US professor ⟩ «Dragonslayer» returns: The sources of Trump victory

Photo: Carlos Barria

• Democrats became prisoners of their own bias and wishful thinking.
• The ideology of Democrats questions the foundations of Western civilization.
• Trump attracted racial minorities, which Republicans have not been able to do for a long time.

Leaving aside the personalities of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, one could see a deep gulf separating Democrats and Republicans. The results of the United States election convincingly revealed the distorted picture that media opinion polls painted before the election, writes University of Memphis history professor Andrei Znamenski.

292 electoral votes that Donald Trump received were more than enough to secure his presidency as well as 71.6 million actual votes against 67 million ones cast for Kamala Harris, revealed one more time the distorted picture that media opinion polls portrayed for us on the eve of the current elections. The mainstream legacy media (e.g. New York Times, Washington Post, CNN) sought to convince us that Trump and Harris evenly split the US electorate 50 to 50 per cent, with Harris having a slight advantage. Yet, what happened in voting booths and materialized in mailed ballots showed us that Trump electorate exceeded Harris voters almost by five million. It appears that in the situation when the mainstream narrative was controlled by the left-liberal establishment, many Americans intentionally provided «right» answers, which fit the politically correct line, and then casting their ballots the way they wanted.

Opposing ideologies

On the surface, the present elections revolved around the figure of flamboyant Trump, a non-establishment candidate who survived two assassination attempts and who positioned himself as a «blue collar [people’s] billionaire». For a second time, he challenged the power of Washington DC bureaucracy (or the «deep state», according to his supporters). To oppose him, Democratic opponents, who demonized him as a fascist and the embodiment of the Satan, chose vice-president Kamala Harris. This little-known career politician from California became known for her unsuccessful pitch for American presidency in 2019, when she miserably failed in a debate with then Democratic politician Tulsi Gabbard who too took part in the first round of debates as a potential candidate. Joe Biden nevertheless picked up Harris to fill his vice-president vacancy because his circle felt they needed to include this «strong woman of color» to just in case placate Black voters (in a second 2019 Democratic debate, Harris labeled Biden a racist).

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott Photo: LOREN ELLIOTT / REUTERS

Nevertheless, behind the personalities of Trump and Harris, one could see major issues that set apart Democrats and Republicans. This presidential campaign was about the future trajectory the United States is going to take as a country with a potential ripple effect for the rest of the world. On the one side, we had Democrats, whose ideology focused on questioning and eroding the basic pillars of the Western Civilization such as civic nationalism (treating citizens of a nation equally irrespective of their racial and ethnic origin), freedom of speech, free market, constitution, meritocracy, and color-blind system of justice.

The ideology of the Democratic Party questions the main pillars of Western civilization, such as equal treatment of citizens regardless of race and ethnicity, freedom of speech and meritocracy.

The Democratic Party, which shifted to the left for the past fifteen years, has been seeking to supplement or replace those values with globalism, expansive welfare state, centralized federal power, racial and gender quotas, and the equality of outcomes (so-called equity) at the expense of equality of opportunities. On the other side, we had Trump, who favored civic nationalism, freedom of speech, federalism, decentralization, reduced welfare state, lower taxes, color-blind justice, border security to safeguard the country against the illegal immigration. At the same time, claiming the protection of domestic manufacturing, Trump loaded that sensible agenda with a popular but economically questionable project of imposing high tariffs on foreign products, which will eventually increase the prices of goods.

The fight for support

Although by the end of October the greater part of people already knew who they were going to vote for, we still had 6 per centage of voters who could not make up their minds whom they might support. These six percent as well as seven so-called swing states(Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), where the voters were evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, became the major object of a contest between Harris and Trump.

Democrats, who control the greater part of the mainstream media and cultural narrative in the US, became prisoners of their own confirmation bias and wishful thinking, making up doom and gloom predictions for Republicans and interpreting each election campaign incident in their favor. For example, two days prior to the elections, misreading the actual consequences of two campaign-related incidents, New York Times was happy to inform its readers that “the news over the last two weeks hasn’t been great for Mr. Trump, from his former chief of staff John Kelly saying he meets the definition of a fascist to a speaker at Mr. Trump’s event at Madison Square Garden calling Puerto Rico an «island of garbage». Nothing could be more far from reality. Both incidents in fact benefited the Trump campaign.

Democrats, who control much of the US mainstream media and cultural narrative, became prisoners of their own bias and wishful thinking, predicting doom for Republicans.

The attempt of Democrats to pick up the old and worn-out smear label of fascism and use it against Trump turned out to be a false shot. It made little sense to stamp as fascist the candidate whose presidential campaign agenda included the defense of federalism (states’ rights), decentralization, and free speech. As early as the 1940s, in his «Politics and English Language», George Orwell had already noted that «fascism» became a meaningless expression and favorite word of choice among his fellow socialists to demonize anything and anyone they did not like.

