Carlet Langford
Everything Donald Trump touches, dies.
Why did Trump lose the 2020 election?
I propose these reasons:
His behavior. Trump was one of the meanest, crass, dishonest, incompetent, bone ignorant Presidents ever, if not the meanest, crass, dishonest, incompetent, bone ignorant President ever. He was embarrassing and infuriating to have to listen to, and the lying and the grade school insults were just unprofessional as well as childish, and at times, sickening. He acted like a low level Mafia thug when talking about perceived enemies who had the audacity to disagree with or challenge him. He never showed any real interest in learning the job or taking the business of leading the free world seriously. His own staff called him a moron and a threat to America’s security. People did not like their President acting like an abusive toddler and fighting with everyone, even our allies while embracing/kowtowing to some of the world’s worst dictators and traditional enemies of America to the point where national security professionals were leery of him. Trump clearly never grew either as a leader or a human being in the office—he was the same classless, arrogant, ignorant, repugnant oaf coming out as he was going in.His criminal/morally suspect behavior. Trump has been caught in many scandals, some of them with the potential of being criminal, and it seemed every day brought out more and more criminality. People close to him were being indicted and jailed, and were just at best, morally suspect. He was impeached over various and sundry behavior as President, with hundreds of former AGs stating that if he weren’t President, he would have been indicted based on the findings in the Mueller report. Reports as well as testimony from former associates revealed a pattern of criminal behavior as a businessman as well as thuggish behavior to keep people in line. Most people not steeped in right wing media could see with all that smoke, there was probably a fire in the Oval, and it is looking as though he will spend the rest of his life fighting off jail sentences.His divisiveness. Everyone but white men were in Trump’s crosshairs during the last four years. His divisiveness motivated women, minorities, young people of all racial groups who supported the protests, and LGBTQ to turn out in record numbers. Some of these groups, such as young people, did not vote in significant numbers in the past, but this time they were fired up enough to get to the polls in droves. Trump lost a lot of conservative women as well who were tired of the childish, thuggish, macho man misogynistic behavior from him. Minorities in particular, especially black and brown people, genuinely feared another four years of Trump and Barr/DOJ, given their words and behavior during the protests, the tone deaf denials of systemic racism in law enforcement, the treatment of immigrant families by ripping kids from their parents with the prospect of many of those kids never finding their parents again, the stacking of the Supreme Court, and the support/weak disavowal of militias and other white supremacists. With the encouragement/work on the ground by people like Stacey Abrams, professional athletes, and other celebrities to turn out the vote and educating voters on how to make sure their vote would count, minorities and young people registered and voted in record numbers.But, even with the above factors, the odds were pretty decent that Trump might have been able to slither into a second term thanks to uneducated white men, seniors, and some white women, just like last time. He lost some people in those groups but not all of them—there were still enough of them in the right geographical locations to put him back in the Oval on the strength of the electoral college (remember in 2016, he lost the popular vote, and won the EC by the narrowest of margins in key districts). But Trump was definitely hurting even with the EC advantage. Biden still had a chance to peel off some of them—the polls were always fairly tight between the two of them.
But what really finished Trump off was:
COVID. Reality caught up with Trump. People measured the Trump inaction, lies, lack of empathy, and rhetoric up against what was actually happening on the ground: mass death, illness, filled up ICUs, economic hardship due to job loss and a busted up economy. Unfortunately for Trump, this was one issue all the lies in the world couldn’t make go away; the virus punctured a hole in the fantasy Trump had been existing in. They saw an out of touch, lazy, ignorant President who pushed quack treatments, was willing to let people sicken and die without trying to do even small things like wearing a mask and laying off those indoor packed rallies, refusing to negotiate with Congress to provide economic relief to people pushed out of work and were facing eviction, ignored/stifled the medical professionals and meddled in CDC policy, lied to the public about the lethality of the virus, and who couldn’t even keep himself, his family, and the Oval Office staff safe. And of course, eight months after the ‘rona hit our shores, we are still having to wear masks everywhere, social events are curtailed, America is heading into the holidays having to forget about family gatherings and having to deal with the memory of family members who will no longer be able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas. People are sick of this virus, but it is threatening to worsen over the next few months. The worst part is that other nations have managed to control the virus while we are still watching it get worse with no end in sight. People, in particular seniors who made up the bulk of the illnesses and deaths, looked at that and didn’t like what they saw.COVID killed him off. It exposed Trump as a person who didn’t deal in reality, who was just a crazy dangerous old man in over his head, who didn’t care that almost a quarter of a million American citizens he swore to protect and defend had died while he gave crazy press conferences full of lies and bullshit, and was willing to stand by and let the virus go wild and sicken and kill more people (even his own family) without coming up with any kind of plan of action to get America back to normal life. Seniors, a huge voting block for Trump, were scared for themselves and wondering if they would ever be able to see their kids and grandkids ever again and turned against him.
All of the above, along with unusually high turnout among all voting groups that sat out 2016 who were motivated to actually get up off their butts this time and vote because they were alarmed by Trump’s behavior over the last few years, combined to knock out Trump. |
