Michael Shellenberger: Why Trump s Victory Is Cathartic For Millions Of Us | Video | RealClearPolitics
MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: People who voted for Kamala Harris are reacting with shock, anger, and sadness at the election results. They’re asking themselves why so many Latinos, Gen Xers, men and women, not only voted the way they did, but why so many of us feel enormous relief at Trump’s historic victory. But do they really not understand, or do they not want to understand?
After all, over the last decade, many of us who have moved away from the left have been explaining our concerns at length. We didn’t appreciate being told we were bigots for not wanting to defund the police, open the borders, or mandate racial quotas. We didn’t enjoy being called phobic for not wanting doctors to experiment on children with pseudo-scientific transgender medicine, and we didn’t like being labeled conspiracy theorists for asking hard questions about Covid policies, or why the FBI/CIA/DHS were involved in mass censorship.
We’re not suggesting that those were the only reasons most voters or swing voters voted for Trump, the polls indicate the top issues were the economy and migration, but elections are won on the margins and what made the difference between 2020 and 2024 is the defection of so many traditionally Democratic voters to Trump and the Republicans. And many of those who defected were, like us, alienated by the transformation of the Democratic Party into a mob of woke scolds and persecutors.
This is all reminding me of 1980.