At some point, Biden woke up and contributed his two cents by making things worse for Harris by picking up the word «garbage» uttered by the comedian who spoke at the abovementioned Trump rally and threw it back at Trump voters, stressing that all of them were human garbage. One could not imagine making a worse mistake at the last days of the presidential campaign; when Harris was desperately trying to position herself as the would-be president of all Americans and when several never-Trump Republicans in fact joined her campaign, Biden, who was still considered the nominal president of the country, literally besmirched the half of the country. Moreover, his «garbage» remark strongly resembled a similar elitist utterance made by Hillary Clinton who dismissed all Trump supporters as the «basket of deplorables».

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump sits inside garbage truck, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S., October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Photo: Brendan Mcdermid

Still worse, the embarrassed Biden staff silently redacted his words on the White House web site to make them sound less offensive. This did not help either. In fact, it provided additional ammunition to Republicans who repeatedly blamed their opponents in manufacturing fake news and twisting words. To be fair, both sides have mastered the art of twisting each other’s words. Not wishing to miss a good opportunity, Trump went even further, capitalizing on Biden’s «garbage» remark.

While Harris tried to position himself as a unifying head of state for all Americans, Biden, who is still considered the country's legitimate president, literally insulted half the country.

During his next rally, the would-be president donned a garbage man orange jacket by driving a garbage truck with a huge Trump campaign logo. It was a good addition to his working-man performance in McDonalds, which was designated to poke fun of Harris, who once hinted she worked a minimum wage job sometime in the past, and to simultaneously amplify his affinity with the grass-roots.

Elections and money

Strictly speaking, there was no need for Trump to play to that «common people» narrative. Since the 2010s, the greater portion of the American working class, which in early times had been considered the backbone of the Democratic Party, has been increasingly voting Republican. In a gloomy manner, New York Times, a legacy newspaper that for the past ten years drifted further to the left, admitted that the working-class vote has been slipping away from Democrats: «America’s blue-collar voters have been turning increasingly red in recent years, and they seem to be leaning in that direction once again». Incidentally, in other Western countries, the proverbial «proletarians» of classical Marxian socialism too have been mostly voting for the right for the past twenty years.

By the 2020s, as a party, the Democrats came to cater more to the interests of the poorest marginal segment of welfare recipients, state and federal bureaucrats, university administrators, and big business interests that are closely linked to the government, simultaneously losing working-class people, small businesspeople, and Christian communities. It becomes harder for them to maintain the image of the «common» people’s party. Thus, it is difficult for Democrats to hide the fact that they have been enjoying an overwhelming support of the big business, particularly through the infusion of so-called dark money donations from left-leaning non-profit organizations – a morally reprehensible practice that is nevertheless not forbidden; law does not require non-profits who donate to political parties to reveal their sponsors.

The fact that the Republicans were able to secure a victory in 2016 and now with less campaign money than the Democrats proves once again that the old saying "he who pays, he orders the music" does not always work.

It is not to say that Republicans do not use the dark money. They do and, for example, this year Trump enjoyed support of such moguls as Elon Musk. The problem here is that Democrats, who are famous for verbally condemning that practice, have been collecting «dark money» on a much wider scale than their opponents. For example, in this election cycle, the Trump campaign received $23.2 million of such «dark» funds in contrast to Harris who gathered $195.8 million of «dark money». Reporters also found out that among the big names who delivered large chunks of such funds one could find LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman,

George Soros Photo: Myrna Suarez

billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. So much for the political force that still wishes to position itself as a «working class» party. Such blatant hypocrisy did not add to the popularity of Democrats in general and Harris personally who, during her tenure as an Attorney General in California, passionately denounced the use of «dark money» in an election process.

Finally, the total amount of money donated to Democrats for their presidential campaigns in 2016, 2020, and now in 2024 has always exceeded whatever funds Republicans were able to raise for their own campaigns. Take for example, the present elections. Between January 2023 and October 2024, the Biden-Harris campaign committee raised total $997.2 million, whereas Trump’s campaign was able to secure only $388 million. To be honest, I am surprised how, with their smaller amount of campaign cash, Republicans were still able to reach out to the half of the country’s population, secure a victory in 2016, and now in 2024 to completely crush Democrats by not only winning the presidency but also taking over both branches of the American Congress. I guess this proves again that the old saying «money talks» does not always work.

Harris' election promises

If we were to digest their rhetoric, Democrats came to these elections by promoting the following political and economic agenda. Politically, they peddled identity politics, focusing on uplifting so-called protected victim groups («people of color» and various gender minorities) that were singled out for special treatment and financial set asides. This policy turned out to be a huge liability because such reverse discrimination (that is officially called affirmative action) has disgusted many Americans, who traditionally embraced meritocracy, judging and uplifting people not because of their race, ethnicity, and gender status but because of their skills and work ethics. Democrats also closely linked their agenda to the climate change ideology with its economically unsustainable proposals of the reduction of the use of fossil fuels, which antagonized many Americans.

