In the wake of every election, there is the temptation to read into it some seismic implication. Doubly so when that election involves so disruptive a figure as Donald Trump. It’s as though he is so overwhelmingly unconventional, that every vote for him must be, too.
The syllogism seems to run roughly as follows: Trump is racist/misogynist/dictatorial; therefore his voters are racist/misogynist/dictatorial and vote for corresponding reasons. And if America votes for him en masse, then it must fit this description, too.
Following the election, many pundits have tried to simplify the reasons for people voting for Trump. Credit: AP
This style of reasoning seems to apply both in victory and defeat. In this way, many allowed themselves to conclude that Biden’s victory in 2020 was some kind of repudiation of Trumpism that would have it receding into history as a footnote. Thus, 2016 could be rendered a kind of spectacular accident, possible only because the electoral college makes it possible to lose the popular vote and still win office.
Needless to say, anyone inclined to that sort of analysis is likely to be in a state of shock now, having discovered what always should have been clear: that Trump’s victory was no aberration. In the right circumstances, it is repeatable and expandable.
Against this background, the range of catastrophe-laden interpretations of Trump’s 2024 victory is to be expected. So, we read that it reveals the full-scale crisis of American white rage, despite Trump’s coalition expanding into racial minorities. Or that Trump’s success with male voters raises the urgent question of why American men simply hate women, when it might be better to ask why Kamala Harris did........