A convicted felon and convicted rapist is our President-Elect. How did that happen? He was up against someone who would have become one of the most qualified presidents in recent history. Yet Trump won.
The first two reasons are apparent – racism and sexism. In addition to racism, Vice President Harris faced sexism to a degree equal to or greater than racism.
Another factor adversely affecting Harris’ candidacy is the public’s need for general knowledge of governmental affairs, making it difficult for them to make informed decisions (but they make decisions nonetheless). Compounding this issue is the perennially poor public communication by Democrats. As I have argued many times, Democratic leaders do not routinely discuss publicly their activities, which led to them not effectively communicating their economic successes under President Biden as they were happening.
Whether they understand it or not, this is a battle over the institutionalized thought structure -the widely held notions about reality. And the right wing keeps winning.
Both Heather Cox Richardson and Michael Tomasky agree with me. Here are excerpts from their inciteful articles.
Heather Cox Richardson:
There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat. But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now . . .
In the U.S., pervasive right-wing media, from the Fox News Channel through right-wing podcasts and YouTube channels run by influencers, have permitted Trump and right-wing influencers to portray the booming economy as “failing” and to run away from the hugely unpopular Project 2025. They allowed MAGA Republicans to portray a dramatically falling crime rate as a crime wave and immigration as an invasion. They also shielded its audience from the many statements of Trump’s former staff that he is unfit for office and even that his chief of staff, General John Kelly, considers him a fascist and noted that he admires German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
As actor Walter Masterson posted: “I tried to educate people about tariffs, I tried to explain that undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes and are the foundation of this country. I explained Project 2025; I interviewed to show that they supported it. I cannot compete against the propaganda machines of Twitter, Fox News, [Joe Rogan Experience], and NY Post. These spaces will continue to create reality unless we create a more effective way of reaching people.”
From Michael Tomasky:
I tem one: It wasn’t the economy. It wasn’t inflation, or anything else. It was how people perceive those things, which points to one overpowering answer.
I’ve had a lot of conversations since [the election] revolving around the question of why Donald Trump won. The economy and inflation. Kamala Harris didn’t do this or that. Sexism and racism. The border. That trans-inmate ad that ran a jillion times. And so on.
These conversations have usually proceeded along lines where people ask incredulously how a majority of voters could have believed this or that. Weren’t they bothered that Trump is a convicted felon? An adjudicated rapist? Didn’t his invocation of violence against Liz Cheney, or 50 other examples of his disgusting imprecations, obviously disqualify him? And couldn’t they see that Harris, whatever her shortcomings, was a fundamentally smart, honest, well-meaning person who would show basic respect for the Constitution and wouldn’t do anything weird as president?
The answer is obviously no—not enough people were able to see any of those things. At which point people throw up their hands and say, “I give up.”
But this line of analysis requires that we ask one more question.
And it’s the crucial one: Why didn’t a majority of voters see these things? And understanding the answer to that question is how we start to dig out of this tragic mess.
The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media – Fox News (and the entire News Corp), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more – sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.
