Four years after leading a failed insurrection and contrarily to what polls were forecasting, Donald Trump has again been elected president of the United States by a wide range. He has won a resounding victory not only in the Electoral College (he has won in all swing states), but he has also won the popular vote (the first time a Republican candidate achieves it since George W. Bush in 2004). He has improved his results from 2020 everywhere, even where he does not win, while Kamala Harris has had an inferior yield compared to Biden in Democratic strongholds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In absence of further data and pending a more refined analysis, everything seems to indicate that the electorate that had to be mobilised \u2013 which had been named \u201cObama coalition\u201d, and was made up of women, young graduates and African-American and Latino men \u2013 has not done so, especially in the states where it was essential: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Trump won. For example, a large mobilisation of women was expected, but it did not happen: if in 2020 the 57% of women voted Democrats, this year only a 54% voted for it. It happens the same with Latinos: in 2020, a 66% voted Democrats, and this year only a 53%. Turnout predictions are around 152 million votes, which is down from the 158 million who voted in 2020. This drop in turnout has particularly damaged Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact that Harris\u2019 main virtue was not being Joe Biden has also affected, but in the short four months that she has had to campaign the Vice President has not achieved getting rid of his shadow, especially regarding the poor economic indicators. Not so much in terms of macroeconomics, which gone very well, but in terms of people\u2019s pockets. When Trump asked with whom the economy was better off, 65% of voters said that clearly with him. It seems as if some of Trump\u2019s proposals during his campaign have attracted voters: the imposition of tariffs on imported goods, the increase of investments in USA\u2019s heavy and extractive industry\u2026 It is not known whether he will keep his promises or not, but what people have felt for sure is that Biden\u2019s government did not do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, four years of Democrat legislature have not reduced the anger and tiredness of a great part of society towards politics. In this sense, voting for Trump has been a way to show their nonconformity and disappointment. This obviously does not mean that his voters agree with everything the president elect proposes, but the anger and mistrust towards traditional politics have been more important when it came to deciding their vote. For some time now, the trend has been voting whoever is against the current government, whatever the party is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cultural wars that monopolize much of the political agenda of Western democracies and that lead to more and more citizens considering that a conservative counter-reform is necessary because everything has gone too far have certainly also had their influence. Trump\u2019s victory shows how successful far-right has been in devoting its efforts to achieving hegemony. Gramsci already pointed out the importance of cultural hegemony to conquer and maintain power, and it is not a coincidence that this is read carefully by the ultra-right wing. Through controlling wide segments of society and a substantial part of the mass and social media, the radical right has accomplished placing their \u201corganic intellectuals\u201d in the realms of persuasion, where ideas-images-languages-gestures-proceedings form and allow executing their influence over the public opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the Democratic Party has also made a conclusive contribution to Trump\u2019s victory, because they failed for almost a decade to convince voters that something obvious: Donald Trump is narcissist, unstable, radical and authoritarian. His political ideas are, at best, plutocratic and, at worst, xenophobic. Nevertheless, the insistent strategy of making the presidential election a referendum over Donald Trump has failed, probably weighed down by the unpopular image of the president Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Election results reveal that voters have not taken into account his accomplishments regarding legislative matters, his good management of inflation, the economic recovery after the pandemic and the reinforcement of the NATO, either because these topics do not interest most people or because Biden\u2019s growing inability to communicate efficiently hindered a clear presentation of his positive legacy. These elections have been, therefore, a reminder of the current weakness of the Democratic Party: despite a failed presidency, a pandemic, an insurrection, dozens of pending trials and a guilty verdict due in December, tens of millions of voters still consider Trump a credible leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, having the Senate and probably the Congress controlled by Republicans, Trump will have all the tools to reshape the federal judiciary, further strengthen the rightward shift of the Supreme Court and take executive measures over domestic policy. At the same time, he can change the way in which the United States engage with the rest of the world and, from our perspective, with Europe. It is significant that the French president Emmanuel Macron has immediately called the German chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss how to work towards a more united and sovereign Europe in this new context. Trump\u2019s victory implies, indeed, a change with regard to the European security structure, the impact that can have the imposition of a minimum tariff of the 10% on products coming from the Eurozone and the return to politics of denial regarding climate change, among others. It is worth pointing out that before the elections some European officials already commented that Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House could be the revulsion that the EU needs to strengthen its security and defence matters and reinforce its union, as it did after the pandemic or the economic crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Trump\u2019s victory, the United States join the club of authoritarianism, of ultraconservative populism, of strong and amoral far-right wing governments. Since the pandemic, radical right movements have been displacing from power the political forces that have not known how to stop inequality or the great difficulties that many people suffer in advanced economies to be able to live with their salaries. North-Americans have given Trump the power again for this reason, but also because conservatives, primarily men, especially white men, but also Hispanic and Afro-Americans, have rebelled against progressive elitism that, in their opinion, despises their social, cultural and economic status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These elections will therefore determine which model of society American citizens choose, and imply a crucial moment for the survival of the values that they have defined for a long time in the US: the commitment to freedom, the respect for the rule of law and the belief that pluralism is a main pillar of society. If its foundations do not resist, the public, economic and moral order that, despite its flaws and contradictions, have boosted progress since the Second World War are in danger of collapsing both in the United States and vast parts of the world, to the satisfaction of authoritarian and illiberal leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photography: Flickr\/Ted Eytan. CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n Noa Redondo, Ariadna Coca and David Jim\u00e9nez, trainees at the CETC, have participated to the issue of Idees d\u2019actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four years after leading a failed insurrection and contrarily to what polls were forecasting, Donald Trump has again been elected president of the United States by a wide range. He has won a resounding victory not only in the Electoral College (he has won in all swing states), but he has also won the popular vote (the first time a Republican candidate achieves it since George W. Bush in 2004). He has improved his results from 2020 everywhere, even where he does not win, while Kamala Harris has had an inferior yield compared to Biden in Democratic strongholds. In absence\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":77494,"template":"","category_newspaper":[584],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-77519","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-584"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n