We are a week out from the U.S. presidential election. No, it was not a notably large victory for Trump. The popular vote count is not complete, and once it is, Trump will likely have gotten the most votes for a Republican candidate ever and won about 51% of the popular vote.
This is a good analysis, but you neglected to account for the deluge of misinformation and disinformation that voters were “pickled” in. Our education system has truly failed in critical media literacy education as well as civics.
this has as much to do with it as anything in my opinion. I see people who are driving 80k trucks getting 10 mpg, towing another 20k worth of toys, complaining about the economy. Simply because they were told to.
A few days ago 60 Minutes had a woman from PA complaining about gasoline prices in 2022–America is by far the biggest producer of oil and gas!! Those energy prices for a few months made America stronger because 2020 featured low energy prices that led to a record dollar amount of energy company bankruptcies!!! She apparently wants to be paid to burn fossil fuels like energy companies did in 2020…does she want to pay her patrons to eat her food?!?
Republicans are simply better at politics than Democrats and Trump is the greatest political force since Reagan. And remember Reagan pretty much served 12 years because he barely lost to Ford in 1976 and he was fiddling with foreign policy all during Carter’s tenure in anticipation of 1980.
Gasoline is cheaper now than in 2019. Of course gasoline prices were cheaper under Obama in 2016 and Trump jacked up the prices at the behest of Big Oil.
“We want some assurance that if we work hard and do our best, we won’t be screwed and won’t be one step away from financial catastrophe and we want to be the ones who benefit from some safety net first.”
This is what I see a lot of in the comments sections I dare to enter with Trump voters defending their positions. I understand it, but what I cannot fathom is why on Earth they think Trump/the GOP are the ones who will help them. History has shown otherwise.
I also join others in imploring you to analyze the misinformation campaign. Polls show the majority of Trump voters believe things that are simply, factually untrue. It's very true he made great strides in drawing a more diverse coalition under his tent. But he did it with a such a foul slurry of "alternate facts" that my biggest alarm bells post-election aren't that we are living in a racist or sexist society but that we are living in a society operating with two completely different views of REALITY. It's shocking and terrifying.
Interesting perspectives here. I think you all are part of your own echo chamber and I am not trying to be mean or demeaning. I find it ironic reading the comments calling Trump a threat from a party that wanted to ditch the filibuster and pack the court. Again, not trying to be mean. Just adding a different perspective.
I’m curious why you didn’t mention the information oligarcy. Must spent $44 billion to buy trump the election. FB spent hundeds of millions to do so. The billionaires who own the LA Times, NY Times spent infinite space on biden’s age and supposed infirmity and a fraction of that on trump’s far larger infirmity and degeneration. And then refused to endorse. Why no mention?
There is also a "character gap" with over half of the electorate favoring a convicted felon, adjudicated sex offender, classified document thief, election denier, insurrection fomenter, serial liar and more. How is that explained?
It's why I do not believe this is realignment at all. If the Republican candidate had been anyone but DJT, Harris wins.
Mr. Karabell, I appreciate your well written article, by I do disagree with a few claims you made.
You say that the election outcome is a "vindication of much of what the left has argued for years: that the core issues in the United States...are more about class and economic security than race and gender." As an independent, I have always found the Left to be obsessed with race and gender, so much so that race is often conflated with class (a specific race equals a specific class) and gender consists of those oppressed and those oppressing. Even now, women that voted for Trump are being chastised for not voting for a woman simply because she is a woman, White men are called racists, and Black men are called race traitors.
Your claim is that this led to a citizenry that gave "a resounding rejection of a status quo that promises, 'Work hard, do your best, and you will be rewarded.'" You say this rejection indicates the desire for assurances and the benefit of a safety net. I feel the conclusion is the very opposite.
I feel the results show the voters accepted the core American promise of working hard to receive rewards. What was rejected was the Left's promise of "work hard and you will be rewarded...after we determine your race and gender and slot you into the proper tier of victimhood status and oppression."
