What the Left Still Can’t (or Won’t) Understand About Trump Voters

For years, they’ve been pushing the culture toward the radical left, but what they ended up with was a sweeping rejection that, nearly a week later, they still don’t seem to understand.

A Return to Normalcy

Above all, this election was a referendum from the American people wanting a return to traditional family values, American ideals, and normalcy that extends far beyond political candidates shaking hands on a debate stage again. The left can keep slinging insults at Trump voters, but until they see that it wasn’t just a blind love of Trump that won him the election in a landslide, but a slew of grievances with Democrat platforms as a whole, they will never begin to reverse the red wave that continues to shift this country.

As it turns out, people don’t like being called racist because they believe in some kind of basic border laws. Even immigrants themselves, who came here legally, believe absolute lawlessness is not the solution to the problem of a broken system. For many Trump voters, it’s not about being merciless to those who desire a better situation, but a grave concern over allowing unfettered access to our country. People began to inquire about a solution in response to the influx of crime and drugs coming over the border, and the Democrats dismissed concerns and chalked it up to racism. The Democratic Party would love to believe that they are the party of love and tolerance (tolerating everyone except you, of course, who might think differently than them about immigration.)

The unwillingness to entertain reasonably different opinions only begins with the issue of immigration. People began being labeled as homophobes without question, just because they might not have wanted their kindergarteners being taught sexually explicit curriculum, learning things like the gender unicorn, or because they believe a school should be required to inform parents about their child’s desire to change their sexual identity.

Those on the right who took issue with LGBT causes 20 years ago were mocked mercilessly for their concerns over a “slippery slope”; “Just live and let live!” the left decried. However, history has shown that the concerns were far from unfounded. Culture radically snowballed, and we moved from even Obama being against gay marriage as late as 2012, to parents being investigated by Child Protective Services for not supporting their young child’s transition to another gender. It wasn’t an issue with LGBT people, or their right to marry and receive civil protections, but people’s growing concern over the infringement of their own rights, which was simply dismissed as bigotry. Many were happy to live and let live, until they weren’t allowed to do the same, even within the walls of their own homes. Parents concerned about their children asked, “Love is love for us too, right?” Except you, the Democrats said.

Economy

There was no issue that was more kitchen-table to American voters than the one that puts the food on the table: the economy, wage stagnation, gas, and housing costs. Consistently polling as the number one issue for voters, Kamala Harris, as second in command to have overseen the dramatic increase in the cost of living over the last three and a half years, failed to reassure voters the next four would be any different. Harris, Democrats, and their allies of star-studded elites came across as out of touch, unaware, and uncaring towards the financial struggles of everyday Americans. Even Bernie Sanders, longtime proponent of the middle class, released a statement saying, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

For many voters, it wasn’t love, or even like, of Trump that eventually swayed their vote, but the most basic necessity of being able to provide for themselves and their families. Maslow’s widely accepted Hierarchy of Needs shows that when the most basic of human needs are left unmet, people have no capacity for desires of a higher order. Even if someone wanted to support social justice causes, they simply can’t when consumed with the struggle of getting to work and putting food on the table each day. Many causes have therefore become elitist-only concerns, driving the average American toward anyone who is willing to offer them a hand (and maybe some McDonald’s fries).

Abortion

Women’s health care and reproductive rights (read: abortion) was the central issue of the Harris campaign. Despite abortion no longer even being a federal issue, it was consistently the biggest talking point in debates, in celebrity speeches, and what was plastered all over the media. To say Democrats misread the room here is an understatement. In one CBS national exit poll, only 14%, yes, one-four, listed abortion as their top issue. Apparently, most people don’t think the ability to kill babies in the womb should be the most important issue (and for this, I say, truly, thank God).

Many who may have been more moderate on the issue have realized that abortion isn’t synonymous with healthcare, as no states criminalize or prevent treatment for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or other pregnancy complications that put the life of the mother at risk. There is a much broader cultural issue, however, at the heart of the abortion debate that the Democrats continue to overlook.

