The electoral matchup between President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will likely be analyzed by historians and political scientists for ages to come. The election was unique in that in involved a former president who lost his second consecutive term, but won after running for a third time.
There aren’t many parallels to this in American history. But the outcome of this race is instructive in that it illustrates the changing times this nation is facing.
I wrote a piece about why Kamala Harris lost on Wednesday. But what is more interesting is why Trump won.
For starters, the left is just awful. In the lead-up to the election, Democrats and their comrades in the activist media became progressively more shrill, hyperbolic, and downright devious.
First, they tried to disqualify Trump from the ballot using a rarely-used provision in the 14th Amendment that prohibits those involved in a rebellion from serving in office. It was originally created for former Confederate leaders, but Democrats sought to use the riot at the Capitol building to remove him from the race altogether, disregarding the will of the people.
It didn’t work. The Supreme Court put a stop to that strategy.
Then, Democrats engaged in a blatant weaponization against Trump and his supporters, hoping that prosecuting and convicting him of BS crimes would turn voters away from him. Indeed, federal authorities are already preparing to drop the charges against him because he won the election, which further demonstrates that the objective was to destroy his chances of becoming president again.
That didn’t work either.
He withstood two separate assassination attempts. This only made him stronger.
But even beyond that, leftists grew even more desperate as Election Day drew closer. They ramped up their vile rhetoric against Trump and his supporters, calling them “Nazis” and “fascists.”
In fact, a quick look on social media shows that, despite getting trounced on Tuesday, they still have not learned their lesson. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), in a video posted on X, claimed the United States is “about to enter a period of fascism and authoritarianism.”
AOC: "We are about to enter a period of fascism and authoritarianism" pic.twitter.com/VDkyeB99zz
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 7, 2024
Other left-wing figures got the bright idea to blame voters for the outcome instead of their candidate and party.
CNN has a story titled “where the Harris campaign went wrong.”
— Michael J. Stern (@MichaelJStern1) November 6, 2024
Nope, I won’t read it.
Harris ran a great campaign.
The story should be titled “where the American people went wrong.”
Anyone blaming Harris or Walz today has utterly lost the plot & missed the point.
— Jed Shugerman (@jedshug) November 6, 2024
This is fundamentally about America, toxic masculinity, & white supremacy.
Blaming Harris would be part of that problem, not the solution.
She deserves our thanks.
Thank you, @vp @KamalaHarris
Progressives have also taken to blaming Black men and other minorities for not falling in line this time around, as if that will somehow make us repent. Indeed, the issue became so ridiculous I had to write a thank-you letter to MSNBC’s chief race hustler Joy Reid, for giving us a break by highlighting that White women didn’t show up for Harris either.
The bottom line is that, just like the 2016 campaign, the behavior exhibited by folks on the left drove many voters into Trump’s camp.
Secondly, the president-elect laid out a coherent policy agenda aimed at addressing the problems Americans are facing. Yes, he definitely engaged in much of the culture war talk that some find off putting. But he also did a great job of discussing how he would ease people’s economic woes.
Trump vowed to sharply reduce taxes and fix the border crisis the Biden-Harris administration created, then neglected:
For one, Trump wants to extend all of his 2017 tax cuts that are due to expire after 2025, but during the campaign he has added calls for hefty new breaks, including exempting payments from the Social Security retirement program, tips and overtime income from taxation.
The president-elect also discussed how he would deal with the rise in violent crime and ensure that the U.S. will not become involved in unnecessary wars. He also promised to do away with the Department of Education, which has been used by Biden to advance the progressive agenda in government-run schools.
Thirdly, Trump did what few Republican presidential candidates have done since Richard Nixon: Made a genuine, authentic, effort to reach Black and Hispanic voters. In fact, he did this during his first two campaigns as well. But in this case, it paid off bigly.
Democrats knew this was coming, which is why they launched a full-on campaign to shame minorities into staying within their ranks. But it didn’t work.
Trump won THIRTY FOUR PERCENT of Black men in Texas. I’ve been saying for over a year that Trump would perform better among Black men and even I am shocked by that high of a number. https://t.co/YUrsllljsM
— Darvio Morrow (@DTheKingpin) November 7, 2024
A CNN analysis of exit polls showed that about 20 percent of Black men voted for Trump. Fox News found that 25 percent of Black men supported him. It also showed that 15 percent of the total Black vote went to the president-elect, the highest percentage since Gerald Ford.
Story of the election from the Fox News voter analysis (national):
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) November 6, 2024
White voters: 53-43% Trump (was 55-43% Trump in 2020)
Black voters: 81-15% Harris (was 91-8% Biden in 2020)
Hispanic voters: 56-40% Harris (was 63-35% Biden in 2020).
Lastly, it is worth noting that Kamala Harris was an awful candidate – even worse than Biden would have been had he stayed in the race. Her ineptitude, lack of charisma, and Biden’s record were issues she just could not overcome. It would have been difficult to ask for a better opponent for Trump.
The president-elect will now have four more years to enact his agenda without having to worry about being reelected. There will likely be oceans worth of leftist tears being shed in the not-too-distant future. But if the Republican Party fails to take a lesson from Trump’s campaign, it won’t be long before Democrats are back in power.
