The One Core Reason Trump Won The Election – CleanTechnica

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There are a lot of takes going around that try to explain why Donald Trump — despite all of this — won the election against Kamala Harris. Some of it has validity around the edges. Some of it definitely doesn’t. But when it comes down to it, this was a standard template election in the most basic, core ways — and that’s what really explains the results.

Before we get into that briefly, though, I have to emphasize what it is not. People who get deeply entrenched in politics get into all sorts of messages, policies, and rabbit holes that the voters who decide elections don’t. Everyone has their own pet issue or two and an echo chamber online if not even in person that reinforces it. But it’s not the highly engaged who decide elections. It’s the low-information, low-engagement voter who swings back and forth or is motivated to get out and vote one year but not another year. About 70–80% of voters could sit with each other all day with voters on the other side, each making their own cases for why the other one is wrong, and people just aren’t going to change their minds. I’m not getting into the social psychology of that here, but I assume most of us know that by now.

The reason this election swung so much to Donald Trump is that we had severe inflation at the beginning of the Biden presidency, people pinned that (incorrectly) on Biden, and most people didn’t give him any credit for getting us out of that period, not crashing the economy into a recession or depression in the process (which was widely predicted a couple of years ago), and actually doing better than every other major economy on this. Nope. Low-info, low-engagement voters blamed Biden for the fact that common goods cost significantly more today than four years ago. There’s no magic wand Biden could have waved to stop that from happening.

I actually remember, right after Biden took office, successful, wealthy people blaming Biden for inflation. I was flabbergasted. I was thinking, “Are you serious? Do you not realize what caused inflation and that Biden has nothing to do with this?” One of these people recently dressed as Donald Trump for Halloween.

All across the world, incumbents have been losing election after election in the past two years. It doesn’t matter their policies, their parties, or the fact that they had no control over global inflation. The thinking from those critical swing voters and low-engagement voters was clear — I’m spending more money than I was for the same things, it must be Incumbent X’s fault.

In fact, going back to the mid-20th century, this is the first time that every single incumbent party around the world lost share.

It’s logical. This is one of the most fundamental facts of politics. If the economy is bad, it’s the incumbent party’s fault. “It’s the economy, stupid!” That’s probably the most famous line in American politics, and that’s for a reason. People are not policy experts or economic experts and do not understand what Biden and the Fed did to handle inflation better than most. They also don’t understand why prices can’t just go back to where they were. They are just in a worse position and upset. I get it — I am too. (But I do dig deeply into policy and what’s happening in that regard.)

Reportedly, Kamala Harris did almost perform a minor miracle. A few months ago, Biden was 20 percentage points underwater compared to Trump in polling about how much they trusted them on the economy. Kamala Harris, in her 107-day campaign, worked on that and got it down to just 4 points. But that was still 4 points too many. I do think she could have focused on economic messaging more, Bernie Sanders style, but I also have to say she faced an insane challenge and ran a nearly flawless campaign — and, as I said, given the information above, almost performed a minor miracle.

The economy — or, let’s simplify it, how much money people make compared to how much stuff costs — is still the #1 issue for many voters, especially the voters who decide elections. The economy rules the day in politics. Ironically, it takes a long time to pass legislation that affects the economy, and to see the effects of such policies. Biden did an amazing job, as even Republicans who are open minded and follow these things acknowledge. But voters don’t realize that, and if the economy keeps going in the direction it’s been going in from those policies as well as the natural global climb out of post-pandemic inflation, Trump could get all of the credit for it in many people’s minds — and you can be sure he will claim it.

Now, is all of that to say we’re helpless on political messaging and campaigning? Should we take a fatalist view? No, I don’t think so. I still think Bernie Sanders has been the best messenger in the Democratic Party on these matters in this generation. Bill Clinton was in the previous generation. Well, I should say political generation — Bernie Sanders is five years older than Bill Clinton. Few others are very good at it. Leaving policy aside, because that does not matter for winning elections (unfortunately), your candidates need to be superb messengers on money matters. (With that in mind, we may be launching something new soon. … Stay tuned.)

I know everyone who is passionate about one policy or message or another wants to claim right now that Trump won or Harris lost because of what they said or did on that issue. For sure, those things matter on the fringes. But in 2024, it’s not about that stuff at all. It’s about the economy. It’s about inflation. And it’s about the growing wealth inequality gap that is making the richest richer in the midst of all this inflation and the rest of us less rich.

Let’s see what the next four years brings economically speaking. At least we got a lot done in those trying times that will help the US and the world for years to come.