For the Democrats, it was a far worse result than anyone forecast. They lost the popular vote, they lost the electoral college, they lost 28 of the states, they lost the Senate, and they lost the House of Representatives. They also lost some gubernatorial races. Donald J Trump beat Vice-President Harris by 7 million votes.
That is 4% of the popular vote. Note that 3 states are yet to declare, and it looks as though DJT shall take all three. However, the scale of the defeat should not be overstated. The Democrats lost by only 3% points. That is the margin of error. They could easily claw that back next time. In 1988 they lost by 8% points. In 1992 they won by 9% points.
The opinion polls underrated Mr Trump in 2016 and 2020. Pollsters strove to correct this. But they did not manage it. He performed 5% points better than the poll of polls stated.
Pollsters can only report what people tell them. Trump voters tend to be low in social trust. They do not wish to speak to the media or pollsters on the whole. That is why pollsters often cannot get through to them. There is such detestation of Trump that those who say they will vote for him are often subject to vituperation.
There were Republican-held states that were drifting into the toss-up column such as Texas and Florida. They are now safe for the Republicans.
President Trump (as he is now becoming again) did very well in the swing states. His campaign was laser-focused on those seven that are determinative of the outcome.
Trump is about forcing Ukraine to capitulate to Russia; four square backing for the Gazan Genocide; saving children in the USA from being murdered by feminists; anti-environmentalism; stopping anti-white racism and preventing transvestites from going into all-female spaces to molest women and children. Donald J says he will deport millions of illegal immigrants. He is light on detail.
Trump said he will appoint his acolytes to the civil service. He wants to end the civil service as an impartial career service. He vowed to instrumentalise the Department of Justice to persecute his critics. Moreover, he promised to use the United States Military to oppress his opponents. Though Trump is the most mendacious man of all time he may be a man of his word when he vows vengeance.
How did Trump do it? 4 years ago, people spoke about the end of the Trump era. Most Republican politicians said he was a vote loser, and they needed to move on. There was much talk about Ron de Santis as their new standard bearer. The Governor of Florida was comfortably re-elected. He was young, and intelligent and appealed to many of the same people as DJT without being so crass. But in the end de Santis failed to connect. The party moved back to Donald J.
Trump did it by sticking to his flagrantly false conspiracy theories. It is the Big Lie Theory. The bigger the lie the more people believe it. His lies were repeated ad infinitum. The cognitively subnormal fell for that. A University of Zurich study proved that the USA has more gullibility than any other economically developed nation. Trump appeals to churchgoers in particular. Religious people are inclined to believe falsehoods despite probative evidence to the contrary.
Trump exploited worries about legal and illegal immigration. He blamed America’s economic woes on the poor. He claims the poor have far too much money. Donald disseminated baseless lies about people being reduced to eating pets.
The Republicans were able to use a dead cat strategy. That means that they brought up an issue that united their party and divided the other one. This was Palestine. The Republicans are viciously anti-Palestinian and applaud the slaughter of civilians there. There are Democrats who are just as genocidal. But there are some Democrats who recognise Palestinians as human and want Israel to abide by humanitarian law. The Democrats made some effort to persuade Israel not to murder quite so many Palestinians. Biden was repeatedly slapped in the face by Israel on this issue.
Some Democrats were so revolted by Biden’s craven submission to Israel’s war criminal cabinet that they either did not vote or even voted for Trump. But Trump will be even crueller than Biden. That is true but they believed that the Democrats must be punished. The Dems had to know that they could not take pro-Palestinian elements for granted. The Democrats will have to earn the votes of those who care about human rights.
Many had feared an indecisive result with one candidate or other winning by a handful of electoral votes and just a few thousand popular votes. Trump would claim victory even if he had lost. Then there would be weeks of court battles. There could have been literal battles. Trumpsters had convinced themselves that their man was bound to win and if he did not, that was proof positive of massive scale cheating by the Democrats.
Trump is the most unworthy president of all time. He is incurious, ignorant, arrogant, idle, a convicted criminal and a man who was proven in a court of law to have committed sexual assault on a woman. He is craven, cowardly, stratospherically vain and suffers from a host of psychological disorders, and personality flaws.
Self-aggrandisement is what drives Trump. He is conscienceless. Trump is narcissistic, cruel and a blowhard. It is very easy to manipulate him through flattery. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is at play.
Trump will be 78 and 3 months old when inaugurated. That will make him the oldest president ever. The life expectancy for an American male is 76. Bear in mind that Trump is morbidly obese with a BMI of 35. He has had coronavirus. He cannot walk more than 100 metres and uses golf carts for longer distances. Donald J only eats ultra-processed junk food. He has had an extremely stressful few years and it will continue like that during his presidency.
