Trump will be President a second time. This is a rambling of thoughts about the outcome and how I feel.

Who I Voted For

Briefly, I voted for Kamala. I didn’t think she was an A+ candidate, but like a lot of people, Trump specifically was my issue. As I’ve written already, I find him to be an impulsive, divisive narcissist who doesn’t really care about the American people. The list of disqualifying acts is long. There are policy things I agree with and disagree with, but frankly nothing was important enough to me to overlook his character; that alone made him someone I couldn’t get behind.

That said, everything I’d heard / read said this was 50/50, so this outcome was not a surprise.

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Why Did Trump Win

Kamala the Candidate & the Democratic Party

Kamala was put in an impossible spot. She was forced to say that Biden was fit to run, until of course he wasn’t. What the Party did – keeping Biden in for as long as they did – was a disaster and rightfully caused a loss of trust with the average person. It also hurt Kamala’s chances to run a true campaign because of how little time she had.

People will debate whether or not there should have been a primary. I don’t feel strongly either way, Kamala felt like the obvious choice and time was short. It seems like she ran an okay campaign? She definitely did better than if Biden had stayed, but notably she couldn’t articulate what would be different between her and Biden. Clearly people wanted change. Which leads to the next reason.

Incumbents Worldwide are Falling

The Plain English Podcast with Derek Thompson is one of my favorites. He points out that incumbents in pretty much every developed country were ousted over the last 18 months. His theory is that this is an extension of Covid. Inflation was high across the globe and people everywhere felt they’d had enough of the party-in-power, regardless of what that party was.

Every country is unique, but this would temper the idea that the country all of a sudden loves Trump and hates the democrats. Afterall, there needs to be some explanation for the ubiquitous turn to the right for nearly the entire country. While democrats didn’t do themselves any favors, this note of incumbents feels extremely relevant.

Beyond that, there are dozens of theories as to why people turned to Trump. My general belief is that people are selfish and believe that him winning will improve their situation, be it economically, culturally, or whatever. I don’t necessarily think there is a one-size-fits-all explanation.

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Reacting to the Win (Loss?)

I live in a bubble. ~95% of the people I know are white, wealthy democrats. This makes the reactions I see pretty one sided, so I wanted to touch on two things.

Moral Superiority

Our party can struggle to win people over because, ironically, it can be exclusive. If you don’t have time for someone who voted for Trump, then you’re not really trying to understand half of the country. I do not believe that all Trump voters are racist, sexist, etc. There are people with lives and circumstances that I will never understand or experience who voted for Trump. For me to think that I know “more” than they do and tell them they’re “wrong” for doing that is what I take issue with.

Can we be upset at the result? Of course! But we need to have a little more humility and display a little more self reflection after such a decisive outcome. The instinct cannot be “well they’re still wrong“. It has to be more productive and open-minded. It has to be “what just happened, why did it happen, where did we go wrong“. Until then, Democrats will continue to be looked at by some as this condescending, know-it-all group, and who would want to be part of that?

Social Media Isn’t Real Life

I know I live in a bubble. I try to diversify what media I consume to offset this. Social media however wants to keep you in the bubble.

Confirmation bias content makes you think everyone is on your side, so Trump winning seems inconceivable. Then, after the election you can feel like the world is ending because there are hours of content saying this is the worst thing that has ever happened to the country, regardless of how it may impact your life over the next four years. There’s a sense of community in saying “life as we know it is over, and worst of all we were right!“, but for most people, especially the people in my bubble, I just don’t believe that to be the case.

Social media will almost certainly remain toxic to our culture for years to come. The hardest part about being in a bubble is recognizing it. Tim Urban’s What’s Our Problem feels particularly relevant now for more thoughts on this, which I recommend.

But be more resilient than letting social media make you think that this is a binary, all-things-will-get-worse result.

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The Next Four Years

All that said, I’m not really defending Trump himself. We’ll see what the next four years will look like. While I didn’t want Trump to win, as a citizen I’m genuinely curious how things will change and I have my fingers crossed that it’s for the better despite not really believing that will be the case.

Inevitably he will do a lot of things I disagree with, think are stupid, or am embarrassed by. And if he does, I hope the people recognize that. Alternatively, if he does something good, I hope we recognize that as well. But regardless, this is the result, and we have to live with it.

As for Democrats, I hope the party gets its shit together and puts forth a high quality, respectable candidate in 2028.

Until then, the world will go on as it always does.