Why did Trump lose?

Abdullah Muradoglu

In the US, it is a truth nationally acknowledged that elected presidents deserve a second term. However, it is rare for them to lose the election race if they’re running after being selected as president in the first place. There are also conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for them to secure another four-year term. Firstly, the electorates need to be convinced that the president will perform better than they did during their first term. Even though the votes for Trump increased in 2020 in comparison to 2016, it seems he was not able to convince anybody.

Trump, with a populist discourse, was elected president by addressing large masses perturbed by the two-party system. According to him, the multilateral military and trade deals inflicted great harm upon everyday Americans. As a result of the global economic system, American business had fled overseas. Migrants on the other hand were accused of stealing the jobs of White Americans.

Meanwhile, the endless wars of Pentagon, which is acting like a global police force, plunged American taxpayers into poverty. Hence, Trumpists incorporated the “Washington Swamp” slogan which includes all these factors into their campaign. The voters believed Trump’s pledge that he would dry up this swamp. As a result, far from draining it, Trump took action to deepen the swamp further.

By striking a deal with the mainstream Senate wing, which he sees as a part of this swamp, Trump secured generous tax waivers for large firms. He increased Pentagon’s budget every time. His “America First” campaign materialized as “Israel First.” Despite his constant articulation of bringing American soldiers home, he never did. He promised trade wars that would be easy to win. His trade wars, however, hurt rural America, and didn’t rein business in. Trade deficits with Mexico and China could not be breached either. The Covid-19 pandemic put on full display the weak and unreliable American public healthcare system. It lifted the veil over the conditions causing inequality in the health and economic systems.

Before the pandemic, it was being said that Trump winning a second time would be a piece of cake. As it is, Trump made the wrong call on the disease which cost over 420,000 Americans their lives.

It plunged the American economy into stagnation, and unemployment rose. What’s worse, it disproportionately affected society’s most vulnerable factions.

The vast majority of the losses were made up of Black Americans and Hispanics who had very limited access to the healthcare system. Trump’s sympathy for groups defending White Supremacy only served to deepen Black Americans’ centuries-long feeling of alienation.

Instead of being guided by science in the fight against the pandemic, Trump waged a war against science itself.

His supporters substituted ambiguous conspiracy theories for facts. These theories were also extended to political, religious, economic and cultural fields. His policies against the pandemic as well as the stagnation in the economy played important roles in his loss of the elections. On the other hand, police violence against Blacks, Hispanics and other non-White factions became a great source of social turmoil.

With the expansion of voting by mail, the number of electorates increased. The vote by mail, which Republican voters did not like, turned out to be a blessing for Democrats. In the US, there are “insecure voters,” who make up a third of the total votes that Biden received. Insecure voters are described as America’s Third Party. A quarter of the voters who voted in 2020 describe themselves as “unaffiliated.” Trump, who did not try to win over the “insecure” and “disconnected” voters, alienated a large part of the country with his personal style.

Joe Biden is a politician who was groomed within the American Established Order, which is based upon the two-party system, with 50 years of experience. Biden is also responsible for the duties undertaken by the Established Order both at home and abroad. Biden, who is not so charismatic a leader, was elected due to the broad coalition that hated Trump and wanted to see him gone. And Trump, for his part, ended his presidency by drowning in the very “Washington Swamp” he swore to drain.