1. It’s the economy, stupid.
Dominic Sandbrook gets it. Having sat through hours of Allister Campbell and Rory Stewart trying to do mental gymnastics to explain Trump’s victory, the British historian brought us all back down to reality.
The one thing that politicos get wrong about politics more than anything else, Sanbrook explained, is that most ordinary people are not interested in politics. They do not follow it, they do not care to understand it, and they do not wish to immerse themselves in the minutiae.
All the things that we were told would kill Trump: the Puerto Rico garbage scandal, his “locker-room talk”, eating the cats and the dogs nonsense, most people probably weren’t even aware of these or simply did not care. They are not hooked into the 24-hour news cycle. They are not swayed by personal life or scandals.
What they do care about is whether or not they are better off than they were four years ago. The media class tried to sell the American public a fantasy. They continually told us that inflation was coming down, they told us that we were technically not in a recession, and they told us that Bidenomics was working. The American electorate has more common sense than we are made to believe, however.
People could clearly see that their grocery prices were increasing, that their gas prices were increasing, and that the money in their pockets was shrinking. Middle class families that had once lived rather comfortably pre-pandemic and pre-Ukraine conflict were now living from paycheck to paycheck. At the height of the recent economic crisis, disposable income in the US dropped by around 6.3% during 2022 alone. That’s a heavy hit to the American taxpayer’s pocket.
The Puerto Ricans supposedly coming out in record numbers against Trump, the Nicky Hayley voters lending their support to Harris, so on so forth, were all just gimmicks that that only had any significance within the blob. Kamala Harris was tarnished with the inflation brush of the Biden administration. There was no coming back from that. The economy reigns supreme in the United States.
2. The Bro vote.
Arguably the main headline of this election was the widening gender gap in American politics. This election, Trump won the male vote by an eye-watering 30 points. Despite being told that the younger generations were becoming more liberal, Trump won the 18-29 year-old male vote by 14 points. He also won the male Latino vote by double-digit figures and gained a record amount of votes amongst black men for a Republican candidate. In 2012, Obama won the 18-29 year-old male Latino vote by 51 points. 12 years later and that same group of millennials now leans towards the Democrats by just seven points. What is even more astounding, however, is that despite this heavy swing to the right from Latino millennials, they are still not as right-wing as Gen Z Latinos. Indeed, Harris won the Latino Gen Z vote by just 2% - a 49-point shift towards the GOP in just 12 years.
We were told that the youth vote would come out in force for Kamala Harris – the reality points in the opposite direction. She became the first Democrat candidate in two decades to win less than 60% of the under 30s vote, amassing just 54%.
Compared to the previous two elections, Trump’s team were a well-oiled machine. Apparently advised by his own son, Trump had been appearing on podcasts and shows with large young male audiences for years. The president-elect tapped into a new market that many have labelled the ‘Joe Rogan right’. A group of young men who are normally detached from mainstream politics but who have felt isolated by the woke agenda and the constant attack on masculinity. His choice of J.D Vance as his VP pick was also a nod to this formally disenfranchised group.
Away from Trump, many conservative activists, such as Charlie Kirk, were doing the leg work by going to college campuses up and down the country to speak to disillusioned young people. Trump also certainly won the meme war.
What was initially expected to be an election on women’s issues (like 2022) was turned into an election about men by the Republicans. Throughout his campaign, those surrounding Trump, particularly Vivek Ramaswamy, pointed to poorer educational outcomes of men with fewer men graduating from college as well as a major drop in grades across the country. He also spoke about the worsening mental health, loneliness and suicide crises among this particular group and the lack of willingness by Democrats to address them directly.
Most importantly, Trump tapped into a growing issue that many women and those on the left have failed to understand – the masculine need to provide. A combination of growing hostility towards masculinity and the growing economic problems has severely damaged the perceived traditional role of a man. That is, to provide for his family. There aren’t many things that a man wouldn’t do to put food on the table for his family. During an economic crisis, which sees a fall in both living standards and disposable income, that role has become increasingly difficult. Men across the Western world feel they have lost their raison d’etre. They feel a sense of shame for failing to be the man of the house. Such feelings have a knock-on effect of increasing depression, alcoholism, and the growing opioid crisis in America.
Trump was able to convey a message that let the American man know that he understood those sentiments and promised a better economic future for their families. Democrats, meanwhile, continued to bang the drum of ‘toxic masculinity’.
