Why America voted for Trump, a simple, sane summary

[Bippy2024]

This is why Trump won so resoundingly - this is why 72 million Americans voted for him - in one of his voter's own words.

If you choose to monster and slur 72 million people, that's saying a lot about you. Every accusation is a confession.

"I know a lot of people who voted for Trump. Let me tell you their reasons.
They wanted a return to normalcy. Gender ideology is just too out there. They want to protect women and children.

The economy has been disastrous for them. They didn’t have a cushion to absorb the inflation. They are cutting out everything in their lives just to afford food. And some are cutting that out.

Their lives have gotten very small. When they tried to tell you, they were told they shouldn’t splurge on things like a frozen pizza.

They see people coming illegally into this country and being handed stuff. Their stuff. Their money is being handed over. They have nothing. They watch as others are just handed more than they have.

They can’t afford rent and don’t know what to do. More people fighting for the same housing units makes prices rise.

They see a frightening turn towards censorship. They value the first amendment. Remember, it’s very important. They are so tired of being lied to and called terrible names.

Every time the mainstream media made up a story to make people hysterical they rolled their eyes. This pushed more and more people away. They stopped having any faith in the media. A firing squad? Really?

They feel the hysteria is toxic and frightening. Again they want this all to calm down.

They watch as political protests are punished for only one side. They see crime running rampant.

They see the people who try to protect us from crime being punished. The criminals go free to re-offend.

Essentially, they want their children to be healthy, they want their family to be fed, they don’t want endless war, they want things to be fair, they want the bad guys punished and the good guys appreciated, they want to protect women and children.

I hope if you are frightened today you will hear me. I hope I can help you see that things are not dire. I hope I can help you see that these were regular everyday folks who want regular everyday things. Food, clothing, shelter, privacy, respect for boundaries.

That’s it. Just those things. Peace."

https://x.com/babybeginner/status/1854179213399502850

@Parker231

I don't think I was clear. I'm in no way defending Trump or saying his solutions are plausible or honest.

I'll throw out all the illegal immigrants to reduce crime and increase your wages.
I'll put high tariffs on foreign goods to increase jobs in the US
I'll end the Ukraine war in 24 hours

These solutions lack detail and are not well thought out, based on fact or plausible. But they obviously appeal to people. The reality is there are no quick fixes for these complex problem.

Brexit was a triumph of the 3 word slogan! It’s a clear strategy to get people to understand a concept but they don’t want, or care about, the detail. Trump had “build the wall”, “make America great”, “drain the swamp” etc and we endured “take back control” and then “get Brexit done”. More complex strategies don’t get through to many voters and around three words will do.There’s little understanding by many of the population, or thought even, about the detail of what the policies might mean in the long run or how they will be implemented. Trump excels at this.

Our politicians are learning or understood it (Cummings). You play to the fears of the electorate. You agree with these fears and you spell them out . You offer unworkable slogans but the supporters don’t know that and believe the rhetoric. It’s then left to everyone else to pick up the pieces - so that will be Ukraine sold down the river as the UK was failed by Brexit.

Harris had few policies that would get “middle America” engaged and either spoke in riddles or just long winded advertising language. Unfortunately it’s instantly forgettable. And she will be.

Did Mexico pay?

Have all the migrants stopped now?

Of course they didn’t and Trump has repeatedly lied about how much of the wall was built.

Blimey, I've just come onto a thread with a ranting, shouty poster who is calling all of us who don't like Trump thick. Then they expect to be taken seriously when they admit to watching Joe Rogan for their information. This just reminds me of all the people who "did their research" about COVID vaccines and swallowed the right wing propaganda.

@SundayBloodySunday
Tee hee
I am that most hateful of things - a gender critical woman who voted for Harris
because I believe Trumps policies will harm my family and friends in the US.

I am also DEEPLY critical of the Democrat campaign (HCR blocked me)
while loathing everything Trump stands for

Simple answers huh !

Really? I'm shocked. He sounded like such an honest, trustworthy person. I'm sure that he'll do whatever he said that he'd do this time, otherwise why would so many people (at least a quarter of the eligible population) have voted for him?

There may be some sarcasm in my posts.

Just saw an interesting post by Joy Ann Reid: https://www.tiktok.com/@joyreidofficial/video/7435512808231537950?r=1&t=8rHy4k5V7QW

Church attendance was both positively and negatively associated with voting for Trump, dependent on race.
So for white Christians 76% of those who attend church once a week or more voted Trump. Black Christians were the opposite. Church attendance of once a week or more - 85% voted for Harris.

