Trump Election Explained To Eritreans (in Europe, Canada, Australia)

It’s not about Kamala Harris.  Or that she was a woman.  Or that she was Indian-Black.

After all, she got more votes than Obama (male) did in 2012, and about as much as Trump (white) did in 2020.   Any generic Democrat candidate who was thrust in without the benefit of having to go through the primaries, competing with other Democrats, and, in the process, stumbling and re-adjusting, wouldn’t get more votes than Kamala did.

The reason she lost, and Trump won was because:

1. Zeitgeist

The word is German for the “spirit of the time” or “spirit of the age.” It is the collective mood & cultural norm of post-COVID Americans who were feeling that over the last 4 years, the balance of power had shifted even more heavily from the ordinary citizen to the country’s increasingly corrupt institutions.  It was actually over the last 40 years, but they had rising incomes, sports and never-ending wars to distract them all those years.   But now, they were being told how to speak the only thing they own, their language (“its her not his: I don’t appreciate your micro-aggression!”) Men who called themselves girls were playing in women’s sport (you are now messing with America’s religion: Sports!) and the economy at the lived-level not at the reported-level was inflationary; and the wars are still never-ending. The welfare state had become so distorted that immigrants got better subsidies than the poor locals and the border was out-of-control and there was no plan to enforce control.

I think I can speak about American politics with some authority: I have been watching it up close for decades both personally (as a political junkie) and professionally (as someone who is directly affected by government policies.) What I can tell those feeling ecstatic: change is not going to come as fast as you think, and when it comes, it won’t be as good as you think.  And to those feeling deflated: change is not going to come as fast as you fear, and when it comes, it won’t be as bad as you fear.  Why? Because 17% of the US budget is used to servicing the debt which is at 1.9 trillion dollars, and you can’t print your way or crypto your way out of it, I don’t think.  The wish list will be prioritized; I just don’t know how awful the mass deportations will be, but I have faith in the competing interests of US stakeholders to have it go through a due process that is worthy of America.

The zeitgeist is just that: spirit of the time.   And time changes.  I have heard many predictions from many smart people that ended up being wrong simply because their world is their limited circle plus, worse, whatever the shockingly dishonest US (‘legacy’) media tells them which, for someone like me who considered majoring in journalism, is painful to say.   Consider how things changed over the last 20 years:

Elections in the US are about 4-5 things: two are eternal (war and the economy); the others are straight from the “Culture Wars” which we will get into.  But this year, there was one issue (COVID and Post COVID America) that polarized the people into government-believers and government-skeptics.  So the Trump win is not just Republican win, but an insurgency against the US government and its institutions. 

2. COVID:

An article of faith among libertarians and republicans is that if left to its own devices, the tendency of any government is to keep people in the dark and do as it pleases.  In short, to run the government as if there is a state of emergency.   The pandemic presented governments everywhere with this opportunity and they, Democrat and Republican, made terrible decisions.   Before I say more, it is worth noting that the Trump movement is skeptical not just of Democrats but mainstream republicans as well.  But wasn’t Trump in charge of the country when COVID broke out: how does he get a pass?

Let’s put a pin on that, we will be back to it.

People who questioned the efficacy of the masks were called kooks.   People who didn’t trust a government with vaccines (because it had steadily increased vaccines for children from 3 to 70) were called anti-vaxxers.   The government pressured the media, specially social media like Facebook, to ban anything which deviated from the government narrative because, clearly, it was disinformation or misinformation, it said.  And in time of emergency, like NOW, we can’t wait and go through the constitutional process: we need a direct pipeline to your channel.  Where is your mask? That better be a V-95 mask! 6 feet of separation, please.  Did you get your second shot? Do you have a receipt? Because without it, sorry, I can’t let you in the restaurant.  Have you gotten your booster shot? No? Why don’t you stand next to your fellow social leper over there, outside, smoking?

It wasn’t just the government that wanted to impose harsh penalties  (isolation, perhaps in a camp) on people who did not quite believe that this airborne disease that requires you to clean your hands every five minutes (“please use the sanitizers and the temperature check before we can let you in”) is so, so, so dangerous it can kill you. Worse, it can  kill everyone you had been in touch with. Can you please give us the list of the people you have been around so we can also have them checked/warned? It is so deadly, it requires a rushed, untested vaccine which is probably even deadlier than the disease itself.

Meanwhile, in Africa, CDC Africa published mortality rates that contradicted its claims that this was a deadly pandemic.  You remember the Shabait reports too: mortality rates for Eritreans were infinitesimal. We have killed 10,000 times as many in multiple wars. How is a disease with such a tiny mortality rate in Africa so exaggerated here?  We may not agree on much, but I think it is fair to say the sanitation is better where we live than our homeland.  So it just felt so very exaggerated.  It was enforced by a devout government (I say “devout” because the “Did-you-get-vaccinated?” had the zeal of Believers) which got half of America (“The Vaccinated”) to believe that the other half (“The Unvaccinated”) America should be unemployed (fired from their jobs for non-compliance) and possibly put in camps.

