Why Trump Won: Analyzing The Factors That Shaped The 2024 Election Result
There's a lot of blame being thrown around. But I think the fundamental reasons for Trump's win are far more structural than any one particular candidate, policy, or messaging approach.
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In the coming days, weeks, and months, I’ll be writing a series of articles analyzing what exactly we can expect from a second Trump term (which I’ve already covered heavily), the potential Cabinet officials, and what we can do to push back.
I’m going to increase my output and lock into gear. I documented every day of Trump’s presidency during his first term, and I plan to bring the same level of commitment to covering this new administration. The way I deal with hard times is to work, so you can expect even more from me in the coming years.
The first order of business is to come to a consensus on why Trump won so that the Democratic Party and the pro-democracy coalition can regroup and approach their future strategies with clarity and purpose. Unfortunately, this phase usually devolves into a blame game, pointing fingers at different parts of the Democratic coalition, the campaign, or the candidates themselves. I’m not going to be participating in that.
There is so much data to sift through. People are picking and choosing what to focus on to fit their own narratives or preexisting criticisms of the Democratic Party.
There’s been a lot of discussion about specific messaging, policy proposals, and potential mistakes that the Harris Campaign may have made. I personally think the Harris Campaign ran a great campaign, especially in the short window of time she had. In any case, the Democratic Party will inevitably engage in some soul-searching and decide tactical shifts in how they approach campaigns moving forward.
However, I think that there are more structural factors at play for this loss that deserve more scrutiny and attention during this postmortem reevaluation period.
Just take a look at the country’s swing to the right since 2020. This goes far beyond some messaging adjustments on the Democratic Party’s end.
So why did America vote against its own interests and elect a wannabe authoritarian whose extremist policies would cause an economic and humanitarian crisis?
The explanations I find most compelling are the global anti-incumbency trends, the right-wing disinformation machine, and Trump’s bigoted exploitation of the post-COVID era of fear and distrust.
Global Anti-Incumbency Trends
While there are definitely a lot of factors to consider, I think the simplest systemic explanation for why Trump won can be found in this chart:
Financial Times Journalist John Burn-Murdoch published an excellent analysis showcasing the fact that every governing party facing an election in a developed country this year lost vote share for the first time in recorded history.
After the COVID pandemic recovery sparked inflation, voters across the globe have punished incumbent parties. The trend has been universal across all political ideologies in country after country: The United Kingdom, Japan, Austria, France, India, South Korea, South Africa, and more.
If this happened in literally every election around the world, it appears only logical in hindsight that it would happen here. Although the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the strongest post-COVID economic recovery in the world, it still didn’t prevent them from facing voter backlash over inflation. Voters wanted to punish the governing party in power during inflation, even if they were actively improving the situation. These headwinds would’ve been difficult for any candidate to overcome.
The indicators have been here all along. This past Summer, after the Labour Party delivered conservatives their worst loss in decades in the UK, I speculated whether what we saw in Europe could be an indicator of anti-incumbent backlash in the US or anti-conservative backlash. Turns out, it was an anti-incumbent backlash. Just like the Brexit referendum in 2016 foreshadowed the US elections that year, the UK Summer elections this year played the same role but with a different indicator.
Trump’s particular message, which amounted to disrupting the system as we know it, may have appealed to Americans who felt this anti-incumbent sentiment. This placed Democrats in the difficult position of trying to defend institutions that Americans lost faith in.
The Right-Wing Disinformation Machine
I’ve spent a decade writing about the right-wing information ecosystem and how it perpetuates disinformation narratives. It has only grown increasingly powerful, and it has certainly helped Donald Trump pave his way to victory with lies.
Post-election analysis should not ignore the fact Trump, backed by a shameless right-wing disinformation ecosystem, upheld a totally fictional reality where they depicted everything as worse than it actually was. I wrote about this authoritarian unreality heavily in this newsletter.
