The 2024 presidential election was all about a return to normalcy in a post Covid Era; Americans wanted to forget about Covid, inflation, economic uncertainty, and vaccine mandates. President Donald Trump campaigned on the economy, immigration, and the war in Ukraine. Americans were fed up with pouring billions of dollars into the Ukrainian-Russian War without any end to the war in sight.
Moreover, Americans were told that they needed to fight climate change at the expense of the U.S. fossil fuel industry. Americans reject this idea of investing everything they have in the green energy sector alone. They want to diversify their energy sector to enjoy more competitive prices. Trump promised to lower energy costs by increasing the oil supply in the economy. Moreover, Trump vowed to end the Ukrainian-Russian war within 24 hours through a negotiated deal. This promise might seem unachievable, but Americans no longer want to spend in the Ukrainian-Russian War. In 1980, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan told Americans: ¨ Are you better off today than you were four years ago?¨ On election day, Americans answered this question by electing Ronald Reagan and by ending the Carter era. Trump’s election is a historical repeat of the 1980 Presidential Election, when a majority of voters answered that question by voting for change in 2024; they rejected the inflationary era, the vaccine mandates, vokeism, the Russia-Ukraine War, big government, and they wanted a return to normalcy.
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To begin with, Donald Trump decisively won the 2024 elections with the majority of the popular and electoral votes. Trump won 312 votes in the Electoral College and 50% of the U.S. popular vote. This was a great victory for the Republican Party and this election clearly shows how the Democratic Party was disorganised and disconnected from the people. The Democrats could not understand that Americans were concerned by the economy and by a return to conservative values. Americans did not care about the Democratic propaganda that Trump was evil; every American already made their own opinion on Trump’s character, and they were willing to re-elect President Trump again regardless of the popular anti-Trump views.
On the one hand, Trump promised lower taxes during his campaign. He intends to end federal taxes on tips, to stop taxing Social Security benefits, and to expand the child tax credit to up to $5,000 a year. President Trump also wants to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. On the other hand, Trump will fund his tax cuts through increasing tariffs on imported goods. Experts say that replacing significant sums of taxes with tariffs is nearly impossible.
Moreover, Vice President Kamala Harris told women that their abortion rights would be threatened by a potential Trump presidency. In short, Trump’s 2016 stance on abortion was to ban it. President Trump advocated for ¨some form of punishment¨ for women getting illegal abortions. Nowadays, Trump wants to let states decide how to legislate on the rights of abortion. Still, Trump wants to restrict abortion to some extent, but his stance is mainly to let state legislatures decide on this issue. Trump’s stance on abortion was the most controversial part of his campaign, but people only cared about the economy and a return to normalcy. Thus, the abortion issue did not change the election outcome because economic uncertainty and inflation were the main factor in the election of Trump.
Likewise, American were concerned about illegal immigration in the U.S. Consequently, President Trump wants to enhance border protection. He wants to stop illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. by strengthening the Mexico-U.S. border and the Canada-U.S. border. Trump considers that his neighbours neglect border integrity at the expense of the national security of the United States of America. Even though Trump’s stance on immigration is tough, everyone knows that Trump often amplifies his political views; Still, Trump’s supporters expect from Trump the implementation of a reasonable immigration policy when Trump is sworn in as the 47th president.
Furthermore, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler on July 13th, 2024, Pennsylvania, changed the dynamics of the election. From that moment, Donald Trump was almost perceived as a messiah by his supporters. Thus, Donald Trump was seen as a crusader in the mission of saving America. This was the turning point of the 2024 Presidential Election, from that moment, Trump’s victory was certain because Trump was seen as the chosen one by the Republican Christians and there was widespread sympathy across the political spectrum for Donald Trump. Trump told the Republican Convention that he had God on his side on July 13th. The picture taken when Trump waved his hand beneath the U.S. flag will be entrenched in U.S. history forever. From that moment, Trump was seen as a tough, steadfast, and visionary political leader.
