Initial Conservative Thoughts on the 2024 General Election across the American Union

There were few consolations for true (non-Trumpist) conservatives in the 2024 General Election across America, between the Trumpification of the Republican Party and the center-right again having abandoned the field to the liberal Democrats to force a binary choice against the demagogic, dishonest, corrupt, disloyal, authoritarian and cruel Donald Trump and Trumpism (protectionism, isolationism, nativisim). I shall soon express thoughts in another post on how the center right must stand on its own henceforth, as it does successfully in many States around the world, but this post will be about the few consolations from the initial election results. As usual, I only post about decisive results before all the results have been certified, as the votes continue to be counted and, in the case of the offices of President and Vice President of the United States, though the expected results are not in doubt, the election will not have taken place yet until the Electoral College votes next month. In the federal elections, among only a few others, there were two center-right candidates who have been elected in significant contests. Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington defeated a Trumpist Republican challenger and John Curtis of Utah was elected to the Senate to succeed Mitt Romney. Newhouse and Republican Representative Dan Valadao of California, who was also reelected, both had voted in favor of the second impeachment of Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inciting insurrectionists to attack the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to thwart the certification of the results based on Trump’s lies. Curtis neither endorsed, nor was endorsed by Trump. Two Democratic candidates who were prominent in Trump’s first impeachment for extorting Ukraine to smear his opponent with a baseless criminal investigation by holding up military aid to defend it against Russia under Vladimir Putin, the tyrannical ex-Soviet intelligence officer trying to restore the Soviet Union, were elected. One, the Ukrainian-born National Security anti-Putin officer who blew the whistle on Trump and who was backed by anti-Trump conservatives, was elected to the U.S. House from Maryland and the other, an impeachment manager whom the Trumpist Republican-majority had censored, to the Senate from California. Although they are Democrats, their defeat by Trumpist Republicans would have been interpreted as some kind of repudiation, instead of a validation. It was a small blow to Putin, who otherwise was successful again in backing Trump with propaganda and disinformation that has shifted public opinion since he began his “active measures campaign” in 2014 to promote his imperialist policy, divide Americans, undermine confidence in elections and the truth and to back Trump, who has been more favorable to Putin than even his liberal Democratic opponents. Additionally, there were myriad deceptions by Trump and his supporters that fraudulently swayed voters on every issue, such as the successful Russian interference on behalf of Trump in the 2016 Election, the validity of Trump’s 2020 Election loss, and about his criminal and civil cases, his opponents, migrants, inflation, etc. The Trumpists’ allegations of fraud against them in this election were obviously rebutted by the vote totals in their favor that will be certified by election officials and that their opponents have conceded. On referendums, the results were mostly unsuccessful for conservatives, despite the Republicans’ overall success. Marijuana legalization failed in Florida, South Dakota and North Dakota, and a pro-abortion referendum failed in Florida, unlike in four other States, but the successes in the Sunshine State were only because of a 60% threshold for approval. I shall post about any other significant results as the vote-counting is completed and on some problems in the elections identified by international observers, as well as my thoughts on the direction forward against both the left and the Trumpist far right.