I would like to believe that most people voted for the policies they feel would most benefit them and their families. However, I feel there was a clear and distinct undercurrent of other issues that caused people to vote as they did: White men are tired of being blamed for every ill in society; Black men are wanting better lives and not seeing it coming after years of the left and being called race traitors if they don't vote as a block; women don't feel the need to vote for a woman JUST BECAUSE the candidate is a woman; women also don't see abortion as the only issue when their rights are being eroded by biological men being allowed in their spaces and sports; the "uneducated" are sick of the elites telling them what is best for them as if they are too stupid to know for themselves.
Democrats and the Left are the side that does indeed argue that the core issues are completely about gender and race.
Just one question: Can a society not headed for/interested in autocracy avoid it when those in control are doing their best to make it a reality? It seems to be happening right in front of the closed eyes of many.
Helpful assessment; thanks. But it misses my biggest concern: voters handed the keys to a gang that shows no self restraint, and with an all-R Congress and corrupted SCOTUS has no real checks on its power. My fear is that the new R Congress will pass the bill narrowly defeated last night that would give this admin the ability to shut down any NGO’s tax exempt status. That means no independent voices like ACLU or planned parenthood. They could also manipulate some new crisis to declare a state of emergency and shutter dissent even further. We are only a few such steps away from a dictatorship.
They do not have a filibuster-proof Senate though, any bill passed by the cuckoo-clocks in the House would have to get through the Senate too. Now, if they remove the filibuster as they did with the judicial appointments to cram the courts? Then all bets are off and we are headed for a bleak future indeed.
Note to you left wing idiots, coming from someone with a ton of education who taught for many years:
College is the most overrated thing in the modern world. our "education" system is utterly corrupt. It mainly favors idiots who become educated idiots.
I find this argument and reasoning unconvincing. I believe that a combination of racism, misogyny, disinformation, and zero sum thinking resulted in just enough voters ignoring reality. I don't believe this election was a sign of a healthy democracy but the inevitable culmination of the path of destruction set in motion by Citizens United. I fear for our country.
The people who voted for Trump who think their economic situation is going to improve are called millionaires and billionaires. Those other people thinking their precarious situation will improve will just see it get worse. Trump has been bought and paid for by rich assholes who do not give a hoot in hell about the struggles of lower class people. They only want to know how little They can pay them and keep them coming to work.
The worst part though is that economic changes take years. That's why everyone complaining about things that have been not-great under Biden do not understand that it's actually Trump's economy they were complaining about, and that the reason things were pretty good under Trump for the first couple years were due to Obama. People don't GET IT. So they'll always blame or give credit to the wrong person.
And that’s why I will never get that invested in beating an incumbent like I did in 2004 and 2020–had Kerry won in 2004 it would have been disastrous because Bush had so screwed things up.
I was just chatting with an Australian friend who reminded me that voting is obligatory in that country. Non-voters (almost none) are subject to a fine. Kind of an interesting concept.
Not a great analogy, as baseball's a child's game that has no impact on the Real World, and politics affects everyone. Anyone who chooses not to vote is tacitly endorsing the winner - whomever that may be. By refusing to participate, you're saying that you're fine with what the actual voters choose.
While I wholly endorse making Election Day a national holiday, mandatory voting is an anathema to freedom and liberty.
fair, clearly you are not a baseball fan. whether you are a fan or not, if you live in a place with major league sports you are impacted- traffic, your taxes etc. agree with you on the importance of voting. the, people i know that didn’t vote truly hate the “game of politics”, and i am at loss. no discussion seemed to move them. most are under 30.
how do we bring them in, break through deep discontent, distrust and disengagement? that is a big question that weighs on me post election.
I'm a massive baseball fan (go O's!), but I understand it's a child's game that has no real impact on the adult world unless adults choose to let it.
Look at the angry, hateful comments in these comments. That's exactly why people check out of politics. Getting called stupid by strangers isn't what most people are looking for. The Dems installed a candidate, subverting the democratic process. And she ran a horrible campaign. Trump is a lot of things, but he stayed on message, and clearly appealed to a much broader coalition than the Dems did. The party can either mock that coalition, or it can learn from their trouncing. The first option guarantees Republican hegemony for quite some time; the second option gives them a chance to gain ground in Congress in 2026.
