Trump wins presidency for second time

See these links—they contain lots of explanation about this:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

I don't think it's the economy or anything else. All this seems like rationalizing to me not an understanding of what happened. Trump was able to motivate more people to vote than Harris was. I have yet to meet anyone who truly rationally made a choice that they had not already made to begin with other than after the fact rationalization. It is all about perception and what the other person believes. Reality and facts do not matter as much as we would like them to. There is no interest in anyone want to actually change their views. What argument or evidence would actually cause you to change your view? It would take extraordinary evidence for me to change my vote. I suspect that is the same for most voters, it's more of an issue of who can motivate better.

We would have it if Republicans didn't bend their knee to Trump in 2016. We'd have Democrats, Trumpists and Republicans. But Republicans didn't want to become a third party so they let themselves get completely consumed by Trumpists in exchange for letting them keep the branding.

Things that most people care about:

- Will I still have a job in 6 months? If I lose my job, can I get by?

- Can I continue to afford groceries, rent, utilities at the current pace of inflation?

- If I have a major health problem, will I be ok?

During an election, you can either harness the fear voters have around these issues and turn them into hateful energy against the other side (Trump tactic) or you can calm people's nerves by acknowledging the problems and providing a path to deal with them (Obama tactic). Obama was able to confidently appeal to voters on these issues and he brought them to the fore-front throughout his campaign. Obama was charismatic as well, so when he talked about these issues, you got the sense that he could competently provide that protection. He was reassuring.

I voted for Kamala, but I didn't want to. She possessed none of those positive qualities. She didn't instill confidence. Her voice and demeanor made her sound annoyed. Her fake smile made me cringe. I wanted an authentic candidate that could make me feel safe. She was not it.

Lastly, those primary issues were shrouded by gender politics. I would like transgender people to feel safe and have access to resources they need. I would like women to have access to abortion when it's necessary. These are not things to run a campaign off of though. EVERYONE feels the pain of a bad economy; that should've been the primary focus all along and we needed a STRONG candidate to really drive a strategy for addressing it. I just don't think Kamala was able to make any headway in that respect and I think that's why she ultimately lost.

Donald Trump had 74 million votes in 2020. As of right now, he's nearly at 72 million. To me that says he hasn't necessarily gained new followers. That's a good sign. It seems the Dems have lost millions however. That's a very bad sign. It's pretty clear then that Kamala did not represent what voters really cared about during this election cycle.

You're not alone, friend. A three body problem would make for more interesting dynamics.