By Jurek Molnar
First ¢ :
Everything counts in large amounts. Depeche Mode
Some commentators called Trump’s win euphorically a “landslide”, but looking at the absolute numbers, this is clearly exaggerated. Trump got roughly 75 Million votes, and repeated his own result from 2020. He did not attract much more than last time, while Harris got around 72 Million and lost nearly 10 Million votes for the Democrats, compared to Biden’s result in 2020. Many voters who went to the polls in 2020, stayed at home this time and opened the possibility for a major shift in the voter base for both parties. Many assumptions about political motives, affiliations and engagements were shattered into pieces, because confident knowledge turned out to be bias. Republicans were more popular among men, Democrats more popular among women, but the gender gap was not as important as it was in 2020. Female voters did not buy into the idea that they are automatically booked on the democratic ticket. And neither did African Americans nor Latinos. The race card, the sex card and the fascism card did not work as expected and backfired like a pager more often than not. The fact that Trump not only won the election but also got the majority in the popular vote is a devastating blow to many democratic voters, intellectuals and pundits. TikTok and Youtube are bearing witness to that. MAGA has actually established a base for political change, which is backed up by majorities and has been made possible by shifts in the demographics Democrats thought they owned completely. If there is a question about the legacy of Donald Trump, then it will be this shift in particular, which later generations will remember. And this will also generate a lot of interesting developments, regarding the traditional political loyalties of relevant demographics. It will be a hell of a ride!
Second ¢ :
I’ve seen this happen in other people’s lives. The Smiths
Kamala Harris was not without chances when she announced her candidacy. Republican campaign managers had good reasons to fear her as a candidate for undecided and moderate voters who were uncomfortable with Trump’s rhetoric. Harris represented a younger, more diverse demographic, was unconditionally supported by the mainstream media and entered the arena “unburdened by what has been”. But soon, her own limitations became obvious. Her pseudo-intellectual remarks (“the significance of the passage of time”) exposed that she had trouble in speaking her mind. She was unable to answer questions about her own role in Joe Biden’s government. It was often unclear, what her exact positions on many topics were and more concerning she herself didn’t seem to know either. The reasons for her loss nevertheless have been mostly events outside her control. The catastrophic incompetence of FEMA authorities during the North Carolina hurricane crisis did not help her, but the main turn around was the media reaction to the assassination attempts on Trump. While Biden and Kamala both realized how dangerous this event was to their campaign, the mainstream media had nothing better to do than to downplay their own involvement in violence and violent rhetoric and so alienated a lot of voters who were disgusted by this clown show of self-righteous idiots. In every other case the same media would have fired with all their might, denouncing MAGA “hate speech” as the necessary precondition for political violence. Not this time. If anyone else lost it for Kamala it is her biggest fanbase in the mainstream media, like Joy Reid, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow, Oprah Winfrey and The View, who were mostly indifferent to the violence of their own side and so exposed themselves as embarrassingly small minds. There is a sweet taste of justice here.
Third ¢ :
All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February. Taylor Swift
The most significant turnover for the Democrats was their blind trust in the attraction of celebrities. The Marvel Avengers actors crew engaged in a bizarre zoom call on YouTube, which failed to catch a wider audience. Podcasters like Charlemagne the Great tried to be political analysts, LeBron James and several other sports heroes came out in support of the Democrats, and the late-night show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert banged the drum of the coming MAGA fascism. But the most important push for Kamala came from pop superstar Taylor Swift, who announced in September that she was jumping the Kamala train. In the German newspaper FAZ, a well-known left-wing author declared that the US election had already been decided, because Taylor Swift had made her choice. He called it “decisive for the outcome of the war”. The mainstream media in Germany and Austria went all in for Kamala and reassured themselves constantly, with Taylor Swift on her side, nothing will stop Harris from becoming president. And in general, Democratic supporters were convinced, that the endorsement of entertainers led by Taylor Swift would translate easily into a predominance at the ballot box. This delusion about celebrities as a motivator for shifting voting preferences is all the funnier, if one looks at the catastrophic box office numbers of woke Hollywood products in the last four years alone. Also, everybody was aware that the P Diddy case did not exactly increase the credibility of the people in favour of Kamala. The expectation that hedonistic girls will lead an avalanche of female and minority voters, all united by their hatred of Trump, to make Kamala their Queen, is simply ridiculous and demonstrates the sheer ignorance and complete blindness to reality of these woke bubbles, who also consider themselves as the smartest people in the world. Well, at least this myth can be considered as shattered and destroyed.
