The dust has settled. In less than 75 days, Donald Trump will become the 47th President of the United States in an extraordinary political comeback. Inciting an insurrection, getting twice impeached, facing criminal charges on four different fronts, becoming a convicted felon, and being found guilty of sexual assault, as well as Trump’s incompetency, recklessness, and chaos that dominated his first term as commander-in-chief proved not to be enough to stop the former business mogul from winning a landslide victory last Tuesday, carrying all seven swing states and becoming the first Republican to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004. Perhaps more worryingly, Trump managed to make significant inroads with groups such as Arabs, Latinos, and women, that have historically aligned with the Democrats.
The post-mortem for the Democrats has already begun. After a humiliating loss, various people have offered different perspectives on why exactly people abandoned the party for a man who left the White House in disgrace. Already the infighting has begun, with the chairman of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) Jaime Harrison calling progressive senator Bernie Sanders’s criticism that the party abandoned the working class ‘straight up BS’. Nancy Pelosi suggested that Joe Biden not leaving the race earlier, and instead allowing a proper primary to be held instead of choosing Kamala Harris by default, led to Trump’s victory. All these people though, neglected the primary reason why the Democrats were so soundly rejected at the voting booth: the American people had had enough, and wanted change. Only one of the two candidates promised as such.
Exit polls released on Tuesday consistently showed that the primary concern of voters was the economy. People have been hit hard by inflation under Joe Biden. According to CBS News, the price of a dozen eggs has risen by 176% from 2019 to 2024, a loaf of bread by 52%, gas by 37%, and milk by 30%. The reality is startling: people feel worse off under a Biden presidency. The Democrats failed to grasp the power of such a concept. Instead, they went around telling people that the economy was great, that real wages had in fact increased, that inflation was under control. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people ended up voting for the man that promised to bring down inflation, and was not linked to the current administration. The idea of Donald Trump being a ‘threat to democracy’ was not the day-to-day issue that inflation is. The American people felt one would hurt them more, and voted against those who had enabled it- inflation was the main reason why Latinos flocked in unprecedented numbers to the Republicans.
The bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon, where the death of at least 45,000 people, the overwhelming majority civilians, alienated the significant Arab American population, concentrated in key swing states. The Arab-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, which had voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in 2020, flipped to Donald Trump this cycle, with voters furious at Kamala Harris’s refusal to consider an arms embargo on Israel. Many in the community had felt betrayed by the Democrats’s perceived complicity in Gaza, and felt as if they had to punish the current administration, either by voting for Trump, or for a third-party candidate such as the Greens’ Jill Stein, who received 18% of the vote in Dearborn. Whilst Kamala Harris was campaigning with the daughter of Dick Cheney, largely responsible for the Iraq War, and sending Bill Clinton to tell Arab voters that Israel was ‘forced’ to kill Gazan civilians, Donald Trump was receiving endorsements from prominent Arab American leaders and promised to ‘end the war’. People felt the Democrats had taken their vote for granted, and they needed to show that their vote was earned. A June CBS poll showed that 61% of Americans supported an arms embargo on Israel, including 77% of Democrats. Kamala Harris’s baffling refusal to consider one, even as she called for a ceasefire, cost her thousands of votes, and the White House along with it.
Throughout the election campaign, Donald Trump was been labelled a ‘threat to democracy’, even a ‘fascist’. Many voters believed as such, but ended up voting for Trump regardless. They saw a double standard within the Democratic Party. The ‘holier than thou’ attitude backfired spectacularly when Joe Biden was forced to withdraw from the race in July in the aftermath of a disastrous presidential debate. The American people felt they had been lied to: they were told that Biden was mentally capable of serving for another four years, even if he would have reached 86 by the end of a second term, but discovered they were deceived in an incredible cover-up. Kamala Harris being anointed as Biden’s replacement, despite not being the democratically elected candidate in the Democratic primary, raised eyebrows among many, who felt that there should have been a proper leadership contest with multiple options. Harris ended up having, at 107 days, the shortest general election presidential campaign in history. Despite a resolute debate performance and solid polling, the dye seemed to already be cast: people felt betrayed by the Democrats for pretending that Biden was fit for another four years in office, and subsequent attacks about Trump threatening democracy lost their moral weighting.
The soul-searching will no doubt continue in the coming weeks and months to come. The reality for the next four years is already set: Donald Trump will be the President of the United States. However, if the Democrats want to stand any chance against an emboldened Republican Party, they need to fundamentally change course. The American people have not rejected left-wing policy ideas overnight: in fact, many liberal ballot measures passed. Why the Democrats failed is simple – they tried to convince voters that things were working for them when people felt otherwise. For a chance of victory in 2028, they need to listen to the will of the electorate. That means offering bold policy measures and carving out an independent identity, rather than positioning the election as a referendum on the Republican candidate. As Trump has proved, four years can be a long time in politics, but it will have to be used wisely.
This opinion piece was submitted by Yehia Alsaedi. To submit your own article to Politics UK, click here.
