Trump Voters Got What They Wanted
Those who expect that Donald Trump will hurt others, and not them, are likely to be unpleasantly surprised.
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Democrats and liberal pundits are already trying to figure out how the Trump campaign not only bested Kamala Harris in the “Blue Wall” states of the Midwest and the Rust Belt, but gained on her even in areas that should have been safe for a Democrat. Almost everywhere, Donald Trump expanded his coalition, and this time, unlike in 2016, he didn’t have to thread the needle of the Electoral College to win: He can claim the legitimacy of winning the popular vote.
Trump’s opponents are now muttering about the choice of Tim Walz, the influence of the Russians, the role of the right-wing media, and whether President Joe Biden should not have stepped aside in favor of Harris. Even the old saw about “economic anxiety” is making a comeback.
These explanations all have some merit, but mostly, they miss the point. Yes, some voters still stubbornly believe that presidents magically control the price of basic goods. Others have genuine concerns about immigration and gave in to Trump’s booming call of fascism and nativism. And some of them were just never going to vote for a woman, much less a Black woman.
But in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.
Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of “illiberal populism,” the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries.
And so it came to pass: Last night, a gaggle of millionaires and billionaires grinned and applauded for Trump. They were part of an alliance with the very people another Trump term would hurt—the young, minorities, and working families among them.
Trump, as he has shown repeatedly over the years, couldn’t care less about any of these groups. He ran for office to seize control of the apparatus of government and to evade judicial accountability for his previous actions as president. Once he is safe, he will embark on the other project he seems to truly care about: the destruction of the rule of law and any other impediments to enlarging his power.
As Jonathan Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it in a social-media post last night: The election went the way it did “because America wanted Trump. That’s it. People reaching to construct [policy] alibis for the public because they don’t want to grapple with this are whistling past the graveyard.” Last worries that we might now be in a transition to authoritarianism of the kind Russia went through in the 1990s, but I visited Russia often in those days, and much of the Russian democratic implosion was driven by genuinely brutal economic conditions and the rapid collapse of basic public services. Americans have done this to themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.
The bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
Trump, unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.