My husband knows masses more about US politics than me, so do imagine how much he enjoyed me spending the best part of the past two years telling him “Trump’s going to win”, simply because I felt it in my vibes. However, earlier this year, he started to agree with me, which I had to concede meant a lot because he was basing it on actual information, and had the first clue what he was talking about. Scrolling back through my text messages to him, I am reading things such as: “Sorry, Harris is ‘selling joy’???? Please tell me the election anywhere in history that was won on joy because I would LOVE to hear about it.” (Sidenote: I can see from reviewing the data that I’ve really over-leaned into the sassy question mark this year.)
Anyway, there’s plenty more in this vein. “I don’t believe all this polling, I just think it’s all some massive cope?” Yet when I was asked on the afternoon of election day who I predicted would win it, I promptly said “Kamala Harris?” Later that night, on the phone, my husband wondered mildly why I had abandoned the conviction of long months of kitchen rants and annoyingly punctuated text messages. “I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I just … forgot?”
Forgetting is a very seductive thing. But then, irrational behaviour so often is. I can only say that I did want the opposite of the thing I forgot to be true.
Right now, the Democratic party should be looking back at the past few months and wondering how a lot of stuff slipped their minds. Picture their trip down memory lane. “We should definitely run a coastal elite woman against Trump and call his supporters weird. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely go heavy on the culture war stuff. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely present the choice as being between darkness/fear/hate and moral superiority. I forget how that goes for us. We should definitely not present the choice as being between his economic plan and our clear and better one. I forget how that goes for us.”
Anyway, you get the general idea. And look – in fairness, I’m sure they did want all this stuff to be true. Meanwhile, I note various howling liberals are already casting the election result as having immediately triggered a mental health pandemic. (I forget how that goes for them.) And they’re also sneering at some people for “voting against their economic interests”, as opposed to considering that valuing some things more than money isn’t actually sad and stupid, even if you think those particular things are the wrong things. Personally, I vote against my economic interests pretty much every time, but apparently in an approved way.
So yes: a lot of forgetting is being rowed back on in the moment of defeat. And yet, not to get all memento mori about it, but there can be a whole lot of forgetting in the moment of triumph too. Maybe more.
Right now, there are Trump Republicans jostling for a role in the new administration, forgetting that, as my new friend Anthony Scaramucci puts it, “they all end up in the wood chipper”. Anthony has been in the wood chipper himself, but would want me to say he looks incredibly good on it. At this moment, lots of senior Trump Republicans are forgetting how the journey has gone so many times before. They may get a nice layover at the White House, but their final destination? Wood chipper, baby.
Of course, there are terribly pure people and pundits who tell you they never forget the important things about someone, and always keep them in faultless perspective. In which case they have more in common than they think with Trump, who also never concedes making a mistake, nor forgets.
As for the more common Forgetters, the high-level advocates are pushing the line that the grownups are around Trump, and it’s they who will keep things on track. This feels very forgetful of them, given exactly the same thing was said last time round. Alas, the wood chipper, which they have forgotten exists, requires a constant supply of grownups.
Most significantly, in my view, senior Trump Republicans and backers are forgetting about the events of 6 January. They are forgetting what led to them, what they embodied, and how they flowed deliberately and directly from Trump himself. And they’re forgetting these were objectively terribly bad events, or at least, as objectively as any events can be in a culture in which the idea of shared reality has been lost. Back on 6 January 2021, these senior people were falling over themselves to publicly disavow Trump. Forgetting this, they spent much of this year reavowing him. This is when optimism tips over into delusion, and a reminder that betting against Trump’s unique essential nature is so forgetful as to be almost a form of madness. Their self-interest is powerful – but it is nowhere near as powerful as his.
On this basis, allow me to make one more prediction, which is that Trump’s dysfunctional relationship with power will once more lead to objectively terribly bad events, probably a lot sooner than last time. And at that point, large numbers of senior figures will wonder how on earth they ended up forgetting they’d been here before. So the biggest ones should be feeling unsettlingly exposed to risk even now, in the moment of victory. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice … I would say they know how that one goes, but they seem to have made the fatal mistake of forgetting.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar. On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at a political year like no other, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