What does it say about the American people? At least they voted to protect children from the pandemic of female violence. But otherwise voting for Trump was absolutely sick. The victory of Trump proves how idiotic and irrational most people are. Despite proof positive of Trump’s dishonesty being off the charts; his criminality and his history of sex crimes most people voted for him anyway. He failed to deliver on any of his promises in his first term. It is staggering that so many people are attracted to impossibilism and his racist rants.
Democrats’ postmortem
The defeat for the Democrats is comprehensive. They lost the popular vote for the first time in 20 years. Last time George W Bush had incumbency, a growing economy and a still popular war. He was physically fit and against a candidate who was older than him.
This election should have been of the Democrats for the taking. They had a sitting vice-president as their candidate, they had the demographics moving their way, they had a salubrious economy, and they had peace. The wars abroad are not wars in which American troops are fighting.
The demographics moving their way is that the Democrats do well among non-whites. Non-white groups (including Hispanics) are increasing as a % of the population. College-educated people are increasing. They break heavily towards the Democrats. The secularisation of the USA also favours them. Those who worship on a weekly basis are more likely to vote Republican.
The Democrats need to take a long hard look at themselves. Joe Biden’s mental declension should have led to a declaration after the midterms that he would not seek a second term. But perhaps ego drove him on. Did the Democrats calculate that they stood a better chance of defeating Trump if Biden stood than if someone else stood for the Democrats? Outside the camarilla, few were cognizant of just how severely Joe Biden’s cognitive faculties had disimproved. What did Kamala Harris know and when did she know it? She publicly lied for President Biden and assured people that the commander-in-chief was as clear as a bell.
There was high inflation under the Democrats. That came down to normal levels by the end of Biden’s term. But a lot of people still did not forgive the Democrats. The government only has limited influence over inflation.
Generally speaking, the economy went well under Biden. Unemployment was low and falling. There was very healthy economic growth. Taxes were not too high. But the prices of some essentials rose sharply.
The Biden Administration’s financial aid to needy Americans did not win a lot of gratitude. His infrastructure programme was another economic boost. But again, he did not receive the credit he deserved.
Biden executed Trump’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in August 2021. A high majority of Americans approved of this. The chaotic and undignified scenes of withdrawal hurt Biden’s standing. Until then he had had net approval. Trump seized on this and exploited it shamelessly despite it being his policy to pull out. That Kabul fell to the Taliban immediately was deeply humiliating for the United States.
The Ukraine War began when it did for various reasons. The end of coronavirus was one. It would be unwise to assemble hundreds of thousands of soldiers with a pandemic on. Moreover, Putin had a better relationship with Trump than any Russian leader has had with any US President ever. Trump repeatedly took Putin’s side against his own intelligence agencies. Putin knew that Trump was highly unpredictable. How would he react to an invasion of Ukraine? Trump might react badly. Even if not, it might queer the pitch for his re-election. Better not to risk it until Trump wins re-election. Except he lost. The coronavirus lockdown also changed Putin’s mindset and made him impatient.
There was not much Russian interference in this campaign. They hardly needed to meddle. Too much meddling might actually work against Trump.
Putin said in 2018 that he had wanted Trump to win in 2016. There was large-scale Russian hacking of that campaign. Putin openly reviled Hillary Clinton because she stood by democracies that were aggressed by Russia.
In 2024 it was blatant that Russia wanted Trump back because the Biden Administration had been fairly good at arming Ukraine. Trump publicly pledged to betray Ukraine. Therefore, the Russian media said they wanted Kamala Harris to win. They had to counter the blindingly obvious truth that Russia wanted Trump back in the White House.
The Democrats are the only major party to have run a woman as a presidential candidate. Both lost. Three women have stood for Vice-President of a major party. Kamala H is the only one of them elected. Those who lost were Geraldine Ferraro for the Democrats in 1984 and Sarah Palin for the Republicans in 2008.
A significant minority of Americans say they opposed a woman as president. That is about 20% of voters. Most of those are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. But can the Democrats afford to alienate the others who are independents? On the other hand, there are some who ceteris paribus would prefer a female over a male. They may well outweigh the anti-female voters. I think that next time the Democrats shall not nominate a woman as their presidential candidate.
Miss Harris’ black and Indian ethnicity was supposed to be an advantage. No doubt it appealed to some racists. Perhaps there were some racialists who reacted against her ethnicity too.
The Democratic Party is dominated by racists and sexists. It is sworn to brainwash children into hateful ideologies. It is declaring war on male heterosexuality.
Kamala Harris’ debilities as a candidate must be studied. She is a thoroughly evil person like Trump. But she is evil in a different way. She was too liberal and a sworn enemy of children. Her bloodlust was deeply off-putting.
Vice President Harris has many qualities. She is intelligent, energetic, successful in her professional career and presentable. She is an effectual rhetor. On paper, she seemed credible.
Ms Harris could not think of a single thing that the US could have done better under Biden. She did not address people’s economic concerns. She failed to control illegal immigration and that was her portfolio.
