2024 Election Thoughts - Part 2

Why Trump won and what should happen next.

It’s easy to work up glib jabs when your preferred candidate wins an election.

But I’ll save that for Twitter. What I want to do here is explain why Trump won and what should come next.

First, let’s say this: it’s looking like a clean sweep. Republicans won the Senate and almost certainly will win the House, all while Trump also won the popular vote alongside the electoral college.

While it’s easy to nutpick on the internet, it is fair to say that the early search for answers isn’t going well.

With 266k likes on Twitter, we have people like Jill just getting angry at Americans:

And with 51k likes, we have Susan Murphy blaming the media?

Then there’s James who apparently forgot that PA, WI, and MI all also apparently joined “Dumbf***istan” (402k likes):

And lastly there’s Lacey who repeats, to massive applause (324k likes), the boring line that it’s just racism and sexism:

It’s fair to say: the joy… is gone.

But let me say this abundantly clearly: if your worldview relies on dismissing half of the country as evil, you will continue to be frustrated as reality keeps dodging your expectations.

Most people are good people. I disagree vehemently with many of the tenants of Democratic voters. I believe many (most? perhaps all?) of them are ill-informed, misguided, indoctrinated, or some combination thereof.

But I also believe almost all of them have good intentions.

What does honestly sadden me is that the left cannot see this. Even among people I know I’ve seen many messages that suggest the election was the result of hate. To quote one anonymously:

“We lost because the left is divided on issues while the right is united in hate. It’s as simple as that.”

That’s false and, frankly, a gross misrepresentation of reality.

At a base level, it’s dead simple: Americans saw what Democrats had to offer for four years and enough people said “Hell, no” to four more years of that.

This map from the NY Times shows the shift happened across the board (west coast results not reported yet):

It wasn’t just the “backwaters” or “flyover country” that shifted towards Trump either. Trump went from 18% in 2016 to 22% in 2020 to 30% in 2024 of the vote in New York City.

Now, I get it, a Democrat is going to say “well, Democrats still won ~70% of NYC.”

That’s the wrong thing to fixate on. Take solace in it if you want, sure. But also ask yourself: “Why did ~8% of the population change their mind? What did they see that I didn’t?”

And, I know it gets tough because Democrats have charged Trump with a whole array of crimes, they’ve called him Hitler, they’ve called his supporters Nazis, garbage, and more. If you are gullible enough to believe all of that, I get why this all may be a surprise.

But if you live in and observe reality, you see the rampant inflation, you see the unchecked immigration, you see the rise in crime, you see the increased risk of war, you see woke garbage being pushed in schools, you see insane court cases like Daniel Penny’s, and you see “only a handful” of apartment complexes being taken over by Venezuelan gangs.

Any one of those would be enough to say “f*** this, I’m voting for Trump.” Taken together? It’s the easiest decision most of us will make in a year.

Kamala could have been a white man, a pink unicorn, a blue elephant, or anything else: the results would have been the same.

The exit polls also debunk the lazy sexism/racism claims. In key states, Latino men and White women favored Trump.

Trump made gains across the board. In Wisconsin, Trump went from winning only 8% of Black votes in 2020 to 21% in 2024. Wisconsin is not an outlier in this respect: Trump made gains nationally with Black voters.

Here’s a view across all demographics via the Financial Times:

Bottom line is this: Trump won because he has gained appeal across all geographies, and with almost every voter segment. And he made these gains because, to quote Idiocracy, “Shit’s real bad right now” and he presents a much more coherent case than the other guy or gal.

What Should Happen Next

I’m going to outline what both parties should do because, believe it or not, I actually want *both* parties to be more functional. Like a game of tennis, we benefit from two parties actually play well.

Democrats

Look in the mirror! Your radical policies (open borders, emptying prisons, all the trans stuff, race-based redistribution) are going to keep turning people away.

If you use $42 Billion for “rural high speed internet” then maybe actually deliver on that.

You imported Warhawks like Liz Cheney into your party and funneled hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign wars in some cases (Israel/Gaza) funding both sides of a war we should have no part in. Maybe don’t do that.