I was one of the skeptics, as some enraged Eritreans on social media used to scold me: STOP! THIS IS DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION!  But I think I was better informed.

I had CORONA in 2018.  The CORONA I had affects only people who live in the desert with camels and sand (I was on a business trip) and so it’s not famous. It is Brown People Pandemic. You haven’t heard of it.  Because it’s not a true global pandemic unless Europe and USA (ok, fine, Canada and Australia too) are affected by the pandemic.  You may know it by its common name, Camel Flu.  It is one of the siblings of the more accomplished celebrity sis, COVID-19. It felt like a terrible flu, which is to say at least it was not as bad as malaria.  You take over-the-counter flu medication and in a week or two everything is gone, except one of the symptoms lingers.  You are more annoyed than inconvenienced because now you have to actually see a doctor.  You hate doctors, because in the USA anyway, they are employees of insurance companies and lawyers, and you never know whether they are giving you medical advice or what the insurance company told them is the medical advice they should give. You hate going there because they hate their jobs,  So you go, and the doctor says, “This Camel Flu is called CORONA…..” and you dose off because that’s why you didn’t go to medical school “…. and you have to take it seriously because it has a 30% mortality rate!”  You dose on. What’s that now? Yeah 30%.  One out of three? Damn right you are going to consume whatever drugs she will feed you. Later on, you know it’s what you suspected:  that “30%” comes with so many asterisks and qualifiers that completely change the meaning of “30%.”  But some pharmaceutical company’s cash register rang and that’s what matters. And eventually, you finish your medication.

It’s two years later and I have a college professor friend who invites me as a guest speaker to his class to tell “My Corona Story.”  The professor is an Eritrean veteran combatant (Tegadalai), so he is probably trying to teach his students Eritrean XinAt.   “Stop Panicking; There Are Deadlier Pandemics,” is the title of his course, I think.  It is a class consisting of appropriately diversified California college students (my kids age) who want confirmation of the terror of COVID.  It has to be terrorizing because why else would they be in Zoom Classes?  When I am done talking, I always feel like I have disappointed them.   Yes, you over there, I say to some kid in some miserable Zoom window. “Did you do contact tracing and exposure notification?”  she asks. Sure, young lady: I told about 20 Eritreans at a family visit.  I called all of them one by one on WhatsApp.  They told me, “you called to tell us you have the flu?”   No I didn’t tell her that: today’s kids are easily traumatized.  When I told my colleagues I had the Camel Flu, they told me, “serves you right for kissing camels.”  That’s way back in 2018  when we still had a sense of humor.  It was dying slowly but it was there.

What does any of this have to do with the election?  Oh yes. Because. “Nearly half of Dems say fines, prison time appropriate for questioning vaccines, poll says“.  That was a headline in an actual newspaper in 2022.  The people came to learn it is not just their government that declared war on them; it is their fellow citizens too.  They were highly motivated to avenge themselves and vote.  And they did.

3. Cultural Wars:
For as long as I have been in this country, there has been a “cultural war.”  The “war” is based on a long list of actual disagreements on Big issues:

1. What is Gender
2. What is Sexuality
3. What is the definition of Family
4. Secularism
5. School Curriculum
6. Crime and Punishment
7. Race
8. Social Justice
9. Multiculturalism
10. Environmentalism

And on all these issues, the position of mainstream conservative Republicans was not to win but to slow down the pace of social change.  One of the Big Thinkers of conservatism, William F Buckley, defined conservatism just so: “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” Any reading of recent history would show that at least on the visible part of the culture war, the Progressive Democrats have been winning it.  For decades.

In every American election, in addition to the perennial issues of War and The Economy, two or three Cultural War issues show up as the major talking points and this year it was #1, #2 and #8.   The goal of the Trump movement is not to slow down the pace of change of the Culture War; but to decisively prevail.

The Progressives had overreached.   I know a school principal whose job includes, weekly, meeting with an irate parent who is unhappy that her daughter is still being referred by her male name despite the fact that the mother had repeatedly told his Teacher that he is a she. This is in middle school.

One of the questions that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was asked by his parliament is that USAID requires foreigners to be indoctrinated to the progressive’s version of the Culture War in exchange for the aid they will get.   The Prime Minister waived it off: if you the toothless parliament find it objectionable, pass a law against it.  I have a park to christen.

People (specially men) were just tired of being scolded and having to apologize for every terrible thing every man has done any time in the history of time. So they came up with a strategy for their counter-offensive:

A. Defeat  & Replace the Media: The media did it to itself: its credibility is so low that if it were a car it would be recalled.   The conservative Republicans decided to create an alternative media source where X (Twitter) is now the number one news source overtaking the “legacy media.” (Refer to table above.)  They dominated long-talk format podcasts where a politician is required to do more than espouse focus-group-tested memes and vibes but explain their stand on every issue and why.

