How Trump Won

As you might expect, as an American living in Europe, I have been asked for months who I thought would win the US Presidential election.  Now, post election, the question seems to be from most, “how can this happen?”.    Of course, the question itself is very biased.  Just like America, there are plenty of folks over here who seem to love Trump.   So, for my non-American expat friends who seem shocked by the outcome, let me offer what I think are the 5 main reasons Trump was able to pull off perhaps the greatest political comeback in world history. 

1.        America has a two-party system.  The fact is the only way to win an election in the US is to divide people.  Talking heads pretend this is something new.  It is not. It has been this way in America since the founding of the country.  So, remember, in the US, you will get 45% of the votes simply by being one of the two final candidates.  What has changed in recent years is where the other 5.1% comes from that it takes to win.  For almost the entire history of the country that little extra came by winning over moderates.  No more.  It now comes from winning with extremists.   Donald Trump went after the very far right.  Kamala after the very far left.   Trump did a better job…a much better job of getting extremists who never vote to come out of their holes and go vote.   You don’t want to know who these people are…in fact, most Trump supporters have nothing to do with these people and don’t even want to believe they exist in their ranks… but on the margin…these freaks made a difference.  Also, please note, Kamala and the Democrats have their freaks too…they just failed to find as many who would vote. 

2.        While objectively, there is much to love in the American system of government and American style capitalism, huge swaths of Americans feel the system is failing them…often for very different reasons but failing them none the less.  This can be working families who live hand to mouth and simply cannot get ahead.  It could be wealthy people who feel they are unfairly taxed.  It could be small business owners buried in red tape.  It could be segments of minorities who have never economically caught up and feel cheated by decades of failed social and affirmative action programs.  Or it could be highly successful minorities who are tired of the race baiting.  It could be religious people who feel threatened by the LGBQT community and wokeism.  It could be white country folk who feel they have become a minority because of mass immigration.  It could be urbanites who see their cities turning into violent homeless shelters and refugee camps.  It could even be the financially literate who fear the exploding national debt will bring economic Armageddon. 

All this doom and gloom leads to a form of collective nihilism.  People start to quietly believe that blowing things up is the only way to make them better.  This is why the January 6th, 2021 violent insurrection in Washington D.C., inspired by Trump´s election denial, doesn’t really bother most of his supporters.  While most would never participate in violence, many were just fine with the idea of the government being overthrown.  In their minds it is exactly what needs to happen.  From a political science standpoint, Donald Trump did a remarkable job building a coalition of malcontents who buy into a message of gloom and doom and see him as the savior…the guy who can not only blow it all up…but also put it back together.

3.        The United States in an enormous country with a huge, complex federal government and economy.  As a result, most Americans, including many successful, college educated people have no practical understanding how their democracy or election system works.  They have no idea how their tax system works.  They have no idea what the actual immigration process is in the United States.  They have no idea how to measure the health of an economy. They have no idea what a tariff is or how they work or who pays for them.  They have no idea how the federal reserve operates or even a basic understanding of how inflation, interest rates, wages, and employment interact.  In total, they understand almost nothing about how the government, or the economy operates.   Combine this scaled ignorance with social media spewing mountains of misinformation, half-truths and all out lies, and you end up with a big part of the electorate being grossly underinformed and incapable of casting a well-reasoned vote.   Again, that is not to say this is true of all voters, but most voters on both sides have no real understanding of the issues they claim drive their vote.  For most, their vote is just a visceral reaction to things like the recent price of eggs and gas, the mortgage rate for a home, or news that an immigrant was arrested for murder two towns over.  Bottomline, ignorance can lead to unpredictable outcomes. So can expecting people to understand more than they really do…which is exactly what the Democrats did.

4.        The Democrats forgot that virtue signaling does not win elections.  Talking about meat and potatoes issues does.  For example, their strategy around the issue of LGBTQ rights was horribly mismanaged.   Frist, The Democrats failed to notice mainstream Americas exhaustion with the entire thing.  Even many liberals are sick and tired of continuously talking about an issue that impacts a relatively small set of people.  Secondly, the Democrats had already earned the vote from the LGBTQ camp and had they won, they could have advanced more initiatives in that direction and secured their vote in the future.  They didn’t need to discuss it on the campaign trail.  I could make the same arguments about their talking points about race, immigration, energy and crime.   Basically all their virtue signaling said was “ to be a real Democrat, you need to be ok with men dressed as woman teaching your kids, never using another drop of oil, allowing people to riot as a form of protest, allowing people to shop lift, allowing anyone who is down and out to come into the country…oh and please know your pronouns”.  Sadly, none of that drives extra votes.  In fact, it alienates many moderate voters who are totally over it. Further, it creates a giant anti-woke, can’t miss target for Republicans to shoot at.  Absolutely horrible strategy. 

5.        From day 1 of the Biden administration, the Democrats refused to acknowledge that they got lucky in 2020.  Had the COVID crisis not happened, which put Trump´s buffoonery style on full, daily display, Trump would have won reelection in a landslide.  All his immaturity aside, prior to the pandemic, the economy was humming, interest rates and inflation were very low, jobs were flowing and there were no wars.  But despite his objective success, Trump is an ass and the world saw too much of him during the pandemic, and many grew exhausted and perhaps terrified with his management style.  In the end, in 2020, many didn’t vote for Biden.  They voted against Trump.  Had the Democratic machine been willing to acknowledge how vulnerable they really were, they could have rebuilt their messaging and policies and spent four years building up a young, viable, fresh, qualified, electable candidate to succeed Biden.  As it went down, they were stuck with a last-minute choice in Kamala who was inextricably bound to a feeble old man, had no practical experience managing anything and tasked with trying to sell a bunch of old-line, virtue rich and merit poor Democratic talking points that the country rejected in 2016 when Trump beat Hillary Clinton.  It was never going to work.  And the fact that she was a black woman made things worse.  Again, they doubled down on the absurd assumption that virtue signaling makes up for a lack of qualifications and bad polices.  It does not.    

I have also been asked how I personally feel about Trump winning.  I had to think about that.

For those that don´t know me, I am fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  However, the liberal side of me is admittedly worn out.  In my view, the liberal agenda has gone too far.  That said, indeed, I despise Trump and think he is an embarrassment to the country.  I also fear he may destroy our democracy and firmly believe he committed treason in the aftermath of the 2020 election and should be jailed for it.  While I would never vote for him,

I must admit that many of his policies are in fact consistent with my world view.

In the end, I have chosen to simply be hopeful that America can shine on.  I need to be hopeful for my children and their children to live in the America I grew up in.  I need to be hopeful to feel safe financially and physical, no matter where I live in the world.  I need to be hopeful that America will continue to be a beacon of freedom for the world, a leader in protecting human rights and willing to fight against tyranny and evil.  Despite it sometimes being hard, I need to be hopeful that I will always be proud to be an American.