You raged against Elon Musk, the one human on the planet trying to move humanity further. Stop that.

Oh, and while we’re at it… maybe have a primary instead of installing puppets, preventing any challengers, and then staging a bloodless coup when the guy with dementia accidentally outs himself.

Maybe you should fix your cities and make them actual beacons of good governance. Clean up the streets of San Francisco and New York. Reduce the violence in Chicago and Detroit. Figure out how to run a city and I’ll start to take you more seriously.

Maybe realize that the Hispanic community isn’t a monolith, and that letting in a ton of them doesn’t satisfy, and even inflames, the ones here who actually vote. Or, in their own words:

Stop making proposals based on race. Move on. Advocate for more welfare and safety nets, fine, but don’t suggest race-based handouts. America wants to move on.

Republicans

Don’t f*** this up.

You’ve been hired for a clear job. Be effective, but also try not to alienate people unnecessarily. It’s a playbook that has worked in Florida with Ron DeSantis barely winning Florida in 2018 and taking it to an R +14 state in 2024.

Tactically, the first priority must be to secure the border. Lock it down and pass laws to ensure it stays that way. Valid ID and citizenship laws need to be put in place and enforced, which will hopefully drive many of the illegal immigrants who have arrived over the past four years to self-deport.

There are other systematic changes that need to be put into effect to secure a bright future: enact voter ID requirements nationally, enshrine school choice so that poor families aren’t stuck with failing schools, start to defang and clear out the bureaucracy, and more.

We face many steep challenges with ballooning federal budgets, a weak economy, and the specter of global war. Deliver real budget cuts, push innovation, and make deals to do the best that we can on these fronts.

Beyond that, continue to reach out to people directly and build inroads across all Americans. Leave no one behind.

Visit inner cities, talk to voters, and figure out how to make their lives better. Stop the crime and improve education.

Talk to women and make the case for being tough on crime and minimizing government interference. On abortion, continue to make it clear that it is up to the states and that the Federal Government will stay out of the issue.

Actually work for the American People, keep talking to voters directly and explain your case, and curtail the bureaucratic tentacles emanating out of Washington D.C.

An Aside

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a chart going around:

While the 2024 totals aren’t quite done yet, it is, let’s just say, suspicious that Democrats jumped ~18 million votes in 2020 from their 2012, 2016, only to revert right back to the ~66 million number. Where did those 18 million people go?

At the least, that merits an investigation! And we should be busy along with investigations into some of the other treasonous acts taken by the previous administration.

Trump’s victory speech actually spoke to promoting unity, if the Left could stop wailing for long enough to listen to it. And that’s admirable, even if it’s likely to be a pipe dream. Within some bounds (largely what I outlined above), unity (or something close to it) could be possible.

But there also needs to be accountability for those at the top and the far left who drove the insanity of the past four years. Ideally, that’d be owned by the moderate Democrats (who do still exist) and clean out their own party of all the people who prevented any real primary in 2020, allowed open borders, and pursued these other disastrous policies.

What’ll Actually Happen?

Given what we saw at the beginning, I’m not optimistic for unity.

Frankly, Democrats seem quite keen to blame the American people for voting wrong. They’ll likely continue to blame whites for being racist, men for being sexist, the Amish for wanting to be left alone, and Latinos for wanting a secure border.

This shouldn’t go over well, but we also shouldn’t underestimate the ability of Republicans to “f*** it up.” Trump will have some bad soundbites, the media will pounce on any opportunity to blow it out of proportion.

The mechanisms in Washington will put up stiff resistance to any meaningful change pushed by Trump, Vance, Elon, RFK, and others, and Republicans will lack the political will to push through any painful-but-necessary changes.

Division will continue, potentially worsen, and we’ll do this all again in four years. Democrats though may want to actually hold a primary though, as the specter of a Vance/DeSantis/Ramaswamy ticket is going to be a whole new ballgame.

But despite some pessimism or realism, the fact is that last night was the first time in 4+ years that I am optimistic about what America can achieve.

Dare I say… let’s make America great again!