Oh wow, I did not expect that kind of introspection from James O'Brien, of all people. I think Trump being re-elected is finally making those on the other side of the aisle actually think again and re-evaluate. Perhaps Trump winning in 2016 was simply put down to people stepping out of line. Maybe those on the other side thought: right, you've had your fun now and you've seen what a Trump presidency looks like, we're going back to "normal" now with Biden. However, the fact that Trump got re-elected I think is really making the liberal elite and their supporters think again. Neo-liberalism isn't working anymore.
Trump is a problem for the US Democrats. Like [USER=183]@ayase[/USER] has said, he has managed to unite people from a number of different demographics behind a simple message; a message that Harris and her party failed to communicate during the campaign.
In the key battleground states, Trump ended up getting:
21% of Black men (which for a Republican candidate is incredible: double the number of Black men voted for Trump in the battleground states compared to 2020)
60% of White men
53% of White women
55% of Latino men (Trump gained 13 percentage points in the Latino/Hispanic population overall)
The difference between adding up all the other races was only two percentage points in favour of the Democrats (D: 48%, R: 46%).
There was also notable gains in the Asian demographic for Trump compared to 2020, up 4 points and up 12 points with "Other".
Even younger voters shifted away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans; Harris went down 5 points with 18-29 year olds, whereas Trump gained 6 points.
The Democrats were hoping that they could make inroads in Texas, but it went even more for the Republicans this time around, which wasn't on the cards according to the polls. Even safe, deep blue states like New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, etc, swung towards the Republicans, as you can see by the shift map:
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Probably the best stat out of the US election I've seen so far is in Starr County. This is a county in Texas, which is right on the US-Mexican border:
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1892! This is indicative of other similar counties on the border; where they've seen huge numbers of illegal immigration. From what I've read and heard, legal immigrants hate illegal immigrants more than anyone! If you've gone through all the legal processes to enter the US and you've managed to get a job, work hard, and build a life for yourself, I can see why you'd disagree with the state of the US border and move towards someone whose message was that they were going to reduce and stop illegal immigration.
I'm no politician or campaigning expert, but it's difficult to see where the US Democrats go from here. Abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights, whilst are important in principle, these aren't the issues that win general elections. The Democrats seriously need to burn the current party to the ground and rebuild it from the ground up. They cannot simply pick candidates because they feel it's "their turn". They need a candidate with some political nous, who can go toe-to-toe with Trump (or whoever his successor is), and one that is ultimately voted for in a primary, rather than simply selected.
Whether you agree with Trump or not, what he has done is quite astonishing politically. He has turned the US Republicans into the party of the people and the working class. Whilst the Democrats are seen as the party of the political class and the liberal elite.
