The details of Donald Trump’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 election point to a substantial political realignment in America. Many voting groups traditionally tied to the Democrat party appear to be moving toward the Republicans, or at least toward Trump and what he represents.
Trump made substantial gains among black voters and especially Latino voters compared to 2020. In 2020, Trump secured the support of just 8 percent of blacks and 32 percent of Latinos. This year, according to various exit polls, he won 13–15 percent of the black vote and a whopping 45 percent of the Latino vote—a new Republican record. But even these numbers don’t tell the whole story, because in certain key parts of the country, where victory teetered in the balance, Trump performed even better among the minority voters. Trump won well over 50 percent of the Latino vote in certain places, most notably in Michigan, where he procured 60 percent of the Hispanic vote to Harris’s 35 percent.
Trump’s gains came especially from Latino men, who disproportionately work in low-paying, high-intensity manual labor jobs, thus making Trump’s economic promises and working-class appeal enticing to them. Across the nation, he triumphed with 54 percent of Latino men to Harris’s 44 percent. Similarly, he won 20 percent of black male voters nationally (including doubling his support amongst that demographic in North Carolina). As USA Today notes, black and Latino men helped Trump outperform in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit.
In key states, his support amongst black voters of both sexes spiked significantly compared to 2020. For instance, an NBC exit poll reveals Trump more than doubled his 2020 support among black Americans in the battleground state of Wisconsin. Finally, Trump won the votes of a resounding 65 percent of American Indian voters.
All of this adds up to a significant shift in American politics. As USA Today comments, “Together, the former president’s gains suggest his base of working-class voters has expanded beyond just white non-college-educated voters – a warning sign for Democrats that threatens their base in elections beyond this year.” This is a key takeaway that makes it increasingly hard to characterize Trump or his followers as white supremacists. As Trump’s support base becomes more racially diverse, it’s clear that his message has nothing to do with such nonsense and much more to do with the plight of the working man and woman—whatever their race. Trump’s appeal isn’t about white vs. minorities or heterosexuals vs. the LGBT group or men vs. women, but rather the common man vs. the elites.
Speaking to Fox News, Jenny Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, described the Trump base she witnessed on victory night: “The crowed was electric. And guess who was in that crowd? A diverse crowd. He has built the best coalition of African Americans, Latinos, independents, women, Arab Americans. … We have now been given this mantle, and the president spoke to the forgotten man and woman, and that forgotten man and woman includes Latinos.” Interestingly, by not focusing on diversity, Trump has actually generated more of it. That’s because true diversity isn’t an end in itself. Instead it flows naturally from people uniting around a common goal or good.
The gains Trump made among minority voters—which likely helped propel him over the top in contested states—bely a number of progressive narratives: first, that Trump is himself a bigoted racist (how could so many racial minorities support him if that’s the case?); second, that minority groups are one homogenous voting bloc defined solely by their “oppressed” status (why do we find so much political and ideological variation amongst them if they’re all the same?).
Back in August, I theorized that that growing opposition to corporate wokeism might signal the end of neo-Marxism’s “long march through the institutions.”
Trump’s victory adds weight to this prediction. The narrative that has long been the script for academia and legacy media outlets may be falling apart. Clearly, a lot of minorities didn’t listen to the allegations of racism and bigotry cast at Trump by the media. They didn’t vote for who they were “supposed” to. As John Nolte writes: “These numbers show that Americans have begun to tune out the corporate media. People have had enough of the lies and manipulation and smugness. People of all races and sexes and religions just aren’t listening.”
Trump’s gain among minority voters undermines the DEI narrative not only because it shows that Americans didn’t buy the tired old narrative, but also because the political divisions within ethnic groups itself disproves the narrative.
The minority groups didn’t vote as a single bloc because—shockingly—skin color isn’t the most important thing that divides or unites people. The absurd assumption that all “people of color” will align in their political values and vote for the same candidates has been seriously called into question by this election. A shared identity of being non-white is hardly enough to create single, homogenized voting bloc.
Americans are realizing that what academia and the media and entertainment have been telling them for decades—that a certain skin color makes you automatically oppressed, that everyone in the oppressed category must band together against the “oppressor” category—is simply hogwash.
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Mike Laughlin
November 9, 2024, 12:06 amThis wasn't an election determined by personalty, or -ists (racists, fascists, misogynists, populists ….) Nope. Harris and a whole buncha' other Democrat politicians lost because ….
The overwhelming majority of Americans woke up to the realization that failed Democrat Party policies were ruining their lives, their communities, destroying our great Constitutional Republic, and making a dangerous world ever more dangerous.
Why did it take 3 1/2 years for us to wake up? — Because unethical media like the Washington Post reported only things that supported the Marxist/socialist, globalist, Democrat Party agendas. And the damage caused by those agendas will be plaguing us for years to come.
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