Why I’m Glad Donald Trump Won
On one level, of course, I’m not glad Trump won. I would much rather live in a world in which he lost. I would have much preferred a world in which me and 140 million other Americans came together to elect a candidate who would systematically deconstruct the American empire and reorganize the government around providing sustainable energy, profit-free health care, and local, sustainable food systems to everyone in the United States.
Alas, that is not the world we live in, and my faith requires me to confront the world that is rather than the world that I wish for. In this world, Trump won, and he won quite decisively. This time, we can’t blame the Electoral College, because he won the popular vote. We can’t look to any one swing state or group because he won every swing state. We can’t really talk about party biases, because Trump has outperformed down-ballot candidates in many states. From the data available right now, it looks like he won majorities or significant minorities of just about every sub-demographic we can imagine—women, men, white, Latino, old, young. Only African Americans seem to have come out decisively for Harris. All of these data are subject to further granular analysis and the release of bigger, more detailed data sets, but at a bird’s eye view, it seems clear that this country has seen a shift to the right over the past four years because of, not in spite of, Donald Trump’s influence.
Much of the coverage I have consumed in the lead up and aftermath of the election has focused on the role of undecided, persuadable voters. Many of these people were still deciding days or hours before they cast their vote, or were indecisive in their desire to vote at all. Strategically, it is understandable that the campaigns focus enormous efforts on reaching these voters, and news media in turn focus their attention on the results of those efforts. From this perspective, it feels like the decisions of swing voters were the most important cause of Trump’s election.
We forget, though, that those swing voters wouldn’t matter at all if there weren’t millions of people who support Trump unfailingly. The current vote count gives Trump about 72 million votes. I don’t know if anyone knows exactly how many of those are enthusiastic supporters as opposed to simply moderate voters choosing what they feel to be the better of two bad options. I think it’s fair to say there are millions, perhaps tens of millions, of Americans, who love Trump. I live in Texas: I see their hats, signs, and bumper stickers almost every day. For these people, it does not matter that Trump was impeached, felony convicted, and called a fascist by his most senior White House staff. Or if it does matter, it makes them like him more.
My point is this: whether Trump won or lost, those millions of Americans weren’t going to just disappear. If he lost, we know some of them would have spent months or years trying to overturn the election, using methods ranging from lawsuits to legislation to intimidation and violence. Again, it’s hard to say exactly how many would be actively involved in these efforts and how many would support from the sidelines. The January 6 event involved a relatively small number, maybe a bit more than a thousand people. From experience, we know that it would be unpleasant, and we know that at the end of it, millions of people would still support Trump. If those efforts were successfully repelled, we would still be looking at four more years in which millions of Americans feel that the election was fraudulent, that democracy had failed them, and that both the state and the majority of Americans were their mortal enemies. And Trump would still be out there, talking to the press, garnering attention, and firing up his base with this disaffection. Trump’s influence was never going away.
Even in a post-Trump world—sooner or later, he must make his exit from the world of politics—these underlying problems are not going away. True, populist, fascist, and cult-of-personality movements rarely survive long past the death of their central figure. But Trump rose to political prominence riding a wave of discontent that started well before 2016. Those millions who support him were already mad during the Obama years. Maybe they were mad under Clinton and Bush as well. We can talk for years about the different reasons for this anger—racism, economic woes, social media, war, wokeness, messaging—but the bottom line is, it’s bigger than Trump, and probably even bigger than the two major political parties. When Trump is gone, I can all but guarantee there will be someone or something else waiting to pick up on the energy of his movement.
It is remarkable the extent to which all the campaigning, hand wringing, news coverage, and big talk had no effect on either side. While Harris trialed different strategies, policies, ideas, and messages, Trump made almost no changes and no effort to court anyone outside of his base. Somehow, neither approach mattered that much. Progressives ignored Harris’s record on Gaza, her concessions to conservatism on the border, and her relative silence on issues that animated 2016, such as healthcare and money in politics. Her record as a prosecutor garnered neither sympathy from police unions, nor scorn from libertarians and incarceration abolitionists. Businessmen ignored Trump’s habit of reneging on his debts, avoiding taxes, and leading companies into bankruptcy, hoping he will show a sympathy for small businesses as a president that he has never shown as a private citizen. Economically motivated voters did not seem interested in Harris’s plan to build houses, nor did they seem to contemplate the economic impact of tariffs and mass deportations. Whether Harris was the standard-bearer for Biden’s Democratic party or a radical-breaking change candidate, whether Trump was a change from Biden or a return to the past or a vision for the future, a wrecking ball against the deep state or a strong, unifying leader, everybody had already made up their mind.
I’m glad Trump won, and that he won decisively, because now we know where we stand. The Democratic Party, I hope, knows how ineffective their efforts at messaging have been since 2016. We can no longer talk about Trump being a minority ruler or a passing phase. He is America, and Americans are his supporters. Those of us who do not like that now have our work cut out for us. In the case of Harris victory, we may have been able to kid ourselves that Trump’s fans would come around on their own, that they weren’t serious, that they could be ignored while the real work of politics between two sides of an essentially unified neoliberal machine got negotiated and sorted out. We can’t just close our eyes and hope Trump’s supporters go away, and we can’t pretend that their problems aren’t real. Maybe we can ignore Trump himself—presidents never have quite as much power as we hope or fear—but if we want to look forward to a future that is different than this moment, we have to open our eyes and recognize our position. Trump’s ardent supporters will be drawn away from his feet not by the exhaustion of his momentum, but by the intercession of another movement, one that, like Trump, speaks plainly to the grievances of the majority of Americans and offers real, meaningful solutions.
