Donald Trump is not an apparition. Though to some of his critics he is the stuff of nightmares, he’s real, and he’s back. His opponents can no longer take refuge in the idea that he somehow fluked his way into office thanks to bigotry, ignorance, a cult of personality or the quirks of the electoral college: he won the popular vote and all seven swing states. Having lived through a term of Trump and the four years that followed, Americans sent him back to the White House with their eyes wide open.
For all his supposed divisiveness, Trump put together a remarkable voting alliance that would have seemed unthinkable for a Republican only a few elections ago. He performed better among women and minorities than in 2016 or 2020, winning nearly four in ten non-white men – not to mention nearly half of immigrants, Gen Z, Millennials and voters in union households. He did so by appealing to a sense of national purpose, security, the promise of more people sharing in the country’s prosperity, and a government that reflects their values, not that of an aloof elite.
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