3. Abortion neutrality.
Whilst hoovering up the male vote, Trump was equally able to limit the damage of the female vote that many in the media class predicted would lose him the election. Indeed, the president-elect lost the female vote by just under 20 points. Whilst this gap is still significant, it is not the 30-35-point gap that had been predicted by many.
Many Democrat strategists had hoped that they could replicate their strong showing in the 2022 midterms when the question of abortion helped them to hang on to the senate. Almost every pollster had predicted a red wave across congress. However, it soon became clear that the recent overturning of Roe vs Wade was a more important issue to the American electorate that had initially been anticipated.
As well as the presidential election, Americans across ten states were asked to vote on an abortion-related referendum. In seven of those ten, the American electorate voted ‘yes’ to some form of protection of abortion rights. Some of those included Arizona, Missouri, Arizona, and Montana; all states that voted for Trump.
The president-elect was able to keep himself out the same firing line that his party suffered two years ago. Indeed, Trump rather shrewdly transformed the question of abortion from a women’s rights issue to a constitutional issue. As opposed to many in his party, he refused to give his personal opinion on abortion and instead extolled himself for having played a part in returning the decision-making process to the states.
The election results were clear: Americans were happy to resolve the issue of abortion at state level via referenda and, in most part, did not punish Trump for the over-turning of Roe vs Wade.
4. Multi-ethnic working class coalition.
Whilst the media has continued to label him a white supremacist, a neo-nazi, or a fascist, Trump continues to smash every Republican ceiling among every ethnic minority.
Some of the numbers that Trump achieved were jaw dropping. Passaic (New Jersey) comprises a population that is 74% latino, 15% orthodox jew, and 7% black. Obama won this city by 28 points. Just 12 years later, Trump completely flipped the city by a three-point margin.
Even more astonishingly, Trump reversed Starr County (Texas), a 97% latino community, from a 60-point defeat to Hillary Clinton in 2016, to a 15-point victory in 2024.
In New York, Trump made great gains in Washington Heights, the West Bronx, Richmond Hill, and Bensonhurst – all working-class communities of colour.
Following the result, many on the left appeared to be outraged by the fact that American ethnic minorities had chosen to think and vote independently, as opposed to voting as a bloc configured upon race. Some, such as the New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones, went as far as accusing Republican-voting ethnic minorities of being culturally white. As she explained in her article: “whiteness is not static, and it is expandable when necessary. A lot of folks we don’t think of as white, think of themselves as white because the lines have never been entirely clear. That’s the beauty of white supremacy – it is extremely adaptable”. The liberal backlash highlighted a reluctance to accept the ‘multi-racial populism’ that Trump’s legacy has left behind. A term, coined by former editor of Spiked online Brendan O’Neil, which rejects the liberal narrative of white nationalism in favour of an alliance of patriotic ethnic minorities based on “fiercely anti-socialist sentiment, economic patriotism, robust border security, appreciation of faith, traditional social structures and support for the police”.
When it came to the economy, Trump’s protectionist message resonated in the former industrial heartlands of the rust belt states that had since been transformed into industrial wastelands as a consequence of the globalist economy. Places like Detroit, which comprised large black and latino populations, chose to ignore the media warning of Trump’s rhetoric in favour of an economic policy that promised to bring industry back to America.
Across numerous interviews, Trump chose his words wisely when it came to immigration. He often spoke of illegals stealing “black and latino jobs”. A CNN poll found that over 70% of American Hispanics did not believe that Trump was referring to them when he spoke about Mexican rapists and mass deportations.
The nation state has proven to be the greatest unifying institution which transcends all race, religion and ethnicity. Trump has used his nationalism to his advantage.
5. The constitutional monarch complex
When French Prime Minister Michel Debré co-wrote the constitution of the Fifth Republic, he admitted that it was modelled upon the British parliamentary system. The presidential role was to replicate that of a constitutional monarch. General Charles De Gaulle was vehemently anti-party politics and believed in an apolitical head of state that placed the national interest above party interests. In many ways, the American people crave the same.
Across almost every state, Trump significantly outperformed his party. Whereas the president-elect won every swing state, the Republicans failed to pick up senate seats in Wisonsin, Michigan, and Arizona; the latter of which Trump won by almost 6 points. Furthermore, the GOP lost both the governor race and the Supreme Court election in North Carolina.