To be clear, the foundational basis for Trump’s campaign was built on disinformation. Trump said crime is up when it’s down. He said the economy is in shambles when it’s the best in the world and only getting better. He said undocumented immigrants are bringing crime when they actually commit crimes at lower rates than both legal immigrants and native-born citizens. He said Haitian migrants were eating pets when they weren’t. He said the 2020 election was stolen when it wasn’t. He said man-made climate change is a hoax when it’s very real. He even spread depraved lies about hurricane relief efforts. In his universe, up was down, good was bad, and morality was irrelevant.
Trump sold the country lies, and they bought into the con. These lies certainly helped fuel the anti-incumbent sentiment in America.
The way in which these lies were sold is the important part. The right-wing disinformation machine now includes more than just Fox News and conservative radio hosts, as it did in the 90s. Now, it’s become clear that right-wing media is the dominant media in America. The top podcasts in America are stacked with right-wing propagandists.
What’s worse, there is an entire network of “bro podcasts” with millions of young men tuning in. Oftentimes, these podcasts don’t come off as overtly political, but they have an undercurrent of right-wing “anti-woke” messaging that aligns directly with Republican messaging.
Compound this with social media algorithms pumping young people’s feeds with self-reinforcing content that most captures their attention and confirms their biases, and you have a recipe for a disinformation crisis.
As mainstream media loses its influence and more people turn to podcasts and TikTokers for their information, it’s clear that liberals need to invest heavily in a media ecosystem to counteract the vast right-wing disinformation machine.
It clearly doesn’t matter how good your policies and messaging are or how much you improve the country if you face a coordinated disinformation ecosystem that will lie about everything you do.
Post-COVID Era Of Fear And Distrust
When people are afraid, they are more susceptible to demagoguery. In the post-COVID era, fear, paranoia, and isolation have run rampant, even when the country largely appears to be doing well when you look at the data. The pandemic has had a deeper psychological impact on Americans than I think we fully realize.
The American people’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories and disinformation has noticeably increased since 2020. Trump has exploited this phenomenon to present a false reality where immigrants were invading our country, and the economy was in shambles.
As I’ve often outlined, Trump’s primary talent has always come down to his ability to identify and shamelessly exploit the weaknesses in people, cultures, and systems. From his fraudulent business career to his candidacy to his presidency, Trump tapped into the darkest corners of the American psyche and brought them out to the forefront. Trump didn’t break America; he took advantage of its existing fractures and deepened them. Trump served as a mirror the country could peer into and see its flaws laid bare.
This campaign was no different. Trump sought to exploit the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in America - which has been a problem since America’s founding. He fear-mongered about migrants, specifically migrants of color, using dehumanizing language, trying to depict them all as criminals and animals. Trump and his allies used blatantly racist and sexist language to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
This was the culmination of the modern Republican Party’s Southern Strategy, which has, since Richard Nixon, scapegoated minorities for the problems the white working class faces while doing nothing to solve them.
While the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, appealed to America’s better angels, the distorter of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, has appealed to America’s inner demons.
Of course, this was not the primary motivation of all Trump supporters, and I’m far from saying all Trump supporters are racist and sexist. I grew up in Virginia with many of them who are fundamentally good people. But it’s hard to overlook this factor as motivating many of them, as we saw Trump supporters in Madison Square Garden cheer the avalanche of bigotry that exuded from that stage.
There will be debate over the next four years as to why Trump won, and it will shape who Democrats run at the local, state, and federal levels. I hope that the people who analyze these results and make the key decisions within the Democratic Party don’t draw the wrong lessons and overcorrect. There’s a lot of data to work with and a lot of ways you can come to the wrong conclusions.
So, I offer up these more fundamental reasons Trump won to hopefully help guide the conversation. If the right-wing information ecosystem, for example, isn’t addressed, then all the changes to messaging and approach won’t matter. Democrats need to think big and lock in. It’s going to be four long years.
Fantastic analysis. We need to get you and other great thinkers together to help understand these very challenging and complex problems we face and plan a way forward.
Thank you for your work! Your sound and thoughtful analysis is really helpful and I appreciate you.