As the night went on, and it became clearer Donald Trump had won, the Democrats lost all of their joy. In Washington DC at Kamala Harris’s victory party tears began to flow. At around midnight streams of disappointed Democrats left the event, with distributed American flags in hand, never to be waved in jubilation. The Vice President didn’t address her sombre supporters who soon fled the scene, as if there had been some terrible crime.
During the night as results came in I interviewed various Democrats, watching their initial excitement for Kamala’s victory turn to ashes. They asked themselves, what had happened? How could the man who we were told is a fascist and admires Hitler, possibly have won?
“This is America, so oh my gosh the black woman didn’t win”, one Harris voter said to me sarcastically.
For many blue voters this campaign was all about identity. It was America’s first black woman candidate filled with joy and hope up against the archetype evil white man who oozes privilege, bigotry and arrogance.
Donald Trump and Melania will return to the White House following his victoryReutersThe Democrats spent vast resources on attempting to court female Republican voters, and to reach out to men who might be persuaded to protect their daughters and wives from the man ready to implement Margaret Atwood’s patriarchal dystopia, the Handmaid’s Tale. Their message to men was: vote for Kamala to save women’s rights, partially on abortion. However, targeting a group of voters without offering something specifically for them puzzled many political analysts.
Kamala’s closing pitch to voters focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. She parroted the claim from his embittered former Chief of Staff John Kelly that he heaped praise on Hitler’s generals. The liberal media amplified this disputed claim, attempting to link Trump to the Nazi dictator and Harris outrightly called him a fascist. After nine years of similar claims, why the Democrats thought these hysterical insults would stick in 2024 is baffling. Not only did Trump win the electoral college, he became the first Republican in twenty years to win the popular vote. So either more than half of the country supported Hitler 2.0, or they simply dismissed this outlandish assertion as the nonsense that it is.
Kamala Harris became the second woman to lose to President Trump
Getty
Then things got worse when their smears against The Donald expanded to include his supporters. Just days before the election Joe Biden called Trump’s fans “garbage”, echoing Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment from 2016.
Trump’s victory was not guaranteed, particularly with Kamala’s massive financial edge in both fundraising and spending. She raised around double the cash of her rival, and used it on a vast get-out-the-vote operation. Harris also had the support of the liberal media empire, not a weapon to be scoffed at, and most of the celebrity class. It was not enough.
Exit polls show the economy was the top issue for voters, and they have felt a real squeeze on their wallets over the last four years. Immigration was also an important factor, and Harris’s record on illegal migration is nothing to boast about.
The main issue the Democrats rested their hopes on, abortion, seemed to have a limited impact. In Florida a pro-abortion referendum failed. Trump maintained his support among white women.
Then there were the other traditional voting blocks the Democrats relied on, young people and ethnic minorities. Both shifted to the right, especially men. Data suggests that Trump massively increased his support among Latino men, and younger voters in general. Men aged between 18 and 29 voted for Republicans by a thirteen point margin, up fourteen points from 2020.
The Trump campaign was confident going into the election, and some worried this looked like hubris, but it turned out to just be justified.
Trump now has a monumental fight on his hands to fix the American border, initiate his policy of mass deportations of illegal migrants and get the US economy back on track. He faces geopolitical threats he has never faced before, especially in Ukraine and Israel. How he stops the war, as he has pledged repeatedly, will be a key hurdle for him. However, that is all for the future.
Today the Republicans can bask in glory. They have won the White House, Senate and are almost certainly going to win the House of Representatives. America is MAGA country once again.