Tim Walz was her running mate. Was he a catastrophic choice? He was on the bland side and too old. Walz is also someone driven by a violent hatred for children. He signed a law to deprive badly injured and very sick children of emergency medical care.
This was a turnout election. Very few people were undecided on Trump. That is why nothing that happened in the campaign changed many minds.
At 60 Kamala was neither old nor young for her role. She is 18 years younger than her opponent. But perhaps a much younger running mate would have boosted her.
Some say that Josh Shapiro should have been the running mate. He is the Governor of Pennsylvania. This is the crucial swing state because it has 19 electoral votes. But Shapiro was too Zionist. Therefore, he was not selected.
The torch shall pass to a new generation in 2028. Who will be the Democrats’ nominee 4 years hence? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes? Pete Buttigieg? Both would be seen as too minority.
The Dems relied heavily on women. Female voters voted mostly for Kamala but not by a sufficient margin. Not all women hate kids. The Democrats were not as successful with ethnic minorities as usual.
Consequences
The Republican-dominated Congress might pass the money to build a border wall with Mexico. It would not be finished in 4 years. Mass deportations of illegal immigrants might occur.
The Department of Justice does not investigate sitting presidents. These investigations into Trump would be delayed to 2028. If he is still alive, these cases may have passed the statute of limitations anyway.
Trump will cut off aid to Ukraine. Ukraine will be obliged to cave into Russia. That is because Europe is too parsimonious and shortsighted to arm and fund Ukraine. Crime must not pay. But it will pay, so aggressors shall be encouraged. Ukraine will never get into NATO. It may never get into the EU.
Putin will annex up to 20% of Ukraine and this will be accepted by the world officially or unofficially. Putin will build up his resources and continue grey zone warfare against Ukraine. In a few years, he will wait till the moment is propitious and try to annex the rest of Ukraine. Georgia is also in danger. Russia might even test the resolve of NATO to defend former Soviet states in the Baltic.
European NATO countries will increase their defence budgets again because the US is proving itself to be an unfaithful ally. Ironically that may deter Putin.
Trump will put tariffs on Chinese manufacturers. This is paid by American consumers and not the Chinese. But Americans will buy fewer Chinese goods so they might buy American instead. China’s economy is growing very slowly. It has more and more unemployed young people. China will be very worried about this. Beijing will be anxious to strike a deal with the United States. So, it might make major concessions to avoid or reduce tariffs.
The Chinese might invade Taiwan. It did not dare do so under Biden. Xi Jinping might convince Trump to let him retake the island.
There is no telling what Trump will do regarding the cruellest tyrant in the world. He bragged that he and Kim Jong Un fell in love. The United States could launch a military strike on North Korea or could lift all sanctions. It all depends on how skilfully Kim exploits Trump’s many psychological vulnerabilities.
The economic plan put forward by Team Trump could spell disaster. The lack of cheap Chinese imports will hurt ordinary Americans. Expelling illegal immigrants will increase labour costs. Trump wants a tax cut for the super-rich but not spending cuts. This will increase the budget deficit alarmingly. It is economically illiterate.
Trump will green-light an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. This will wreck the Iranian economy and severely retard the Iranian nuclear programme if there is one. This will be illegal, and it will allow Russia and others to excuse their own unlawful acts.
Iran will lick its wounds. It shall exact vengeance at some unspecified point in the future. But with Hamas annihilated and Hezbollah fatally enfeebled it is hard to see Iran exercising much sway in the Levant for years to come.
The US under Trump is likely to try to avoid foreign wars. But it will give carte blanche to allies. Saudi Arabia will intensify its campaign to slaughter Shia civilians in Yemen.
With Trump, there are no ethical or legal considerations. He only cares about himself.
The United States will continue to pollute apace. Climate change shall be accelerated. Other countries will ask why they should make economic sacrifices to save the planet when the USA makes none despite having the largest economy. It will be an ecological cataclysm.
Trump will go in four years, but Trumpism will not. Will Vice President Vance be re-elected? Probably. Who would be his running mate? Quite possibly it will be Ivanka Trump – the most telegenic of Donald’s five children. Other contenders are Tim Scott and Josh Hawley. The Trumpist formula of endless lying, ultra-aggression, vulgarity, anti-intellectualism, sadism, isolationism, Islamophobia and hysteria may yet succeed.
There is such a cult of the personality around Trump that it is questionable whether any other individual will be able to galvanise so many people. He succeeded in persuading people who do not usually bother to vote to come out and do so. The Grand Old Party also managed to get many of its voters to vote early which they usually do not.
There is no inevitability about a Democratic comeback. They have got to recognise that most Americans want drastic action on illegal immigration. They care about the economy. They do not want whites to be taught to hate themselves.
The author is a UK-based political analyst, and the opinions expressed here are his own