Donald Trump Explained: What’s The Appeal?

Politics is a spectrum, there will never be a unanimous national or global view. However, following Donald Trump’s recent landslide victory in the US election, many are left bewildered by his popularity. This is particularly true for many of us in Europe. As the results of each state began to roll in, the more we started to see red, both literally and figuratively. A study (of sorts) carried out by theworld.vote had over 400,000 people vote from 193 countries across the globe. The results found that 92% of Earth’s population would have voted for Kamala Harris. While these results would have fluctuated greatly between various demographics (i.e. gender, religion, etc.), this overwhelming consensus is impossible to ignore.

Given his 34 felonies, Russian sympathies, lack of professionalism, history of sexual abuse, and refusal to implement policies that benefit anyone other than white, straight, Christian men, why exactly did Trump garner the votes of nearly 77 million Americans?

The main reasoning for this seems to regard concerns around the economy. Many trump supporters recall being better off under the previous Trump administration. Trump himself has claimed that he is responsible for the ‘best ever’ economy – and yes, it is true that the economy was good under Trump. However, he only improved upon Obama’s annual GDP growth by 0.1%, suggesting that he merely continued upon Obama’s trajectory rather than creating a drastic improvement. In terms of Biden, we must note that it would have been difficult for him to continue this trajectory as his time in office began during the COVID-19 pandemic, subsequently leaving him to recover the nation for the remainder of his term. The pandemic, as well as other factors such as the war in Ukraine will have caused inflation to rise during Biden’s term. Similarly to Trump, Biden inherited the economy of the administration before him, therefore Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is still in effect. It is important not only to observe the state of the economy under each president, but to critically analyse the positive and negative impacts from other nations socio-politically, and the impacts of acts and policies implemented by each president.

Another factor behind Trump’s victory may be the change in the Democratic Party’s candidate. Biden was in the presidential race for some time before allowing Harris to take over. His evident cognitive struggles and consequential ability to effectively debate tarnished the reputation of his party, thus strengthening Trump’s stance to an almost irreversible degree. After taking over, Harris had little time to campaign. Despite her loss, I believe what she achieved in the time available to be incredibly impressive. Her policies had a much larger focus on human rights, especially surrounding the LGBTQ+ community and women’s abortion rights. Had there been more time available for her to advocate her cause, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Although, studies show that TV debates have little impact on voting numbers and many voters had made their decision by September.

It may be argued that racism and misogyny is a factor of her loss. One of the major arguments against her (which was interestingly perpetuated on popular YouTube Channel Jubilee’s video ‘Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters?’) is that she ‘slept her way to the top.’ This absurd narrative is derived from the rumours surrounding Harris’ relationship with Willie Brown. This relationship happened in the 1990’s, after Brown had parted ways with his wife, and ended before Brown became Mayor. Is it not misogynistic to dismiss Harris’ plethora of impressive and independent achievements because of her irrelevant affiliations with a man in a position of power? Is it not misogynistic to use her ‘affair’ as a reason not to vote for her, but to vote for Trump and dismiss his huge number of affairs, sexual assault allegations, links to Jeffrey Epstein, and sexualisation of his own daughter?

Oklahoma is the only state where the counties unanimously voted for the Republican Party this election, and Massachusetts (as well as Rhode Island) is the only state where the counties unanimously voted Democrat. It is interesting to note that Massachusetts consistently ranks amongst the best states in the United States for poverty, quality of life, healthcare, and education (according to mass.gov). This strongly contrasts Oklahoma which consistently is ranked amongst the worst states in these categories (according to kgou.org). While it can be argued that Oklahoma is voting with the lower-class' benefit in mind, and Massachusetts the opposite, the figures of education challenge this. We must also acknowledge that southern states like Oklahoma have a deeply rooted history in racism, misogyny, and homophobia, all arguably influenced by their strong Christian values.

The Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality has been disproven, with the first whisper of this not being written into the literature until the 1940’s by Protestant Bible scholars who believed homosexuality to be a vice (as suggested by White in Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights, 2015). This argument in regards to the abortion conversation are more complicated, depending on your views on whether or not a foetus is a living being. However, as this question is subjective, it is surely wrong to enforce one view. If you do not believe in abortion because of your religion, do not get one. If you value your right to abort, and if you are not religious, that right should not be snatched. Implementing this law will not prevent abortions, it will only encourage dangerous ones. It is also doing a disservice to the women who need an abortion for medical reasons (i.e. ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, etc.) and to victims of rape and incest.

This article has by no means covered every facet. The matter of politics, particularly in this election, is extremely nuanced and extensive, these are simply some interesting factors to discuss.