"Every major predominantly white Christian group in America went for Trump by a majority or super majority.

Only whites voted majority Republican. Non-whites voted majority Democrat.

Jews and Muslims both went for Harris by a super majority."

Most churches, particularly the big Evangelical ones threw themselves behind Trump - and why wouldn't they given what they know about Project 2025 and Trump's involvement with the Heritage Foundation.

The other poll she discusses is one on misinformation - if voters were misinformed about some very basic facts on the economy and immigration, they were likely to vote for Trump. Those who answered the questions correctly, were overwhelmingly likely to vote for Harris.

Points made by @friendlycat definitely contributed to the Democrats’ loss.
The Democrats didn’t have the best of terms under Biden and I’m firmly of the belief fewer people would have voted for him this time anyway.

Changing the candidate so late in the game and related issues definitely hasn’t helped. Ultimately people don’t like being taken for mugs. It was obvious Biden was declining for a long time yet there was an insistence everything was fine. The discussions about whether he would be persuaded to stand aside were rumbling for a fair while but no, Biden was still the most qualified to beat Trump (so they said). After all that, Biden suddenly announcing he was bowing out in late July would have reasonably alienated voters. It wouldn’t have helped the Democrats’ credibility.

Odd choices were then made like Harris not doing many interviews to begin with, which was daft given there wasn’t much campaigning time left to play with. There was a narrative doing the rounds within the last few weeks from what I’d read/heard that a reason why Harris hadn’t done many interviews was because there were concerns it would have exposed she was a weak candidate.

As has been mentioned by others decisions like Harris not distancing herself enough from Biden were also problematic. The “not a thing comes to mind” answer when asked if there was anything she would have done differently in the last 4 years was a missed opportunity. Not ideal to be saying something like that when Biden’s approval rating wasn’t the best.

I think there is mileage in the argument that the seeds for this defeat were sown further back than this year or indeed within the last 4 too.

As has been mentioned by others decisions like Harris not distancing herself enough from Biden were also problematic.

I suppose Trump can’t distance himself from himself so gets a pass on the felonies, sexual assault discussions, children in cages etc etc. I can’t think what Kamala has to do to be the problematic one 🤣

@Miniopolis A lot of rational people might agree but Americans don’t care about the type of person Trump is. They like his message. They agree with him. Harris always had a difficult “message” for quite a big portion of the population who are easily persuaded by rhetoric that’s easy to understand. Harris did speak like an advertising slogan without saying much at all to address the needs of, particularly, male voters.

Sleepy Joe was an obvious problem long before July. Trump would have taken him to the cleaners too and he chose Harris. So
most of the Democrat issues are problems they have created.

Sleepy Joe was an obvious problem long before July. Trump would have taken him to the cleaners too and he chose Harris. So most of the Democrat issues are problems they have created.

While that may be true, I don’t believe the type of person who is ok voting for Trump would have voted for any candidate the Democrats fielded. So while I share your frustration about their lack of longer term forethought, I don’t think a Trump voter was turned off by that, I don’t think they would’ve ever voted for them.

The problem with populists like Trump is that they ask good questions but have terrible answers to them.
**How to manage an increasingly complex and volatile globalised world with fragile supply chains is a real question - but putting up tariffs like Trump suggests may have disastrous consequences and I have yet to be convinced that there was ever a sound business case for Brexit.
**Demographics & immigration - birthrates are falling worldwide (bar perhaps subsaharan Africa) and especially in Western countries; that is an issue for the traditional growth model but ordinary people are reluctant to change their countries' historic ethnic make-up, so immigration (at least the perception of it) becomes an issue. Building a wall or letting people drown is inhuman and cannot be a sustainable answer to that fear.
**Climate - well, that's the head-in-sand strategy; populists don't even ask the question, just throw their hands up and think probably the wealthy enough will find a way to build shelters and buy their way out of most problems for when it all hits the fan. In the US, don't forget that most of the evangelical right voted for Trump and is influenced by Calvinist thought which postulates that anyone favoured by God will be predestined to succeed (conversely those who don't must have deserved it somehow).
And so on and so forth... the whole populist rhetoric is built along those lines: identify the pain points and exploit them to gain power but don't solve anything in reality.
As for slurs, not sure the OP has followed the US election that closely because the MAGA crowd is expert at demeaning and insulting anyone that does not toe their line of thought.

While that may be true, I don’t believe the type of person who is ok voting for Trump would have voted for any candidate the Democrats fielded.

