Lessons from an election: a reckoning for Democrats and the mainstream media

As people shrieked, cried, and joined arms, it was obvious all along. At the Donald Trump election night party in West Palm Beach, the greatest comeback felt like destiny. The journalists thought it would be close, but the positive vibes of Kamala Harris’ campaign were simply a mirage. The weight of incumbency was just too great to overcome.

We were all suckered in by the polls; put off by that Ann Selzer survey that had Harris up by three points in Iowa; and over-estimated the impact of that Madison Square Garden rally.

I myself should have looked back to 2020. In between two of the lockdowns, I published a video about “one-term presidents”, comparing Trump’s re-election bid to that of Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush. The common themes behind their demise were pretty obvious: low approval ratings during the election, a bad economic picture, and a strong opponent.

All those lessons from history were staring us in the face: the Edison Research exit poll showed 32 percent of voters put the economy first in deciding how to vote and 46 per cent said their family situation was worse off than four years ago. 46 per cent of voters had an unfavourable view of Joe Biden, while 52 per cent had an unfavourable view of Harris.

Perhaps the other variable affecting re-election, party unity, was what threw us off. Yes, Harris was not going for re-election, but she was tied to the present White House. And previously, what did it for Carter and Bush Senior was that they were challenged in the primaries (Ted Kennedy and Pat Buchanan respectively), revealing a weak president and a divided party.

Of course, Biden was never properly challenged, and eventually dropped out with Harris quickly taking his place. Would a competitive primary process have helped the Democrats? It might not have been enough to overcome the anti-incumbency winds sweeping across the globe in 2024, but perhaps what the party needed to show was not unity but division.

The power of Barack Obama’s candidacy was not just the historic nature of what he represented, but that he was the underdog. The candidate the Democratic system did not seek. They in the main wanted Hillary Clinton. But since then, the Democrats have simply anointed their candidates. Clinton again in 2016, against the tide of Bernie Sanders. The party quickly coalesced around Biden in 2020 amidst a crowded field. Trump is a man who rose through the system and – like it or not – still represents the anti-politics brigade.

The saving grace for the Democrats is that this was not necessarily a landslide for Trump and the Republicans: not as big an electoral college win as Obama in 2008 and 2012, and while they will dominate the White House, Senate and probably the House, their majority in the latter will be slim. The Republicans thought they were dead and buried after Mitt Romney’s loss; the Democrats now need their own Trump to help them re-emerge.

That the mainstream media in many ways failed to appreciate the Trumpian headwinds is both a lesson and a warning. As I said above, in the final week, we were talking about that Iowa poll and endlessly debating the “garbage” comment about Puerto Rico by a comedian at Trump’s New York City rally. Trump won Iowa and increased his share of the Hispanic vote. The outrage and controversy around Trump is ever-present and baked into his identity. That anything “new” could really end it for him was incorrect. Think January 6th. And here we are, he’s back.

And it’s not just that none of that would affect the Trump brand, it’s that perhaps no one was listening to the media? Trump – thanks to his youngest son, Barron, and campaign adviser, Alex Bruesewitz – mainly ignored the big networks and favoured podcasts; conversations with influencers and gamers. It was notable that one of the speakers at his election night party was Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, who took to the microphone and said, “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”

The Nelk Boys, pranksters turned politicos who came up when I spoke with male students in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Trump’s conversations with those outlets reached them. “And it’s not in front of a news media where, you know, you see those fake narratives and stuff.” It was notable that the big name stars that the Democrats had, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, never came up in any conversations on the campaign trail.

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It was in those conversations – with young men shunning the mainstream media – that people like me should have realised that something was going on. That the dialogue and debate in those spheres is perhaps where the election was really taking place. It was those young boys who first mentioned their annoyance with “woke culture.” And that came up again and again on election night in West Palm Beach. What changed between 2020 and 2024 I asked one group of very excited fans. “They went all in on the trans issue, they said you have to have men in women’s sports” one said.

While the Harris campaign did not go “all in” on that issue, the Republicans said that an advert on that issue – “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you” – cut through with voters in testing in a way that few other adverts did. I think that 2024 was the second Covid election. The first was a repudiation of Trump and his approach to that pandemic. 2024 was the fallout. The post-Covid inflation. The resentments for what some say they saw during lockdowns, namely that many parents claim they saw the lessons their kids were being taught and felt they were “too liberal”. I do think overall, journalists have not appreciated the cultural consequences of what happened during the pandemic and how they resonate today. And maybe that is because our conversations in our media bubbles are not what people are interested in – and that is why they are going elsewhere.

For now, it is time for Trump and the Republicans to bask in their victory – and hope that they are more unified than they were last time he won. I cannot help but wonder whether this is a new period of political upheaval and back and forth between Republicans and Democrats. It is not often that the winner of the White House flips from one party to the other as it has done since 2016. Will Trump cement the Maga legacy and hand over the reins of power to a new generation? Or will Maga minimise once he has gone?