Second-most unpopular man wins presidency

Because of the unique qualifications of contenders Joseph Biden and Donald Trump, the Havre Daily is able to provide readers this exclusive early 2024 presidential election wrap up. While some details will have to wait for November, one election shocker is here now: a majority of Americans are still mad, and mildly depressed by the outcome.

In the aftermath of the hard fought unpopularity contest, election analysts point out that both Trump and Biden maintained their respective deficits to the finish line. Former President Trump’s dignity took a hit from multiple indictments while widely distributed photos of Biden hugging the mastermind of a retaliatory war on children and women in Gaza marred the incumbent’s great-grandfatherly image. Continuing a trend from earlier in the year, Biden recently forgot that Winston Churchill had retired as British prime minister, and Trump accused Nancy Reagan of betraying him on Jan. 6, 2020. The trademark Trump orange bouffant wave never faltered over the campaign season, and Biden didn’t stop being old.

This year’s depressed enthusiasm for both the winner and runner-up track closely with long evident voter attitudes toward the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. A New York Times poll more than a year in advance of the election found that three out of four Democratic leaning voters wished for someone other than Biden as their champion, while more than half of Republican voters said they preferred someone who wasn’t Trump. The final results also mirror a March Pew Research poll finding that 37 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Trump but not Biden, 34 percent were OK with Biden but not Trump, and 26 percent wanted both to go away. Or, as Dr. Aldo Snidely of the Institute for Keeping Right People in Charge put it, two out of three Americans were bound to be disappointed whoever won.

Snidely said he was impressed by the success of the Democratic and Republican Parties in fending off third-party challenges. Snidely noted that coming into the campaign season independent voter numbers were at an historic high, the two major party candidates were historically unpopular, and several third-party spoilers were lurking.

“The election could have been a threat to Republican-Democratic Party representative democracy as we know it. Luckily for us, leaders on both sides made sure everybody was too scared of the other side to vote third party,” Snidely said.

Typical voters and former friends Liza Doolittle and Mary Poppins echoed Snidely’s praise of party leaders for keeping voters in line. Doolittle told the Havre Daily she had been tempted to vote for anti war Green Party candidate Jill Stein until frequent presidential contender Hilary Clinton set her straight in an NBC Tonight appearance back in April.

“Like Hilary said, people can’t just go voting for whomever they want if we’re going to save democracy,” Doolittle explained. “Thank goodness, I got over myself.”

For her part, Poppins credited candidate Trump himself with saving her from wasting her vote on independent Robert Kennedy, Jr. In a late March Truth Social post Trump revealed that Kennedy is “the most radical left liberal“ in the race and “a fan of the Green New Scam, and “other economy killing disasters.”

In the election’s aftermath, Poppins said she is glad she remained loyal to Trump, observing that “Even if he is a little bit of an insurrectionist, at least he isn’t one of those radical left liberals out to ruin the Constitution, and he likes the Bible too.”

Reflecting on her determination to keep on riding with Biden, Doolittle said, “Even if he is a little bit complicit in genocide, at least he isn’t out to destroy democracy like some people.”

While some world leaders were concerned about international repercussions from the divisive election, Russian President Vladimir Putin was upbeat. Putin said that while he was sorry to hear Doolittle and Poppins have unfriended one another on Facebook, he appreciated the way the Democratic and Republican leaders managed American expectations over the course of the election season.

“Some people used to have to do a lot of work to mess with American elections,” the Russian president recalled. “But now we can just kick back and enjoy the show.”

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Will Rawn of Havre is a retired Montana State University-Northern professor.