Fourth ¢ :
You’ve got to do better, senator! The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
It turned out that Elon Musk’s support is much more valuable than Taylor Swift’s. Not everybody likes Elon Musk, but everybody accepts that unlike Taylor Swift and the woke bubble he is engaging with the real world. Musk who is as popular as Taylor Swift, regarding his followers on social media, gave Trump’s campaign the last necessary spin into a winning direction, because after all competence and efficiency are good arguments. Who doesn’t like rockets that return to their launch pads? Taylor Swift and the celebrity armies of the Democrats sell fantasies, imaginations and self-perceptions, while Musk builds the future. Musk’s ingenuity also marks the return of a certain masculine quality, which has been under some scrutiny in recent times. The criticism of certain forms of toxic masculinity, necessary or not, cannot replace tonic masculinity as a source of innovation and the spirit to master the impossible. Musk is a witness to this. It will be interesting to watch if he will be able to achieve, where so many others have failed: the improvement of government efficiency and the cutting-back of regulations. I wish him good luck. Robert F. Kennedy’s decision to support Trump brought an additional boost to the campaign. Kennedy had been ruthlessly denounced and attacked during Covid, most of all by the New York Times and other high quality mainstream media. With the exception of Trump himself, Kennedy is the most hated man in the woke bubble and his own former party affiliates regard him as the devil. His alleged appointment as a Secretary of Health is a significant policy change, which cannot be underestimated. If he survives the next four years, nothing will be the same. His announcements indicate that he wants to challenge the food industry and big pharma, which both are difficult opponents. While Musk has promised the reduction of regulations, Kennedy has to implement regulations in order to clean house in the pharma business and he has to take control of all the health-related nutrition issues, that plague Americans so intensively. The next four years will not be boring, that’s for sure.
Fifth ¢ :
I’ll slip away before they’re up. James Joyce
Trump himself was despite his age, vital and in good shape. The difference between him and Biden was obvious and led to Biden’s decommission after their first debate on television. And while Kamala laughed a lot, when nothing was funny, Trump demonstrated humour and intelligence. Kamala did not score once in these categories. As a public figure Trump was serious, dedicated and witty. He had the better moments, the better memes, the better punches. He was convincing in the long podcast format, and his visits of Joe Rogan, Andrew Shultz or Theo Von were watched by tens of millions, who could make up their own mind about his personality. Kamala could only dream of such numbers and her appearances at Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” or Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” did not gain the same attention. Trump won, because he has a positive message, which is driven by a strong sense for independence and freedom. There is a future in his outlook. His populist rhetoric is an antidote to the malicious dominance of experts, who are most of all experts in advertising themselves. Trump is in many ways just a messenger of things to come. His election will have long term consequences, which we cannot predict at this point. He himself will fade away, but what matters is that he inspires all kinds of people, regular men and women, intellectuals, entrepreneurs and everyone who invests his and her energy in actual reality. Nevertheless, in this reality, projects can fail, and efforts can remain unrewarded. The future is undetermined. All we can say is, after all it is worth trying.
My sixth ¢s :
I’m the enemy of the unlived meaningless life. Bob Dylan
tells me, that nothing good comes by itself. It must be earned. History is made and progress achieved when people put in constant effort and hard work and somehow get rewarded for it. In Galatians 3, 28 it is written: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
