With few exceptions, governments in democratic countries around the world are losing elections. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the heaviest wave of inflation in four decades, discontent has spread across broad layers of society and social media. If anyone can channel frustration, it’s Donald Trump. Taking advantage of the damage created by rising prices and making mass immigration the scapegoat for almost all ills, Republican wins US presidential election is resoundingly immune to scandal. He relied on the votes of low-income citizens without a college education, with working-class support ranging from whites to Latinos to African Americans.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris got the most results pro-union mission In the history of the United States. Even the president joined the picket line supporting autoworkers and the government to mediate on behalf of workers in other labor disputes. However, low-income segments have turned their backs on the Democratic Party, which has historically been their defender on the traditional left and right axes. In reality, it is no longer so much a question of left or right: voters have punished governments of both stripes when tested at almost every ballot box. This has happened in recent years in parliamentary elections in Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Italy and France.

Trump’s demagogic populism has proven stronger than political tradition. The exaggerated former president has been saying this for almost four years: USA was going to hell. He painted an apocalyptic picture of a country in decline that had little to do with reality, but was widely accepted with the help of conservative media fronted by Fox News.

The Republican had some strong arguments. He inherits a thriving economy with virtually no unemployment and inflation under control, but prices have risen more than 20% in Biden’s four years in office. Economists emphasized that in a country where cars are dispensable only in some big cities, inflation especially affects voters with low purchasing power due to the increase in prices of vital basic products such as food and gasoline.

The question in which Ronald Reagan put the final nail in Jimmy Carter’s coffin in the only presidential debate of the 1980 elections was on the minds of Democrats: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” People don’t seem to remember that four years ago, in the middle of a pandemic, the economy was in recession, tens of thousands of people were dying, unemployment was skyrocketing, and the situation in the United States was chaotic. But they remember how much it cost them not too long ago to go shopping, fill up their gas tank, or go out to dinner.

Multi-ethnic coalition

“Trump and campaign officials believed it was possible to leverage Republicans’ growing strength among white working-class voters to build a multi-ethnic working-class coalition. They were right,” William A. Galston, a Brookings Institution expert, explained Wednesday. Frustration with economic uncertainty and rising prices has hit Latinos and African Americans especially hard, where Trump has gained ground while retaining his traditional base.

This is great news for the Republican Party. In a country increasingly ethnically diverse, over-reliance on white votes puts him at a disadvantage compared to Democrats. If he manages to maintain or expand this new support, the changes seen in Tuesday’s election “could mark a new era in American politics,” according to Galston. “President Donald Trump Historic support from Spanish voters Because he has never wavered on the issues that matter most to our community: cutting costs, revitalizing the economy, restoring America’s prosperity, securing borders, and security at home and abroad.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent ally of the Democrats, evaluated the events on Wednesday. “It shouldn’t be too surprising that a Democratic Party that has abandoned working-class people sees the working class abandoning them, too.” he said.

In economic terms, the promise of widespread tax cuts – some of which are tailored to the needs of the economy, such as: tax deductions on tipsovertime and Social Security benefits worked, and so did the promise of huge tariffs on imports. Economists have warned that such protectionism would increase inflation, but workers see it more as a way to defend themselves against the excesses of globalization.

xenophobic message

Trump also repeated the xenophobic message that brought him to the White House in the 2016 election. Once again he had raw material to work with. The arrival of illegal immigrants has skyrocketed during Biden’s term, causing problems for some communities across the country. No, they don’t eat dogs and catsThey are not responsible for all crimes, either, but Republicans paraded the heartbreaking testimonies of some real victims to turn rare cases into a category.

The president-elect used immigrants as scapegoats for economic difficulties, even though the reality was the opposite. They’re taking away American jobs, making housing more expensive, overrunning public services, and taking away federal emergency funds: whether it’s a hoax or real, what matters is that the message gets through, even among resident Latinos who have the right to vote.

Rather than softening his rhetoric to seduce centrists with his extremist messages, Trump chose to mobilize his followers and attract new, dissatisfied voters who had not gone to the polls in the past. This worked for him.

Among new voters, Trump did well not only among white men, but especially among young men. He connected with successful podcasters like Joe Rogan by appearing on their shows. to whom did he give a three-hour interview? Even if it means making his supporters wait two hours at a rally. He has also embraced cryptocurrencies, an asset that many young people are investing in.

Trump also has tremendous charisma. He is a star, an entertainer, a person who can make outrageous statements at his rallies at no cost to himself. Although he is a billionaire and a friend of billionaires, he still has an anti-establishment vibe that gets him through times of discontent. Rather than an election between two candidates, November 5 was largely a referendum on him. And he won.

Election gains

Data and polls show where their voter base is and where their position has improved the most compared to 2020. Polling figures show counties with more than 25% Latino populations improved their net results by 9.5 points. Those with more African Americans than this percentage have 4.1 points. It was also particularly strong in regions where less than 20% of the population had higher education, gaining 4.8 points. It gained 5.6 points among those aged 18-34.

Exit polls complete the picture of voting data. CNN’s poll surprisingly shows Trump receiving more votes among women than among men. Closing the gender gap that appears to be widening. “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women,” former secretary of state Madeleine Albright said at a 2016 campaign rally. Many women chose not to help Harris. The gap in favor of the Democrats is said to have narrowed to just 10 points on Tuesday from Biden’s 15 points in 2020, but the figures need to be treated with caution as the poll results do not appear entirely consistent with the final tally.

The same poll shows that Trump narrowed the score gap among 18- to 29-year-olds from 24 points to 13 points, and there was also a big draw among men. Despite the Republicans’ success in courting them, many young leftists have also turned their backs on the Democratic Party because of the Gaza war.

Where the poll points to a more pronounced shift is in the Latino vote; The gap narrowed by 25 points from 33 to just 8 points, with Trump leading among men. This development is partially related to another improvement of 14 points among non-college-educated non-white voters, consistent with continuing to crush non-college whites. The big improvement among low- and middle-income voters (12 points among those earning up to $50,000 a year and 17 points among voters earning between $50,000 and $100,000) also points in the same direction. Harris, on the other hand, prevailed among those with incomes of more than $100,000.

But one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is the contrast between rural areas and cities. According to the CNN poll, in the first one, Trump increased his 15-point lead in 2020 to 27 points in 2024, while Democrats increased from 22 points to 23 points in the cities. Additionally, the suburbs became pro-Trump, going from a two-point disadvantage to a positive lead of the same amount.

Income and urbanization data show how the traditional parameters of the left-right divide are shattered and the competition between cosmopolitanism and ethno-nationalism is intensifying, as political scientist Steven Levitsky has argued, while also highlighting the widespread “anti-government humor.” World.

Trump played his cards well. He has softened his messaging on immigration and the economy, but he has also softened his stance on abortion, which is very profitable for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. Supreme Court decision repealing it as a federal right. He portrayed Harris as a radical leftist with cultural wars that galvanized his voters. He even managed to take advantage of his scandals, accusations, trials and convictions to present himself as a martyr at the target of persecution and strengthen his anti-system image. Xenophobia, hoaxes, demagoguery and populism, the source of discontent, gave him the keys to the White House.

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