We Have Done It Again

Shealah Craighead

System Shock

Election night in the United States was quite the ordeal this year. Many people stayed up late into the night to see for themselves who would be coming out on top. Would it be Kamala Harris, the younger and impassioned Democrat; or Donald Trump, the blustering and radically conservative Republican? The longtime prosecutor, or the convicted felon? I turned away from the live coverage, trying to squeeze in a good night’s rest and saving the election drama for the morning. So at 6:30 AM on Wednesday, I opened my phone and Googled “election results 2024”. In my sleep-addled state, I’m not sure what I was expecting. Frankly, I didn’t think that the election would have been decided yet. What I most certainly did not expect, though, was an electoral map awash in red. I did not expect to see that not only had Donald Trump clinched the electoral vote, but the popular vote as well – something he hadn’t managed to do back in 2016! Over the next couple of days, I realized that most people at CMS were just as bewildered as I was. So I set out on a mission to answer a simple question: how did this happen?

The Right Mindset

Connecticut has, throughout the years, voted consistently Democratic in presidential elections. 8th-grade students will recall from Social Studies that Westport supported Harris by a margin of more than seventy percent. Thus, it’s fair to say that most people in our community don’t quite grasp the draws of Trump’s campaign. We’ll think back to the riot on January 6, 2020, his discriminatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community, or his ludicrous and unproven claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, and we’ll wonder how anybody thinks that he is fit to lead. However, it is important to remember that political environments vary greatly across the country. It can be hard to understand just how politically isolated most of us are. Harvard research revealed that Democrats and Republicans are heavily ‘segregated’ in terms of their living locations. Even within neighborhoods, members of the same party seem drawn to each other. This results in an echo chamber of sorts, allowing beliefs to flower with little exposure to opposing ideas. It’s good to keep this in the back of your mind when dealing with politics, to temper your frustration.

What Trump Did Right

The economy was very big on voters’ minds leading up to this election. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the US economy very hard; understandable for a global pandemic. However, the economic slump continued after the pandemic died down, through Biden’s presidency. While it was recovering along the way, the effect of rising grocery prices in those four years was largely psychological. In many voter’s cases, it would be folly to vote for a continuation of the same policies. Trump promised to fix the inflation crisis, and he didn’t stop there. A driving campaign promise of his was to slam foreign industries (especially China’s) with heavy tariffs. While the probability of success for these tariffs seems iffy from my perspective, the idea of bringing manufacturing and jobs back into the US was very appealing. Trump was also able to salvage the potentially disastrous debacles of his felony convictions and other prosecutions. The narrative he spun was such that it seemed plausible to believe that the trials were being weaponized politically. Rather than turning away his more devoted supporters, these allegations galvanized them. Though I don’t personally support his actions, Trump’s ability to put a new lens on the truth is almost impressive.

What Harris (and the Democratic Party) Did Wrong

When it was announced that Kamala Harris would be replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate, there was a huge outpouring of revitalized support. She was fresh, new, and more than well enough equipped to take down the aging Republican candidate… or so it seemed. In reality, the Harris campaign struggled to make itself distinct from Biden’s administration, where she had been vice president. Harris didn’t emphasize her identity as a Black and Asian American female candidate, the election of whom would have broken multiple glass ceilings. Instead, she just represented, facelessly, the incumbent party. As I mentioned above, voters weren’t happy with the state of the country and the economy during the Biden administration. Adding to economic woes was the outbreak of wars in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. Trump voters were likely more confident in his ability to handle those conflicts, and indeed he boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine almost immediately after his inauguration. While this seems unlikely, it was a promise, and the Democratic party offered very few promises. They had little to offer.

Is it Enough?

There were reasons to vote for Donald Trump this election, that is plain to see. The question is, do these reasons justify his reelection? Should Democrats be swayed to the other side? This is a matter of pure opinion, but in my mind, the answer is clear: no. Taking a closer look at the facts, we can see that the Biden administration experienced record economic growth, recovering from the pandemic that Trump mishandled while he was in office. Kamala Harris was criticized for not offering a path forward, and running instead a solely negative campaign against Trump. That’s okay! Hearing what I have heard about Trump’s incendiary comments and shortsighted policy ideas, voting for someone on the grounds of simply not being Trump seems reasonable. However, I have to take a step back and remember my political isolation. Some people truly believe that Trump represents the best path forward for our country. I hope they’re right.