I almost didn’t do one this election. I was simply tired. Tired of the propaganda. Tired of partisanship. Tired of a process which takes close to two years, when it should only need six weeks. Tired of candidates who, for the the third election in a row, have me thinking, “These two are really the best their party could find?” But the historic nature of last night’s result felt like it deserved to be marked: for Trump regained the position of President, becoming the first person to do so since Grover Cleveland in 1892. Americans don’t like losers, especially in politics, and when you lose an election, you’re typically done. But Trump is hardly your typical politician, is he? And this was certainly not your typical election either.

It was clear from early on that sitting President Joe Biden was in trouble, and I could only agree. The biggest cause was inflation. His watch had seen the worst numbers in 40 years, reaching 9.1% in June 2022. It was higher than at any point under Donald Trump for thirty-eight consecutive months, and the average rate of 5.2% was close to three times that in Trump’s tenure (1.9%). You can argue who’s to blame, but I tend to think Biden unnecessarily injecting two trillion dollars into the economy, when COVID-19 was already winding down, was a major factor. There were other problems too. Border security: as a legal immigrant, I feel kinda peeved by those who just walk in. An unstable world situation, with war in both Europe and the middle East. Student loan “forgiveness” – or “bribery” as I call it. I have a long list. But, hey, the White House had a Transgender Day of Visibility!

It was weird how the killing blow to Biden’s presidency came from inside the party. His age had always been an area of concern, but it became increasingly so as the election neared. Biden’s performance at the first debate with Trump caused panic among Democrats, as they realized he was going to get slaughtered at the ballot box. A replacement was seen as the only way forward, so Biden was eventually “convinced” to step down, and replaced by his Vice-President Kamala Harris. This was a bit problematic, considering in 2020, she hadn’t received a single vote in the primary to decide the Democrat candidate. She dropped out before the first state voted, polling only at about 3.5% support when she quit. Despite this, she was anointed Vice President by Biden. It was seen by some as an “affirmative action” hire, the President having pledged to select a woman during the primary process, and combined with her race.

Suddenly, she was the Presidential candidate, in part because she was the only one eligible to use the funds in Biden’s war chest, a not insignificant $240 million. The progressive wing of the Democrats, who demanded she get the VP role, would also have thrown a shit-fit had someone else been given the job. However, there were problems. A large focus of the Democrat campaign had been portraying Trump as an existential threat to democracy. Bit hard to sustain that conceit, given the palace coup which got Harris front and centre, without receiving a single vote from her party. Also, if the threat was so great as alleged, why were arguably better candidates, like California governor Gavin Newson, apparently sitting out to await a better opportunity? [I still can’t vote, not being a US citizen, so the whole “democracy” thing seems kinda over-rated…]

There was an immediate surge of support for Harris in the polls, as much one of relief as anything. But the problems soon started to rise. The fact she was Biden’s VP explicitly tied her to his policies. Matters there weren’t helped when she was asked what she would have done differently, and blithely responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” The Republicans pounced on that, gleefully. But the main problem turned out to be that she was no more likeable to the population as a whole, than she was during the Democratic primaries. Despite a litany of celebrity endorsements, everyone from Taylor Swift to Mark Hamill supporting her, and about six million more in the total population, she is going to end up with millions fewer votes than Biden. [Trump will likely get about the same as in 2020] That was the difference.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Trump’s campaign staggered between brilliance and self-inflicted wounds, though in the end, the latter didn’t prove nearly as lethal as the left thought they would be. For example, an insult comedian at a Trump rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” had some pundits saying it “could cost Trump election.” /narrator voice: It did not. Indeed, he still won Osceola County, the biggest concentration of Puerto Ricans in Florida, away from the Democrats. This was part of a bigger trend, where Latino citizens voted Republican at a record rate. This blew the opposition’s mind, given their ceaseless attempts to depict Trump as racist and fascist. Turns out they don’t like record inflation and floods of illegal immigrants either.

Trump undeniably won the meme wars in this election. He narrowly survived an assassination attempt, the picture of which will be one of the year’s most memorable images. He worked in a McDonalds. That went viral. Trump even turned around the “garbage” thing, after Biden made another gaffe, saying “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” by boarding a garbage truck in an orange waistcoat, another appearance which flooded social media in a way that Harris’s campaign could only dream of. He went on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which gets more views than any news program, and it paid off in the traditionall liberal youth vote, as more young men voted for him than Harris. I have to say: the Republican campaign was simply better run across the board.

Still, going into last night, I was not expecting Trump to win. That’s partly my own fault for spending time on Reddit, which had been heavily Astroturfed in favor of Harris. But once the early results came in, even though they weren’t in the key locations, it was clear he was performing signifcantly better than in 2020. Given the margin of Biden’s victory there was less than 65,000 across four states, things were looking good for Trump. The deeper we went into the night, the more certain that became, and by the end of the night, Harris simply slunk away from her campaign headquarters without speaking to the dwindling band of her supporters there. Trump ended up winning not just the electoral college, but the overall popular vote, the first Republican to do that since the post-9/11 election in 2004.

I will admit to have been thoroughly enjoying the massive dose of schadenfreude on Reddit, particularly /r/politics, where they have been lashing out (in a pretty racist fashion, I must say) at those whom they blame for Harris’s defeat. They really should be looking in the mirror. Drop the identity politics and the sneering disdain for those in fly-over country, drop the support for things which turn off a large majority of voters, and focus on what matters to most people: a clue, it’s not a Transgender Day of Visibility. Then you might have a chance in four years, when Trump will be ineligible to stand. Though you’ll probably have to deal with J.D. Vance, who strikes me as a smarter cookie.

What will Trump do in the next four years? That may depend on where the final results lie. The Senate has also gone Republican, and the House of Representatives is still to be decided. While getting all three for one party is not common, it would give him a clearer path. The Democrat bogeyman was Project 2025, but a lot of that seems like a hard-right fantasy wish-list, rather than anything he’s going to attempt. I do not expect, for example, a national abortion ban to be pushed through – he explicitly said he would veto that. However, I can see life becoming increasingly uncomfortable for illegal immigrants in the next four years. Even here in Arizona, which passed a proposition to enshrine the right to abortion in state law, another prop passed which would allow police to arrest people who enter the country illegally. Yes, I know it seems weird that isn’t already a thing.

Naturally, my FB feed has been full of people weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth over the re-election of the orange rapist felon. The silent majority has – surprise! – remained largely silent. But that’s a key difference between the left and right, I think. I’m also not going to unfriend you for a difference in views (and, no, thinking trans women are not women is not some kind of genocidal belief). Hopefully, this election – for all its weirdness, obvious Trump trolling and divisiveness – is the start of a move back towards common sense government. That may be a little optimistic, however. Check back in four years for an update. If I haven’t been deported. 🙂