“Oddly, given the election’s outcome, it also serves as a vindication of much of what the left has argued for years: that the core issues in the United States—and much of the world—are more about class and economic security than race and gender.”
Not true - the left has abandoned class in favor of race for 10 years or more now. Foundational on the left is Critical Theory, that all US institutions are systemically racist; that is, that race is the determining factor of who is oppressed, and who is the oppressor. Another ideology presupposes that class determined oppressed and oppressor.
I agree with most of this. One point of contention is claiming that it wasn't really a landslide or mandate. I've seen this point in a few places. The Electoral College was designed to (or incidently creates) landslides from slim majorities. 51% vs 49% doesn't seem a landslide, but 312 to 226 is a big difference, and means that most of the people, in most of the states, preferred Trump. So, yes, it most definitely is a landslide, not an outcome waiting for weeks of litigation over one state's votes, none of the BS from both sides challenging this and challenging that. It was unequivocal, or in common parlance, a landslide, "too big to rig", as it were.
This is a good analysis, but you neglected to account for the deluge of misinformation and disinformation that voters were “pickled” in. Our education system has truly failed in critical media literacy education as well as civics.
this has as much to do with it as anything in my opinion. I see people who are driving 80k trucks getting 10 mpg, towing another 20k worth of toys, complaining about the economy. Simply because they were told to.
A few days ago 60 Minutes had a woman from PA complaining about gasoline prices in 2022–America is by far the biggest producer of oil and gas!! Those energy prices for a few months made America stronger because 2020 featured low energy prices that led to a record dollar amount of energy company bankruptcies!!! She apparently wants to be paid to burn fossil fuels like energy companies did in 2020…does she want to pay her patrons to eat her food?!?
Republicans are simply better at politics than Democrats and Trump is the greatest political force since Reagan. And remember Reagan pretty much served 12 years because he barely lost to Ford in 1976 and he was fiddling with foreign policy all during Carter’s tenure in anticipation of 1980.
It's almost as if there was something going on in 2020 which cratered demand.
https://www.epiqglobal.com/en-us/resource-center/articles/energy-sector-bankruptcy-rise
But Republicans use 2020 prices to argue Trump’s policies lowered prices.
"Republicans" use post-Covid prices? Citation please.
Everyone is well aware that prices were substantially lower in 2019 than they are now.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-average-price-data.htm
Gasoline is cheaper now than in 2019. Of course gasoline prices were cheaper under Obama in 2016 and Trump jacked up the prices at the behest of Big Oil.
That happened long ago. The system has been rotting for 60 years.
“We want some assurance that if we work hard and do our best, we won’t be screwed and won’t be one step away from financial catastrophe and we want to be the ones who benefit from some safety net first.”
This is what I see a lot of in the comments sections I dare to enter with Trump voters defending their positions. I understand it, but what I cannot fathom is why on Earth they think Trump/the GOP are the ones who will help them. History has shown otherwise.
I also join others in imploring you to analyze the misinformation campaign. Polls show the majority of Trump voters believe things that are simply, factually untrue. It's very true he made great strides in drawing a more diverse coalition under his tent. But he did it with a such a foul slurry of "alternate facts" that my biggest alarm bells post-election aren't that we are living in a racist or sexist society but that we are living in a society operating with two completely different views of REALITY. It's shocking and terrifying.
Interesting perspectives here. I think you all are part of your own echo chamber and I am not trying to be mean or demeaning. I find it ironic reading the comments calling Trump a threat from a party that wanted to ditch the filibuster and pack the court. Again, not trying to be mean. Just adding a different perspective.
And ignored the will of their primary voters and installed their candidate through a backroom deal.
I’m curious why you didn’t mention the information oligarcy. Must spent $44 billion to buy trump the election. FB spent hundeds of millions to do so. The billionaires who own the LA Times, NY Times spent infinite space on biden’s age and supposed infirmity and a fraction of that on trump’s far larger infirmity and degeneration. And then refused to endorse. Why no mention?
