No matter who wins the presidential election on Nov. 5—U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris or former U.S. President Donald Trump—it’s highly likely that it will mark the consolidation of a new political order for the United States that’s embraced by both political parties.
That’s one conclusion we can draw from an early postmortem on the transformative presidency of Harris’s outgoing boss, Joe Biden—whose agenda she mostly supports—and by analyzing Trump’s lasting influence.
No matter who wins the presidential election on Nov. 5—U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris or former U.S. President Donald Trump—it’s highly likely that it will mark the consolidation of a new political order for the United States that’s embraced by both political parties.
That’s one conclusion we can draw from an early postmortem on the transformative presidency of Harris’s outgoing boss, Joe Biden—whose agenda she mostly supports—and by analyzing Trump’s lasting influence.
Both one-term presidencies dramatically changed the Democratic and Republican parties. Rhetorically, Biden and Harris have sought to differentiate themselves and the Democrats from Trump, but they have also adapted large parts of his populist program. No matter who becomes president, U.S. doctrine will entail a blend of neo-protectionism (in which both parties embrace industrial policy and tariffs are accepted as a trade tool, if to differing degrees), and quasi-isolationism (wherein the United States stays involved with allies abroad but without large-scale deployments of U.S. troops).
As historian Gary Gerstle documented in his 2022 book, “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order,” Trump’s presidency administered the final blow to the neoliberal (that is, free trade) consensus of the post-Cold War period. The new international economic order—based on still-open but curtailed trade and increasingly “home-shored” supply chains—represents an identifiable successor to the neoliberal era of untrammeled globalization. This new “made in America” ethos has become orthodoxy for both political parties.
In geopolitics, Biden’s rapid 2022 withdrawal from Afghanistan—which was built on Trump’s negotiated deal with the Taliban and capped two disastrous decades of U.S. deployments abroad—has also marked a new and likely enduring posture for Washington abroad. The United States will stay engaged overseas, but with extreme caution, as several senior Trump advisors, as well as Harris’s senior national security advisors, have all counseled.
This post is part of FP’s live coverage with global updates and analysis throughout the U.S. election. Follow along here.
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