It was clear, going into this election, that a country broken enough to elect Donald Trump once is surely broken enough to do so again. Anyone who didn’t think so was deluding themselves. And yet, his commanding victory over Kamala Harris is still a shock to the conscience. We know how bad Trump was in his first term, and he’s made clear how much worse he’d be in a second. But the voting public gave it to him anyway.
Not only did Trump hold onto his base of support, despite his parade of endless personal and political scandal; he expanded it, appearing to make gains in blue strongholds like New York and among voting blocs that have traditionally been seen as reliably Democratic, including Hispanic and younger voters. He didn’t do it by softening his message, or broadening his appeal; he plated up even more toxic slop than he did in his previous campaigns, and millions of Americans decided they wanted another helping.
Unlike his 2016 victory, in which he prevailed in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote, Trump’s 2024 win cannot be brushed off as a fluke of the system or pinned on James Comey or Vladimir Putin or Hillary Clinton not going to Michigan. Indeed, Trump is on track to win the popular vote, the first Republican to do so since 2004 and only the second to do so since 1988. He didn’t luck into the presidency this time; Americans chose this.
Not all Americans, of course. Nearly half the electorate cast ballots against him—and even more might have if Democrats weren’t facing brutal international headwinds for incumbents, or if they hadn’t weakened their own electoral prospects through a series of blunders and misreads that will be argued over in the days and weeks and months ahead. Trump’s success, in this regard, is an catastrophic strategic failure by the Democratic Party.
But the mandate Trump and the Republicans were given Tuesday—and it is a mandate—is also a statement about what America is itself. It was possible, in 2020, to hope that Trump was an aberration. But in 2024, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the country is much more right-wing, much more cynical, and much more nihilistic than many of us would like to believe.
It’s worth fighting to change that—and still possible, despite the power Trump is set to inherit and the ways he’s pledged to wield it. But we’ll have to reckon with the reality of where we actually stand. Much more of the country is Trump Country now.