celebrities like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga appear at her rallies certainly provided the glam factor, but it would have given the struggling masses the impression that “the Democratic Party has become the party of the wealthy and celebrities...
In contrast, the goals of Harris’s campaign were vague. Having celebrities like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga appear at her rallies certainly provided the glam factor, but it would have given the struggling masses the impression that “the Democratic Party has become the party of the wealthy and celebrities, who are not interested in the lives of ordinary people”.
The Harris campaign was also flooded with donations from large corporations, which was also a reason why people felt the nature of her campaign was changed. According to a fundraising report filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), after Biden’s withdrawal, Harris was seen as the leading candidate to replace Biden, and in ten days, the Harris campaign received about US$2 million in donations from 5,000 CEOs of large corporations.
When Harris was first officially nominated as a presidential candidate, she emphasised appealing to people suffering from high prices, such as proposing a plan to crack down on large corporations that make huge profits through unfair price hikes. Later, as she strengthened her ties to big business, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, she toned down her anti-big business stance.
The left wing of the Democratic Party became increasingly concerned that Harris had not put forward concrete policies to provide relief to workers struggling with high prices or a message to improve their lives. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who has just been named secretary-of-state-elect in the Trump administration, posted on X after Trump’s election, “Harris had celebrities / Trump had hardworking everyday Americans / The hardworking Americans won.” Not only Rubio, but many voters came to the same assessment.
The future of the world in the Trump era
With the support of most workers, Trump wants to intensify his “America First” diplomacy even more than in his first term and pursue the nation’s interests more openly. He is likely to withdraw from international frameworks that he judges not to be in the interests of American workers and businesses, including the Paris Agreement on climate change.
JD Vance, Trump’s pick for vice-president at the age of 40 and someone seen as a leading Republican presidential candidate in 2028, has openly stated that “America doesn’t have the capacity and doesn’t have the interest to respond to every tragedy that exists in the world”.
Some say we have no choice but to change our mindset and somehow endure four years of Trump, but will America actually be “different” in the coming four years?
Trump, who blatantly advocates “America First” and repeatedly rejects alliances such as NATO and the US-Japan Security Treaty — cornerstones of global security — has been viewed as a heretic. However, considering the long history of isolationism since the founding of the US, it could be argued that US actions in the post-World War II era, marked by routine overseas intervention despite public fatigue, represent a greater departure from tradition.
JD Vance, Trump’s pick for vice-president at the age of 40 and someone seen as a leading Republican presidential candidate in 2028, has openly stated that “America doesn’t have the capacity and doesn’t have the interest to respond to every tragedy that exists in the world”. He is even more “America First” than Trump.
We may have to face an America that shouts “America First” for a long time to come. In this era, how can we balance national interests with international cooperation? Countries around the world must be mentally prepared for a new era, with the ability to imagine a new way of diplomacy.