Republican opinion leaders often use the metaphor from the movie The Matrix: the hero, Neo (“The One”) is presented with an option: Take the blue pill and stay in wherever delusional world you live in but caution: you will always have that “something is wrong” feeling which will be like a splinter in the mind.  Take the red pill and you will be presented with reality.  Just follow the white rabbit and, no, unlike the Jefferson Airplane song, it won’t take you to a hippie land where “the white knight is walking backwards” but to a dystopian world where you will realize you are just fuel for The Machine.  When you realize that, the conservatives say you are “red-pilled.”  You have left the distorted world the mainstream media sell (the one that plays at every airport and restaurant in the world) for the real one.  Similarly, they refer to the unknown individuals who convinced Biden to resign and shove an ill-prepared Kamala, setting her up for failure, the Deep State, as The Machine.

B. Embrace Defectors: Elon Musk,  RFK Jr, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard are all former Democrats.  Whereas the Progressive arm of the Democratic Party was going to constantly run loyalty tests and ostracize and chase away dissidents, the Republicans were not just going to embrace defectors but give them prominence.  Each one brought their considerable base.  The Democrats brought Dick Cheney and Family.  This is what I mean by “zeitgeist”: Cheney used to be one of the most respected and most powerful Republicans; now he is dismissed as a war monger.   One of the most confused must be our friend John Bolton (he deserves the cover photo): he served every Republican administration since Reagan INCLUDING Trump but now he is a “war monger.”  Zeitgeist!

C. Declare War On Every Influencer:  Everybody who got us to the point where asking “what is your gender?” required an essay instead of a check on a box was defined as enemy.   That is Academia.  That is Hollywood. That is the Media.  That is the whole educational-entertainment complex including social media. Everything must go.

D. Distrust All Institutions:  Many US presidents had a wayward family member.  Jimmy Carter had one; Bill Clinton had one.  They kept them hidden.  Biden has one but he decided not to hide but profit handsomely from his connection.  And when this was going to be uncovered and torpedo Biden’s campaign, 51 National Security types said the source of the information is likely Kremlin and therefore “disinformation.”  51.  So the National Security Apparatus is also corrupt.  Universities are corrupt.  US Agencies (NHA, FDA, Health & Humanities) are all compromised.  Everything must go.

And the result is truly unlike any we have seen before.   The Democrats could always, always count on the Jewish vote, the Women’s vote, the Youth vote, the Black vote, the Hispanic vote, and the Muslim/Arab vote.   They still got the Jewish vote and the Women’s vote but everybody else just left them in material numbers.  Consider: a few weeks after Trump said in a speech that his goal is to “Make Israel Great Again” and had already told the Butcher of Gaza to “finish the job”, he won the Arab and Muslim vote in Michigan, and he thanked them for it in his acceptance speech.   A day after he said he was going to conduct mass deportation and close the border, he won a substantial percentage of the Latino vote.   He won the Youth vote.   He won not just States but the overwhelming majority of the counties in even the Deeply Democratic States.  (Check out California.)  He won not just the electoral vote but the popular vote.   The Senate became Republican, the House turned Republican, and he already has the Supreme Court.

Why would the Latin vote and the Muslim vote and Arab vote go for Trump knowing what he promised? You know how when you are playing cards, and it turns out both your hands and that of the person playing against you are terrible and you ask for a “do-over” (ፈርትኮ!)?   Some of it is definitely that.  It is an emergency brake.

So, yes, Kamala was a terrible candidate; but she had to be given how ill-prepared she was for it when it comes to campaigning. Ironic, since the vice president is supposed to be “a heartbeat away” but not, apparently “senility away.” All her “Tough On Crime” credentials and “Ukraine is our ally” internationalism would have been useful during the Clinton Era, but they are not now because some of the institutions the people lost faith in are also the criminal justice system and the military industrial complex.

We had put a pin on Trump.   All the stuff about Trump that people (specially Europeans) find objectionable is either something Americans already knew and laughed at as “what you gonna do with New Yorkers? They are a brash and vulgar people” (he has been in the spotlight for 40 years) or they don’t believe it (because the media and the justice system have been caught so, so many times manufacturing news and maladministering justice.)  Besides, what is the alternative: you can have all the bragging, exaggerations and crudeness of Trump; or you can have the plastic politician talking in focus-group tested sound bites and saying nothing for fear of offending anyone. Trump coalesced a powerful movement and created a strong sense of urgency (It’s Now or Never) to maintain an America with its Bill of Rights.

Finally, for those telling you “this is the beginning of a new dynasty, a political realignment, etc., etc.”, as someone who has been hearing that song-and-dance for 40 years, please don’t believe them.  The US has the most powerful self-correcting system and it just self-corrected and if those in power now overreach, they will be corrected too!