Why did Trump win? For a majority of voters, he was more attractive than the alternative. The main theories that collectively explain the majority preference are:
Trump was the change candidate. Voters do not like the federal government. Harris was the establishment and voters wanted to burn the establishment to the ground. For the “burn it all down” voter, criminal convictions, indictments, and impeachments are anti-establishment credentials, not disqualifying character flaws or evidence of treason.
Trump’s stated policies confirmed that he was the change candidate. I am tempted to say that Trump doesn’t have any policies or goals other than self-aggrandizement and revenge, but that is not quite right. His stated policies are (1) combat illegal immigration, (2) impose tariffs on imports, (3) minimize American involvement in foreign conflicts, (4) appoint politically-conservative judges, and (5) take a wrecking ball to federal agencies. Harris was basically aligned with Trump on illegal immigration(!), but she lacked his consistency on the issue, and she opposed Trump on the rest. Most of Trump’s policies reflect a radical departure from existing policy and his vague aspiration to dismantle the administrative state is explicitly a call for a whirlwind of destruction. Trump’s stated policies confirmed that he stood alone as the change candidate.
Trump got lucky. Trump’s reelection campaign coincided with a period of high inflation, which voters evidently hate. Much of today’s inflation may trace back to the government’s stimulus response to COVID, which began on Trump’s watch. Trump himself put his name on government stimulus checks, which were inflationary, but voters blame Biden and Harris for inflation because they were the incumbents. Regardless of the cause, if voters are feeling pain, they want change.
Another explanation for Trump’s win is that Harris didn’t have enough time to assemble her campaign team and get her message out to the public (or combat Trump’s misleading advertising) because Biden dropped out so late in the game. I don’t understand this explanation either. She took over Biden’s campaign team, which was already up and running, and she matched or exceeded Trump in direct fundraising contributions (how much Trump benefited from covert or not-covert spending by allies is a different story). She established that Trump is easily manipulated at their first and only debate. Voters preferred the burn-it-all-down guy anyway, even though he repeated absurd lies about Haitians eating cats and dogs on national television.
Much changed wanted
The take-away for me is that voters want change. Period. A majority of voters cannot be swayed by the fact that Trump poses a threat to democracy. A majority of voters may not care about democracy at all. A majority of voters does not care about the character of the person who sits in the Oval Office. A majority of voters prefers change over and above everything else.
The only realistic option is to create a change-based alternative to Trumpism that is more attractive than what Trumpism offers (or appears to offer). The alternative has to be bold and exciting. It has to represent real change. It has to be meaningful to all those people who have lost so much faith in government that they preferred a convicted felon over a career public servant.
In the blue states where positive change is most possible at the state level, our challenge is to prove that our vision is more inspiring. That means articulating and following through on a program to build cool and helpful things that people like. As simple as I’m trying to make this sound, it will be really hard. People and politicians are always proposing this or that; how will something better break through? I don’t know the answer, but hope that I’m asking the right question. We—a very big collective we—have to do better, as the election results just showed.