Election 2024
Steven Greenhut | 11.15.2024 7:30 AM
Few Americans were thinking about historical and political trends when they cast their votes for president on Tuesday, as confirmed by exit polls showing bread-and-butter issues—inflation, housing costs, and a tepid economy—topping their concerns. I don't blame Donald Trump's working-class-heavy voters for looking at their wallets and determining that anything would be better than a dose of California-style liberalism.
Post-election commentary hammered that point in explaining why a majority of American voters overlooked Trump's eye-popping character flaws, ugly campaign rhetoric, and incessant truth-bending and decided to vote for him anyway. Most of my conservative friends recognized the former president's flaws—including his election-theft conspiracies and myriad scandals—but came up with a seemingly reasonable calculus.
In their view, his tax plans, focus on deregulation, energy policies, and judicial appointments made him an easy, albeit imperfect, choice. As a libertarian, my policy calculus was more challenging given my concern about his approach toward civil liberties, immigration, and tariffs. Yet on balance his proposals seemed preferable to the ones championed by Kamala Harris.........