There is also a "character gap" with over half of the electorate favoring a convicted felon, adjudicated sex offender, classified document thief, election denier, insurrection fomenter, serial liar and more. How is that explained?
It's why I do not believe this is realignment at all. If the Republican candidate had been anyone but DJT, Harris wins.
Mr. Karabell, I appreciate your well written article, by I do disagree with a few claims you made.
You say that the election outcome is a "vindication of much of what the left has argued for years: that the core issues in the United States...are more about class and economic security than race and gender." As an independent, I have always found the Left to be obsessed with race and gender, so much so that race is often conflated with class (a specific race equals a specific class) and gender consists of those oppressed and those oppressing. Even now, women that voted for Trump are being chastised for not voting for a woman simply because she is a woman, White men are called racists, and Black men are called race traitors.
Your claim is that this led to a citizenry that gave "a resounding rejection of a status quo that promises, 'Work hard, do your best, and you will be rewarded.'" You say this rejection indicates the desire for assurances and the benefit of a safety net. I feel the conclusion is the very opposite.
I feel the results show the voters accepted the core American promise of working hard to receive rewards. What was rejected was the Left's promise of "work hard and you will be rewarded...after we determine your race and gender and slot you into the proper tier of victimhood status and oppression."
I would like to believe that most people voted for the policies they feel would most benefit them and their families. However, I feel there was a clear and distinct undercurrent of other issues that caused people to vote as they did: White men are tired of being blamed for every ill in society; Black men are wanting better lives and not seeing it coming after years of the left and being called race traitors if they don't vote as a block; women don't feel the need to vote for a woman JUST BECAUSE the candidate is a woman; women also don't see abortion as the only issue when their rights are being eroded by biological men being allowed in their spaces and sports; the "uneducated" are sick of the elites telling them what is best for them as if they are too stupid to know for themselves.
Democrats and the Left are the side that does indeed argue that the core issues are completely about gender and race.
-Chris W.
Just one question: Can a society not headed for/interested in autocracy avoid it when those in control are doing their best to make it a reality? It seems to be happening right in front of the closed eyes of many.
Helpful assessment; thanks. But it misses my biggest concern: voters handed the keys to a gang that shows no self restraint, and with an all-R Congress and corrupted SCOTUS has no real checks on its power. My fear is that the new R Congress will pass the bill narrowly defeated last night that would give this admin the ability to shut down any NGO’s tax exempt status. That means no independent voices like ACLU or planned parenthood. They could also manipulate some new crisis to declare a state of emergency and shutter dissent even further. We are only a few such steps away from a dictatorship.
Out of curiosity, why do you think SCOTUS is corrupt?
They do not have a filibuster-proof Senate though, any bill passed by the cuckoo-clocks in the House would have to get through the Senate too. Now, if they remove the filibuster as they did with the judicial appointments to cram the courts? Then all bets are off and we are headed for a bleak future indeed.
They get one shot at reconciliation.
Note to you left wing idiots, coming from someone with a ton of education who taught for many years:
College is the most overrated thing in the modern world. our "education" system is utterly corrupt. It mainly favors idiots who become educated idiots.
And that is the core of the rot.
I find this argument and reasoning unconvincing. I believe that a combination of racism, misogyny, disinformation, and zero sum thinking resulted in just enough voters ignoring reality. I don't believe this election was a sign of a healthy democracy but the inevitable culmination of the path of destruction set in motion by Citizens United. I fear for our country.
The people who voted for Trump who think their economic situation is going to improve are called millionaires and billionaires. Those other people thinking their precarious situation will improve will just see it get worse. Trump has been bought and paid for by rich assholes who do not give a hoot in hell about the struggles of lower class people. They only want to know how little They can pay them and keep them coming to work.
The worst part though is that economic changes take years. That's why everyone complaining about things that have been not-great under Biden do not understand that it's actually Trump's economy they were complaining about, and that the reason things were pretty good under Trump for the first couple years were due to Obama. People don't GET IT. So they'll always blame or give credit to the wrong person.