Nevertheless, Biden’s 2020 victory seen as a return to a more progressive America, but several Americans regretted the Biden victory because it led to more Covid restrictions and vaccine mandates. As a result, Donald Trump suggested that his administration could ban certain vaccines if he wins. There was a sense that the pandemic would never end during the Biden administration. Moreover, the Biden Era was seen as the beginning of wokeism by many Americans. On the other hand, 2024’s election was all about a return to conservative values and a rejection of wokeism by young male voters. The young male voters were fed up by left-wing values that their parents had been cherishing for more than a decade. The Z Generation wanted their Conservative America back because they could not identify themselves in this social liberal America. Trump’s victory was their own return to normalcy. The Z Generation perceived the progressive America as a mistake in history, and they thought that to fix America, conservatism was the answer.
Still, Gen Z voters believe in Reagan’s idea that government is not the solution, but the government is the problem. Gen Z voters distrust the established public institutions, and they perceive the Democratic Party as the main supporter of social liberalism and of the government greed. As a result, Carter Sherman wrote on November 8, 2024 in The Guardian that: ¨Gen Z is really mistrustful of institutions – at higher rates than an older Americans…. increasingly younger voters are are less in tune to government and don’t think government can provide them solutions to their problems.¨ Thus, Trump took advantage of the fear of big government that a Harris administration could have supported.
Even though the U.S. economy was flourishing under the Biden administration, the Gen Z voters do not feel that the U.S. economy is on the right track. They feel the American dream is not for them. They lost all hope that the American dream is within their reach. For that reason, Carter Sherman wrote on November 8, 2024 in The Guardian that: ¨Economic anxiety is really palpable among this generation…They can’t afford rent or to buy a house. They have massive student loan debt. There’s a sense among younger people that the American dream isn’t really available for them.¨ Even if the economy has been doing pretty well under the Biden administration thanks to low unemployment and decent economic growth, Gen Z voters are concerned by the uncontrollable inflation under the Biden administration. For instance, Ben Werschkul wrote in Yahoo Finance in May 2024 that inflation grew by 20% under the Biden administration. Gen Z voters remember that under the Trump presidency inflation was pretty low and the economy was flourishing. They could no longer stand a Democratic presidency with high inflation; they did not care about the economic consequences of covid; they simply blamed the Democratic Party for higher prices.
In addition, there are several reasons why the Democratic Party failed at running an effective and efficient election campaign. Kamala Harris was perceived as the continuation of the Biden administration. Firstly, the Democratic Party could not attract dissatisfied young males. The Harris Walz ticket did not inspire young voters due to the lack of substantial political ideals in their campaign. Consequently, Kamala Harris failed to advocate for an inspiring political platform. Strangely, the Harris-Walz campaign focused exclusively on attacking Donald Trump. This was despite the fact that everyone knew Donald Trump pretty well and there was very little new to learn about Trump. Above and beyond, several people felt being left behind by the Biden-Walz Democratic Party. They felt that they could not find their deserved place within American society. They felt that politicians served their own interests, not the national interest. In the eyes of disillusioned Americans, Donald Trump was seen as an outsider who could fix the system, while Kamala Harris was seen as a continuation of the current system serving the few.
Finally, the 2024 Presidential Election was all about a return to normalcy. Americans want to go back to the pre-pandemic economic prosperity and social values. They perceived the Democratic ticket as a continuation of the Biden administration with inflation, wokeism, big government, and economic uncertainty. In addition, they wanted to punish the Democratic administration for its vaccine mandates during the pandemic. Likewise, Trump wrote on his social media platform before Election Day: ¨Are you better off than you were four years ago?...I don’t think so.¨ There was this wind of change all over America and a need to have a closure to the Biden’s pandemic administration. Trump promised to fund lower taxes through tariffs; he believes in the idea of promoting American businesses at the expense of foreign imports. Nevertheless, Trump did not only win his new presidential term through interesting promises, but he won because the Kamala Harris campaign was not appealing to Americans. The Democratic Party started their campaign with a weak Joe Biden debating with Trump. In July, Joe Biden had to withdraw his presidential candidacy and be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris after several weeks of chaos within the Democratic Party. Subsequently, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris kept telling Americans how evil Trump was. Needless to say, most Americans made up their minds about Trump years ago. Accordingly, everyone already knew Trump and they did not care about Harris’ opinion on Trump. Most Americans did not like Trump, but they wanted a return to normalcy and the end of the Biden era. As a result, Donald Trump easily won a clear victory.
Dec. 1, 2024
December 1st, 2024