Hey Andrew, been a long time, hope you’re doing good. I’m not really sure what the big idea of this post is supposed to be. You’re “glad” Trump won because now we know where we stand…and through this election we’ve been gifted the insight that conservatives are for real? A big problem is who the “we” is supposed to be. Clearly not conservatives. Progressives? Harris supporters? Anyone to the left of either? I mean idk who your blog’s audience is, but it seems like you’re trying to make an argument to a political body outside your own. You start the piece with a wish that there could’ve been a candidate all about dismantling US empire among other things – I have to imagine then that you, like me, ascribe to a strain of politics that’s pretty well aware of the failings of the Democratic party. Like, my introduction to leftist politics was listening to people talk shit about democrats and how they failed to learn the right lessons from 2016. It’s basically a cornerstone of colloquial american leftism – dunk on how badly liberals understand the right. Illustrative of this point is that the Harris campaign thought they could court moderates and conservatives who didn’t like Trump. Similar to what you pointed out, her campaign depended on the notion that Trump and american conservatism were at least *somewhat* incompatible. Either this plan failed miserably or this demographic of non-trump conservatives is tiny. Given that it was a losing strategy, I think a realistic takeaway for dems is that Harris could have garnered more support by proposing some fucking policies. Going on the record that you (harris) don’t disagree with Biden on anything is like, jesus christ did you even want to win? But even if she was like, a good candidate with basic proposals for progressives (say, an arms embargo, expanded medicaid, minimum wage increase), she couldn’t do anything to win the people you’re talking about, Trump fans. The kind of candidate that could harness conservative discontent, EVERYONE’s discontent, does not resemble any current leader in american politics (to my knowledge). If this is a “lessons learned” kinda post, then who is it for? The left has hammered on this forever – we need an intercession offering policies to improve the material living conditions of the working class. Trump’s audience feels like he is offering this to them – but to be clear, what he is in truth offering are NOT “meaningful solutions”. He was the change candidate but he was also the fucking fascist one, lol. And if your hope is that this musing will reach democratic/liberal eyes, I have some bad news: you made a blog post titled “Why I’m Glad Donald Trump Won”. I can’t imagine anyone but your friends will take you on good faith that actually, you’re not “glad” that he won, you’re just being cheeky and want his victory to instill into people that the only way forward is to organize around a mass movement comprised of all working class americans, including ones that liked trump. Right now, the NYT is running a “lessons learned ” piece that includes such brilliant insights like: she was too chill about those gross trans people, that Biden ruined it, and some stooge saying “The one way to beat a right-wing populist is through the center. You must become the party that is more pragmatic, reasonable and more sane.” So like, no, I don’t think the liberal opposition party is going to learn from this and transform into a radically different political operation. I think they’ll do what they’re already inclined to do: reiterate over and over that the status quo is fine and those pesky republicans keep messing it up!
One last thing: “Her record as a prosecutor garnered neither sympathy from police unions, nor scorn from libertarians and incarceration abolitionists.” What prison abolitionists fell behind Harris?? My perception was the exact opposite: I was informed of her history as a prosecutor *by* abolitionists who fucking hate her guts. Are you referring to a specific endorsement? I get that we all exist inside epistemological bubbles but that seems crazy to me.
Anyway, sorry to shit on your post but like you’re asking for it with a title like that. Come on. That was the sort of shit guys would say in 2016 because they were spiteful about sanders. Your position that people ought to be shocked/radicalized into a better political understanding of america is hopeful, but framing it as a silver lining to what will be actually quite devastating is lame. Things can and probably will get way worse. Saying contrarian shit is annoying when im willing to bet we have many political interests in common. There is still lots to be hopeful about – I’d never lead a discussion about this with “I’m Glad Trump Won”.
Thanks for your reply Jules. As you say, the audience for my blog is mostly friends and family–I’m not expecting this to gain any kind of real traction. I do think the weakest point of this whole thing was my attempt to articulate the apparent ineffectiveness of Harris’s campaign. I was kind of writing off the cuff and trying to avoid turning this into a big research piece so I really just made up examples based on anecdotes–I realize there were a lot of people who didn’t fall into party line one way or the other because of these and other issues. In this specific case, I’m sure there were some prison abolitionists who withheld their vote or voted third party, but there were also lots of people who care about mass incarceration but still voted for Harris. I suppose I can’t say for sure whether this is many or most or just some of voters, because I don’t have the interest to troll the data that closely and the specific data that would answer these questions won’t be out for months anyway. My broader point was that the polls moved shockingly little in reaction to anything that happened–all the independents, progressives, persuadable moderates, anti-Trump Republicans etc. amounted to just a few percentage points in any direction.
I feel like your reading of my post is about in line with what I intended, except that you seem to be bothered by my title. I will say this: when I say I’m glad he won, aside from being “cheeky”, what I really mean is that I don’t think the election itself is the start and end of our problems. History suggests that a fascist losing an election, especially a close, contested one, is rarely the end of the fascist movement. And on an emotional level, I find the dread of today preferable to the uncertainty of a week ago. I guess I’m saying I prefer to fight my enemy out in the open, and now I think there is a good chance of everyone being on the same page about the stakes and the dimensions of the fight ahead. This is the “we” of my essay–not just progressives, but anyone who would participate in a political struggle here. I wouldn’t call that a silver lining; to me it is about salvaging things of value from a shipwreck.
You’ve organized and eloquently articulated so many thoughts and ideas. Very inspiring and challenging.