Biden would have lost to Trump by even bigger margins. Harris lost because she and Biden failed to address the top concerns of voters while they were in office and people rejected the obsession with identity politics the democrats have pushed.

Harris is very much from the progressive wing of her party, and she only lost the popular vote by about 3%. A moderate, centrist democrat could have won.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4981839-democrats-battle-election-loss/

@MissConductUS I tend to think that the Democrats failed to plan post Biden. It was obvious there was a problem and the nature of USA politics means the VP, in such a situation, is vital. Biden has impaired capacity and has had for a while. Everyone noticed. However Biden clung on. The post Biden era needed thinking about 8 years ago in 2016. So did their policies in terms of majority appeal. Not just coastal appeal. Democrats have found not enough people think like them. So they now have a fairly short time to become relevant again and find someone who can articulate policies succinctly with charisma.

@MissConductUS
"Harris is very much from the progressive wing of her party, and she only lost the popular vote by about 3%. A moderate, centrist democrat could have won."

This is just nonsense. Harris is a centrist.

Incumbent governments all over the world were voted out of office or lost large shares of the vote because of the impact of post-covid inflation on living standards.

She was up against a charismatic populist demagogue and an enormous, sophisticated and powerful system of disinformation.

@MissConductUS

"Harris lost because she and Biden failed to address the top concerns of voters while they were in office"

The top concerns of voters were inflation and migration. Post covid inflation was only marginally higher in the US than it was in the Eurozone, and Biden bought it down faster and further than any other country in the Eurozone.

Migration has always been an issue and the Border Bill was intended to address that - Trump vetoed it, as you know. Border crossings have plummeted since 2023, which means Trump's inheritance will be an improving situation at the border.

"and people rejected the obsession with identity politics the democrats have pushed."

No - WHITE VOTERS have overwhelmingly rejected what you call 'identity politics'. BLACK VOTERS - 4 our of 5 of whom voted Democrat, have overwhelmingly not.

And that's because the vast majority of right leaning white voters don't believe racism is a still a problem in the USA. Black voters, by a fairly significant majority, believe that it is.

What got Trump elected was the massive right-wing mainstream/fringe/social media propaganda machine promoting him. I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that a lot of that came from Russian bot farms and/or via funding of right-wing influencers. I'm sure it's also entirely coincidental that Trump has said a lot of things that align with Russian interests.

Would any of the people here who've spoken about Biden's 'cognitive decline' like to comment on this:

A video of Trump talking to Mums for Liberty:

How do you explain the absolute insanity of this comment?

Would you have voted for Bill Clinton for a second term after he put a cigar up a barely-legal intern's vagina? He was almost 50 and POTUS, she was 22 and living on her own for the first time in her life.

Because the factories to produce them here DO NOT YET EXIST due to over-regulation, which is exactly Trump's point.

These are all democratic talking points that didn't convince most voters. Biden changed the rules when he came into office and allowed 10 million immigrants to enter the country illegally. This has caused huge problems along the border and in major cities. Biden and Harris did nothing to help those areas and cities. They didn't try to do anything different until the end of 2023 when the polls showed the issue was going to hurt them in the election. That's when they tried to get a compromise bill passed.

Prices are about 20% higher than they were when Biden came into office, and higher still in key categories like housing. American voters don't care how that compares with inflation elsewhere. Harris campaigned on the message that the economy is fine. Lots of voters here feel differently.

You can argue that the voters are simply wrong about all of these issues. Harris still lost.

No, he did not. The leftist media, including the BBC and the Guardian, selectively edit and distort pretty much everything Trump says. He had just been to a medical research facility that was investigating new methods of disinfecting, and was referring to that. He NEVER used the word bleach, nor was he referring to bleach. He was referring to light. You have been propagandized, not informed, by your news sources.

This is because it’s about how individuals see their own bit of the USA. Americans are very inward looking when it comes to voting. Foreign policy is of little concern. As it is here in many ways. Being told you are not as badly off as Europeans has no traction with Americans at all. They just know their food is costing more!

The results paint a clear picture: Democrats were punished for inflation, misalignment on immigration and cultural issues, and Biden. The top three reasons not to vote for Harris were:

1. “Inflation was too high under the Biden-Harris Administration” (+24)
2. “Too many immigrants illegally crossed the border under the Biden-Harris Administration” (+23)
3. “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” (+17).

blueprint2024.com/polling/why-trump-reasons-11-8/

@izimbra you can deny this all you like but you are wrong.