Why I Underestimated MAGA and What Trump's Win Means for You
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Why I Underestimated MAGA and What Trump's Win Means for You

Donald Trump and Republicans won in a rout

In the week before the election, I wrote two articles predicting that Kamala Harris would win in the 2024 election, not by a whisker but in a landslide. I was wrong! I wasn’t without reason for my predictions. I made the mistake of listening to what people said instead of watching what they did.

What I got right was predicting that the swing states would all tilt in the same direction. Past elections have suggested that all of them would break one way or the other. At the moment of this writing, they all moved toward Trump with races called in his favor in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He leads in Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona. I was right about it being a landslide but wrong about the winner. At no point will I suggest the election was stolen or rigged. Electing Donald Trump accurately reflects the will of the people who bothered to vote.

The list of things I got wrong is longer. I listened to white women voters explaining their votes before the election and in exit interviews. They voted in favor of all the abortion initiatives in several states, passing everywhere but Florida that required a 60% margin to pass a change, only 57% voted for the ballot initiative. Florida women will be protected whether they like it or not. While the majority of women voted for amendments expanding abortion rights, they also put back in place the politicians who took them away. Make that make sense.

In a related subject, I got it wrong that Republicans kept shooting themselves in the foot, racing to pass more restrictive abortion laws and suggesting national abortion bans. Republicans kept pushing the limits, going from 24 week bans to 15, to 12, 10, and even 6 in some states like Florida. The lack of exceptions has led to several deaths of women who couldn’t get healthcare because doctors and hospitals feared criminal charges.

I’ve read several post-mortems on the election explaining what Kamala Harris and the Democrats did wrong. Some focused on Harris not adequately explaining her positions, while Trump explained nothing. Harris was criticized for not differentiating herself enough from Joe Biden, as if that wouldn’t have been used against her as well. Pundits went from lauding Harris for running a disciplined campaign, reaching across the aisle, and trying to expand the electorate to condemning her for not attacking Biden. None of them called out the double standard Harris faced. The elephant in the room is the why.

Kamala Harris is a woman of African American and South Asian descent. This opened her up to both misogynist and racist attacks, which she got in droves. I was wrong to believe that America could overcome its biases. Tim Scott was mistaken in saying, “America is not a racist country.” He should have said America is both a racist and sexist country.

I was interrupted while writing this by a call from my granddaughter in 6th grade. She was distressed about the election. She has a friend at school who fears her father will be deported because he’s an immigrant. I asked, “What country is he from?” She said, “Haiti.” I explained that it depends on how he entered the country and what kind of visa he might have. But I know that Trump promised to deport legal Haitians in Springfield, not giving a damn about legalities. I don’t think I eased her mind. I said her job was to do well in school so she could help change things when she got older.

The percentage of Black people voting for Harris dropped slightly from 2020, I believe, for two reasons. The previous percentages were always unsustainable, especially given the meager return for their votes in past elections. The Democratic Party is a coalition of constituencies and has rarely kept its eye on the ball regarding Black issues. Why was the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act never passed as an example? There was a time during the Biden presidency when Democrats controlled all the levers of government, but it wasn’t the priority. One Trump slogan is “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” Democrats have made many promises but rarely kept them. Still, Black voters aren’t to be blamed for only giving Harris 86% of their vote (down from 92% in 2020). The blame must be placed elsewhere.

The Hispanic vote is worth paying attention to. Trump got a higher percentage of Latino votes than any previous Republican, close to 45%, with most of the increase coming from Hispanic men. Hispanics are not monolithic, and voting differs between those descended from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, and Central America. In 2020, Republicans made a better effort to target specific markets within the Hispanic community. The same may turn out to be true in 2024.

What I should have known, because history tells me so, is that white women aren’t reliable allies in general. During the suffragette movement, they accepted the Black support of Ida B. WellsMarie Louise Bottineau BaldwinDr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Nina Otero-Warren, who made crucial contributions to the cause while also battling racism and discrimination. Black suffragettes were made to walk in the rear of marches and ultimately got no support for their causes like anti-lynching. When the 19th Amendment was passed, they were pushed to the rear.

It’s too early to explain why white women did not support Kamala Harris to the same degree as Hillary Clinton. There is an easy explanation, but I’m hoping it’s something more than that. It can’t be about the issues. Can white women really be looking for someone to protect them, whether they like it or not?

The 2024 election will be dissected for years. Fingers will be pointed, and blame assigned. I didn’t give enough credit in this piece to misogynistic men. I may have something to say later about the influence of billionaires with ties to South AfricaElon MuskDavid Sacks, and Peter Thiel, who spent hundreds of millions supporting Trump and other candidates. Are they trying to recreate apartheid? With white Americans due to become a minority by 2045, they might be helping to preserve white power for several generations; it’s certainly safe for the next four years.

I told my granddaughter that this election wouldn’t immediately affect her life, though the more I consider that, the less I believe. I hope she never is in a position to consider abortion and, if so, that she identifies her condition within six weeks. I hope her friend's father isn’t deported. She’s studying World History now but will soon get to American History. Florida teaches a kinder, gentler version of Black History, for example, about the benefits and skills enslaved people received and that forced breeding and rape to increase the labor pool was “natural reproduction.”

I never should have underestimated the MAGA movement. I live in Trump Country and am not surprised by what I see here, but I was hoping the rest of the country might be better. I should have known, in spite of the unprecedented number of Republicans saying they wouldn’t vote for Trump. Even more people who had never voted went to the polls to vote for Trump.

Lastly, I pray for the health and safety of Donald Trump over the next four years. If anything happens to him, we get J.D. Vance, which is even scarier. The Trump transition team and his appointments promise to be entertaining. A Republican-controlled Senate will be sure to confirm the worst of the worst. Trump may even get a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. America is about to get what we asked for. Let’s hope we and the rest of the world survive.

This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.