@Wherrsmaclickypen
My biggest heartbreak remains in trying to understand the 70 million voters who supported him, and whose voices cannot and should not be ignored. I am not American, I am not there, I cannot feel their pain, I do not understand. But I am choosing to believe, give or take some cultish new born Christians and white supremacists, that the majority of moderate Republicans were voting Republican and not Trump. His wholly unpalatable and unhinged conduct in the last few days (and in the days to come most likely) must have been the icing on the cake. I cannot imagine the machinations amongst senior Republicans now, their stark choice is to disavow Trump and save their party or be drowned in the tide of reconciliation. I think it would save time if they just cut out the middleman and just drove him in the taxpayer-provided, bulletproof limo straight to a state penitentiary. It is ironic, but likely, that he will be hung out to dry by his own party not unlike Boris, imminently
Every election since 1997 in the UK has been not about voting
for something, but voting
against something.
I think its probably true about what is most motivating voters in the US.
I think its wrong to characterise everyone who voted Trump as voting for him, nor that they even like him.
His hard core voters aside, its more about a wider cultural divide which Trump understands better than the democrats and has been able to exploit. The Culture War.
Its about this divide between cities which are outward looking towards the rest of the world v small town america where people live for generations and have nice comfortable and a very innocent, naive and narrow view of the world. I think in Europe its hard for us to conceive of anyone who has never been to the nearest city, never mind hasn't got a passport and been on holiday abroad. But for many in the US thats the reality.
Then there's the religious aspect to this. When America was settled by Europe it was settled by puritans who very much stricter in how they practiced their faith. And this has been perserved in many parts of the US, in part because of this isolation from outside influences, that distances between towns and cities produced. If you are in the cities you are in a melting pot and are exposed to all these different ideas and cultures and people passing through. And Atheism has become the norm.
So you have a group of people wanting to preserve their traditions, religion and history versus a group of people used to change and actively wanting to push for more. Both see each others life style as a threat to theirs in different ways.
You also have this long term mistrust of the communism and the role of the state (and taxation). You have a population brought up and educated that it was evil under the rivalry with the USSR following the second world war (see McCarthyism) and can't understand the difference between communism and socialism (again lack of knowledge beyond the us is a big player here and how bloody awful US television is). Also see Cuban Hispanics in Florida who have had experience of Castro. They are voting for Trump out of fear of what they believe is the bigger evil.
Trump has delivered low taxation and a supreme court justice to defend the christian right beliefs.
I think now though, there may be a feeling even from this group that they will be relieved to be rid of Trump who represented a lot of the very things they disliked but at least defended their right to their lifestyle and world view. They will now probably prefer a representative to better mirror them rather than merely acting as a battering ram against ideas they find alien and aggressively intolerant of their lifestyle.
Trump knows how to drive the wedge - and illicit a response from his opposition which further alienates them from conservative thinking. For example driving a wedge by almost encouraging people on the left to call conservatives names which then is perceived as hostile to them personally, leading them to believe that Trump is somehow their defender even if they don't agree with all his policies.
You will see this deliberate polarisation of language in everything Trump says. Its a them an us narrative which encourage people to pick sides rather than talk to each other and find common ground. And thats what people do - and then vote against 'the enemy'.
Take note of the lingustics that Biden is trying to now promote which is much more in contrast to that and trying to encourage people to step back from that them and us dynamic and actually consider things rather than make an emotional 'kneejerk' defensive of self/identity.
Trump breaks down politics in a way which makes it about the personal rather than policy in this way. People can't separate the two as easily.
They vote against communism, atheism, the belittlement of small town america, the snoty attitude of graduates who use big words that they don't fully understand and people who want to spoil their simple life of just wanting a wholesome 1950s type idea of family.
Not because they like Trump and what he stands for. More what he stands against.