Whilst Trump used the Republican party as a platform to get himself elected, it is equally fair to say that he often detached himself from his party. As mentioned above, Trump was able to distance himself from his party’s more hardline approach to abortion. Many will be pointing to this very issue as the main reason for Kari Lake failing to pick up the Arizona senate seat.
Trump’s “drain the swamp” message was also directed at members of his own party whilst a lot of his cabinet appointments in his two administrations have been people outside of politics.
On both occasions, Trump won his elections thanks to traditionally apolitical Americans coming out to vote for him – quite often for the first time in their life. Despite being a member of the party, Trump has done well in portraying himself as an outsider – someone who is above traditional party politics. He has carved himself the position of a modern constitutional monarch. At a time when fatigue for the perceived uniparty is at an all-time high, Trump has been a breath of fresh air for the American electorate.
6. The Nation State strikes back
Human history often works like a pendulum, swinging back and forth between cycles. Joe Biden gone, Jacinda Ardern gone, Sanna Marin gone, Mario Draghi gone, Olaf Scholz gone. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, Pedro Snachez, and Justin Trudeau are on their way out. Almost everywhere across the planet, globalist-minded governments are collapsing, making way for right-wing populist administrations.
And what greater bell weather of the turning tide than Francis Fukuyama himself admitting that he got it wrong. Indeed, the man who once declared the “end of human history”, upon the fall of the Berlin wall, described Trump’s victory as a rejection of liberalism. Everywhere we look, globalism is being rejected in favour of the nation state. Meanwhile, the term multipolarity has now made its way into the mainstream.
In his book ‘Trump’s America: between empire and nation’, Paul Gottfried analyses the crossroad that the US now finds itself at.
For the last few decades, the American elite have used globalism to spread its influence and control over the world. The US economy is no longer a national one but a global one. American companies operate in near-enough every country, the dollar has become the global trading currency, and the fiscal rules of the world are often dictated by the US through various institutions (the EU, the WTO etc).
Consequently, the US economy has become increasingly dependent on the rest of the globe. Outsourcing has now become the norm whilst the US imports more and more each year to cope with the growing consumer demand. The US currently consumes significantly more than both its natural resources and domestic production can provide. The American eagle must thus keep its claws engrained in every continent.
Like almost every empire in human history, however, bankruptcy will bring the end of the US monopoly on the world. The choice is now clear: save the empire or save the nation. Over the past decade or so, what some may refer to as the blob, or the swamp, have chosen to degrade the living conditions of the metropole in order to save the global empire. This world view is completely detached from that of the average American.
So, when someone like Donald Trump comes along with an ‘America First’ agenda, people began to listen. A promise to return manufacturing and industry to America, putting a stop to unrestricted mass immigration, and ending the never-ending wars. These have become the new norm.
The American fatigue of war has been felt throughout the Ukraine conflict. Opinions shifted during the election year as more and more Americans believed too many resources were being pumped into a war they didn’t believe in. In general, polls found that Americans tended to support Ukraine’s efforts far less than their European counterparts.
This is the new central ground in American politics. And Trump has been able to capitalise on the political realignment by moving the GOP away from the free-market, globalist hawk party of the past to the more protectionist, nationalist, and anti-interventionist party of today. This move was symbolised by JD Vance stating that the GOP was no longer a pro-corporate party on the Joe Rogan podcast.
7. The McDonald’s Stunt
For some, this was simply hilarious and a great piece of campaigning. After many doubts had arisen surrounding the truth of whether or not Kamala Harris had worked in McDonald’s, Trump took full advantage. Indeed, he mocked his opponent in front of the whole country in the most American way possible.
For many, however, this was an incredibly important gesture by a president in waiting. His message was clear: every job is an important one and every working American should be respected. As former MP Jon Cruddas pointed out in his book, the left has forgotten about the importance of the dignity of labour.
Whether it be describing the American electorate as “deplorables” or “trash”, or filling up their rallies with billionaire celebrity concerts, the Democrats have shown themselves to be completely detached from their constituents. As senator Bernie Sanders himself admitted on election night, the Democrats must return to “ bread and butter” policies to have any chance of returning to the White House.
Julien Yvon is a British Journalist, check out his profile and other works