At the same time, by speaking in favor of a unconditional nationwide legalization of abortions, Democrats gained much support among their own base, among libertarians, and even some Republicans. By now, 61 per centage of Americans want this whole issue to be depoliticized by making it an individual choice of each woman. Moreover, sensing that on this issue, the majority was on their side and being unable to challenge Republicans on many other matters, Democrats made abortion the central issue of their whole campaign. Another potent populist card that brought Democrats many votes was their promise to partially or completely cancel debts of 45 million young adults who borrowed substantial funds to cover their college tuition. If fulfilled, that rhetorical proposal would have disrupted the credit and banking system of the country. Hoping to secure a wide support among low information public, Harris also proposed a Soviet-style economic measure, suggesting that food producers be forced to lower prices. The latter even shocked some of her ardent supporters, who knew that it was a sure way to create food shortages. Very closely to that unsustainable plan was her plan to introduce rent controls to force homeowners to reduce their rents. Another Harris’s economically unsustainable measure was a demand to increase corporate income tax from current 21 to 28 per cent, which would have further prompted businesses to escape the country.

Currently, the major support for Democrats comes from government employees, universities, big business, and minority groups (especially those who enjoy special governmental perks and set asides). Still, to the frustrations of his opponents, for the past eight years, Trump made inroads among the latter segment of population. Some «people of color» became drawn to Trump’s down to earth rhetoric that contrasted with the cold official style of Democrats and establishment Republicans. Thus, this fall, 17 per cent of Black voters were ready to vote for the former president: no Republican presidential candidate has ever scored so high among this group of population since 1960. Incidentally, since 2008, employing Obama as their token «black», Democrats successfully used on Republicans the cry racism tactics, which later became their favorite weapon of choice. Whenever Republicans criticized Obama social and economic policies, Democrats always morally disarmed them by saying that Republicans did so because they did not like the first «black» president. In such situations, Republicans had to constantly explain that they were not racists, which conveniently shifted a narrative away from major issues. Such tactics did work until Trump came to office in 2016. Professing civic nationalism and refusing to excuse himself and apologize, he instead attacked and made fun of Democrats for their cry racism tactics.

Trump's backlash

Trump built his presidential campaign on stressing the strong economic performance of the country during his tenure. There are indeed clear figures of economic accomplishments during Trump’s tenure. The median household family income was 8.2 per centage higher in 2020, when Trump left the office, than in 2016. When Biden came to power, his administration opened doors to a skyrocketing inflation that ruined family incomes: in the wake of the covid panic and mass shutdowns, Biden administration increased cash distribution (so-called «helicopter money»). Originally designated to help only those who either lost their jobs or businesses, this policy was expanded by Democrats to include everybody who was making less than $75,000 to show off that they cared about the «common people». For example, although I personally never got sick with Corona and never lost my job, under Democrats the federal government automatically issued me checks for several hundred dollars each. Such reckless measures opened doors to inflation.

Trump built his presidential campaign on emphasizing the country's strong economic performance during his tenure, which there is compelling evidence of in truth.

Although from 2020 to 2023, salaries of people formally increased, the inflation has eaten much of that gain and the median family income increased by only 1.3 per centage. Although stocks and prices for houses did increase under Biden, inflation again destroyed those gains. All in all, under Biden, the real income growth was lower than under Trump. People eventually came to feel the burden of inflation when they had to face sky high grocery prices and when they began comparing their real purchasing powers under Trump and under Biden. Media, bloggers, and experts on both sides of political spectrum have stressed that economy along with a border security policy is the strongest side of the Trump campaign. It is notable that in such influential swing state as Pennsylvania, which traditionally voted Democrat and which went to Republicans this fall, people favored Trump (50 per centage to Harris 44 per centage) when they talked about the best candidate to handle the US economy.

Trump other popular proposal was to cancel racial and gender mandates and special treatment for selected «protected groups». One of the major Republican targets was the network of so-called DEI (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) departments that appeared as early as the 1980s-1990s in a form of OEO (Offices of Economic Opportunities) and that later metastasized in permanent watchdog bureaucracies that by now exist in all state, federal, corporate, and educational institutions. Their major job is to promote racial and gender quotas and to police morality of employees to make sure it fits politically correct behavior.

People pray during the start of the Turning Point USA Believers Summit conference where former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at the Palm Beach Convention Center on July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. Earlier in the day, Trump had met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago. Photo: Joe Raedle

With the presidential campaign being mostly focused on domestic issues, Trump nevertheless has something to say on foreign policy matters, presenting himself as a peace maker and inviting to follow the old Reagan prescription: peace through strength. Specifically, with the limited and uneven Western support of Ukraine, which led to the current stalemate in the Russian-Ukrainian War, Trump literally wants to shut this war down through forced negotiations. On the Israeli-Iran/Hamas hostilities, in contrast to the vague position of Democrats, Trump stands firmly on the side of Israel. To his credit, since 1945, in contrast to all his predecessors in the White House, Trump was the only one who did not initiate any war during his tenure.

In 2015, when Trump made his first steps on the political arena, one of his Nevada fans installed by a highway a self-made billboard with Trump in a knight’s armor slaying a dragon. The billboard, which captures well his sudden and unpredictable «slash and burn» approach in domestic and foreign policy, was later vandalized and trashed. It remains to be seen how many economic, political, and cultural «dragons» Trump will be able to slay at home and abroad.