And that’s why I will never get that invested in beating an incumbent like I did in 2004 and 2020–had Kerry won in 2004 it would have been disastrous because Bush had so screwed things up.
hi-
2024 election, by the numbers, as of november 12, 2024
244 million: The rough estimate of Americans eligible to vote in 2024 election.
Popular Vote: 72,344,475 harris
Popular Vote: 75,487,288 trump
total votes: 147,831,763
did not vote: 97,168, 237
20 million more people did not vote, than voted for either candidate.
why does the media keep saying over half the country voted for trump?
polarize /pō′lə-rīz″/ intransitive verb
To induce polarization in or impart polarity to.
To cause to divide into two conflicting or opposing groups.
according to the dictionary using the word “polarize” to describe our country is a false statement, clearly there are more than 2 opposing groups.
is it democratic to discount almost 100 million americans who were not interested in casting a vote for either candidate?
anger and despair 😞
thank you, lynn
I was just chatting with an Australian friend who reminded me that voting is obligatory in that country. Non-voters (almost none) are subject to a fine. Kind of an interesting concept.
Let's do that in the U.S and really keep the poor and under privileged from voting.
analogy
a city has 2 baseball teams, the fans oppose each other, wear their team colors, cheer only for their team.
the city also has a whole lot of people, maybe a majority, that either don’t enjoy baseball, or don’t care for either team.
do only baseball fans matter?
should non-baseball fans be forced to choose a team?
so many questions-thanks for your thoughts.
cheers!
Not a great analogy, as baseball's a child's game that has no impact on the Real World, and politics affects everyone. Anyone who chooses not to vote is tacitly endorsing the winner - whomever that may be. By refusing to participate, you're saying that you're fine with what the actual voters choose.
While I wholly endorse making Election Day a national holiday, mandatory voting is an anathema to freedom and liberty.
fair, clearly you are not a baseball fan. whether you are a fan or not, if you live in a place with major league sports you are impacted- traffic, your taxes etc. agree with you on the importance of voting. the, people i know that didn’t vote truly hate the “game of politics”, and i am at loss. no discussion seemed to move them. most are under 30.
how do we bring them in, break through deep discontent, distrust and disengagement? that is a big question that weighs on me post election.
I'm a massive baseball fan (go O's!), but I understand it's a child's game that has no real impact on the adult world unless adults choose to let it.
Look at the angry, hateful comments in these comments. That's exactly why people check out of politics. Getting called stupid by strangers isn't what most people are looking for. The Dems installed a candidate, subverting the democratic process. And she ran a horrible campaign. Trump is a lot of things, but he stayed on message, and clearly appealed to a much broader coalition than the Dems did. The party can either mock that coalition, or it can learn from their trouncing. The first option guarantees Republican hegemony for quite some time; the second option gives them a chance to gain ground in Congress in 2026.
Those are just astonishing numbers. I hate it here.
Glad you're happy about the election. How do you feel about where the next President is taking us?
I agree with much but you are off target here:
“Oddly, given the election’s outcome, it also serves as a vindication of much of what the left has argued for years: that the core issues in the United States—and much of the world—are more about class and economic security than race and gender.”
Not true - the left has abandoned class in favor of race for 10 years or more now. Foundational on the left is Critical Theory, that all US institutions are systemically racist; that is, that race is the determining factor of who is oppressed, and who is the oppressor. Another ideology presupposes that class determined oppressed and oppressor.
Your 51 / 49 is a lie. Dishonest period. That's a # that ignores the third parties. It is more like 51 / 47 / all the others.
You must be a commiecrat.
I agree with most of this. One point of contention is claiming that it wasn't really a landslide or mandate. I've seen this point in a few places. The Electoral College was designed to (or incidently creates) landslides from slim majorities. 51% vs 49% doesn't seem a landslide, but 312 to 226 is a big difference, and means that most of the people, in most of the states, preferred Trump. So, yes, it most definitely is a landslide, not an outcome waiting for weeks of litigation over one state's votes, none of the BS from both sides challenging this and challenging that. It was unequivocal, or in common parlance, a landslide, "too big to rig", as it were.