My Seven Takeaways From Donald Trump's Shocking Victory
Mehdi reflects on what we learned on election night, and what lies ahead for America.
It happened.
Trump won.
Again.
In a shocking turn of events, Donald J. Trump, disgraced ex-president and convicted criminal, will be returning to the Oval Office in a few weeks, flanked by Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others.
We had been told it was a close race. We had been told the momentum was with Kamala Harris. We had been told that we might have to wait several days for the result.
But, nope, Trump not only won; he won big and won fast.
So, here are my top seven insta-takeaways from a historic election night.
1. Trump is Teflon
He was impeached twice, the second time for inciting an armed insurrection that almost got his own vice president killed. He was charged with 88 criminal offenses in four different jurisdictions, and convicted on 34 of them. A jury of his peers also found him liable for sexual abuse in a civil case in Manhattan. Plus, a tape recording of Jeffrey Epstein (Jeffrey Epstein!) emerged just days before the election in which the infamous pedophile referred to himself as Trump's “closest friend.”
And yet... Trump triumphed on Tuesday. Unlike in 2016, he is also on track to win the popular vote – the first Republican to do so since 2004.
2. It Wasn't the Genocide
Yes, it is tempting to say that Harris' defeat was a consequence of Gaza and her shameful refusal to budge on US support for Benjamin Netanyahu. And yes, Michigan may have swung against the Democrats because large numbers of Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans saw the genocide in Gaza as a red line (Trump even won Dearborn!).
But Trump's victory over Harris goes way, way beyond Michigan and Muslim Americans. It is something much bigger and much broader. As I write this, the former president is on course to win every single swing state, both in the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt. He won Texas by a bigger margin this time around than he did in 2016. He narrowed the Democrats' margins in historically blue New York and New Jersey. He also made massive, perhaps consequential, inroads with Latino voters, who, of course, likely didn't pick Trump over Harris because of Gaza.
(On the topic of genocide, by the way, you'll never guess which world leader was the first on social media to congratulate Trump on his victory and heap praise on him.)
3. Kamala Harris Screwed Up
Voters did not want Joe Biden. They made that clear in poll after poll after poll. The president eventually got the message, but only after he crashed and burned in the live TV debate with Trump in June and only after Nancy Pelosi basically shivved him. And yet, after a brief honeymoon over the summer, Harris bizarrely decided to run as Biden 2.0. She inherited his campaign team and then refused to break with her boss, not just on Gaza but on pretty much every major issue. And, in doing so, she missed chance after chance to be the 'change' candidate.
In fact, for me, the moment Harris lost this election came on Oct. 8, in an interview on 'The View,' when she was asked if she would have done anything differently than Biden over the past four years.
Her answer? “There is not a thing that comes to mind."
Insanity.
4. The 'Vibecession' Never Ended
The economy was a top issue for voters. It may have been the issue that swung it for Trump. Despite the fact that the US economy, under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, is the strongest economy in the Western world, with US growth since the pandemic outstripping Canada, the EU, and the UK. Despite the fact that unemployment is at 4%, one of the lowest rates for 50 years. Despite the fact that real wages are higher now than they were when Trump left office.
And yet people refuse to believe it. Much of the Biden presidency was dominated by talk of a 'vibecession' – this disconnect between the (positive) state of the economy and the (negative) view of it held by most Americans. As recently as June, almost 6 in 10 Americans falsely believed that the US was in a recession.
Again, insanity.
5. Get Ready for President Vance
Donald Trump is 78 years old, in horrible physical and mental shape, and prohibited by the Constitution from running again in 2028.
JD Vance, hater of childless cat ladies, is 40 years old and about to become the third-youngest vice president in American history.
He is now Trump's clear political heir; the MAGA standard-bearer of the future.
6. Fascism Is Coming
"He certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure." That's how John Kelly, retired Marine general and Trump's own former chief of staff in the White House, described the GOP candidate just days ago in yet another stunning intervention in the election campaign that had... precisely zero impact on the outcome of this race.
Nevertheless, it's undeniably true. Trump is a fascist. You don't have to take Kelly's word for it, or even listen to Trump's former top general, Mark Milley (who has said Trump is "fascist to the core"). Just take Trump's own word for it. He has vowed to be a “dictator” who would "terminate” the constitution and put the military on the streets. He has threatened his political opponents – who he calls “scum,” “vermin,” and the Hitler-esque “enemy within” – with imprisonment while promising his supporters that, once he wins, they'll never have to vote again.
What do we call that, other than the F-word? So be prepared for the kind of American authoritarianism that we have never seen before in our lifetimes.
7. Solidarity Matters
Yes, a majority of American voters may have cast their votes for an unhinged racist and demagogue who is promising a “bloody” program of mass deportation and a new and bigger 'Muslim ban,' but the rest of us need to stick together. Solidarity is about to become the most important word in our political vocabulary.
My friend Erika Andiola, the immigrant rights activist whose experience as an undocumented migrant herself helped shape her work, tweeted late last night:
"Pray for our immigrant families in the United States. We might need it for the next 4 years. You have no idea what’s about to come if the results don’t change. We will need you."
We need each other. And so, for the next four years, solidarity is the name of the game.
That's what we learned, above all else, on election night 2024.
Please don’t overthink this result. America is a fundamentally racist country and white people overwhelmingly rejected a Black/Asian woman.
More critically America is a deeply misogynistic country and so this time white people were helped by Latino and Black men in defeating an immensely qualified woman.
The only thing that trump ran on was hatred of people of color and diminishment of women. And it worked.
No other issues really mattered.
I'm sorry to say I'm not that surprised by the election results. Harris had three strikes against her: 1) she is a women, 2) she is a person of color, and 3) she didn't distance herself from Biden's Gaza policies. I think 1) and 2) were probably more important than 3) in determining the outcome. Those of us who understand what Trump represents need to network, get organized, and fight like hell against what's coming our way!!