Traditional Men, Women, and Really Anyone Just a Little Different

The misstep on abortion speaks to either a forgetfulness or a complete lack of understanding of the more traditional views of men, women, and their relationships. In many cases, the far left panders to an extreme minority, and amongst their many forgotten are men and women in traditional marriages, who believe in rightly ordered masculinity and femininity. In their blindness, they have been unable to comprehend that there is a group of people (and clearly a pretty large one at that) that willingly enter into the "freak world" of traditional marriages and gender roles, religion, and family life. Amongst the many the Democrats have pushed away are the “toxically masculine” men who they say have no place in women’s lives.

The #MeToo movement said, “Believe all women,” which by default means, “Disbelieve all men.” Yet, it is mostly those males considered to be toxic that are loving husbands and devoted fathers. Men who respect their wives in and out of the bedroom, because they value the unitive and procreative act of sex. Rather than aborting their children and abdicating themselves of all responsibility, these men are raising their children, guiding them daily with love and leadership. These men prove their love by remaining, rather than abandoning.

The women who are privileged to be loved or raised by these men are also women whom the Democrat Party has chosen to toss to the wayside. These women often vote like their husbands, not because they are forced into submission like one Harris ad insinuated, but because their marriages are built on mutual respect and shared values. Conservative women are no strangers to leftist jabs. In an attempt to insult Trump, Mark Cuban proclaimed that Trump “is never around strong, intelligent women” because he is intimidated by them. Women have watched the beautiful Melania Trump, the sharp Susie Wiles, the passionate Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the intelligent Kayleigh McEnany, all being reviled and ridiculed for years by the party that purports to support all women. Instead, the Democrats believed their best bet was to sell Cardi B’s brand of female empowerment, which crashed down around them louder than the glass ceiling breaking by conservative women whom they refused to commend. Kamala Harris, for women! Except you, conservative women.

It wasn’t just the conservative men and women who were pushed away by the Democrats, either. Many of their own moved to the right because there was no longer a place for them inside the increasingly radical Democratic Party. Trump himself was a former Democrat, eventually joined on the Republican side by the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, and Robert Kennedy Jr., all of whom were no strangers to what eventually became visceral hatred from their own party. By continuously ostracizing person after person, group after group, who didn’t fall in line with the Democratic syndicate, the left created an echo chamber where their ignorance has left them in shock that anyone, let alone more than half the country, could think differently than them. Their pattern of tolerance for everyone, “except you,” has become their norm rather than their exception.

MAHA (Make America Healthy Again)

RFK Jr. was all too familiar with being rejected by the Democratic Party. Before giving his endorsement to Trump, he reached out to both the Harris and Trump campaigns, and unsurprisingly, the left said we welcome everyone “except you.” Perhaps one of their biggest mistakes of all was that the Democrats underestimated the power of the MAHA movement, as well as the pull RFK Jr. would have. Polling between 5-19% across states before he dropped out, RFK Jr.’s boost could have very likely won Trump the popular vote and who knows how many swing states, as even only 5% nationally is approximately 7.5 million voters. While the health of America was central to neither major campaign, it was Trump who was willing to bring RFK Jr. along and give his passions a platform.

RFK Jr. was known to many due to his longstanding calls for deeper research and choice over childhood vaccines, his concerns regarding Fauci’s career entanglement between both health policy and drug companies, and the entire handling of Covid, to his lifelong work as an environmental lawyer fighting for cleaner air, water, and food. Many on the left have long decried RFK Jr. as a crazy conspiracy theorist, simply for asking questions and searching for more research. Critical thinking and questioning used to be a very normal part of the scientific process, yet people are becoming increasingly aware they too are lumped in as crazy for merely asking the “experts” questions. RFK Jr. reminded people that fascist and authoritarian may not be an insult appropriate for their neighbor, but rather a government and its leaders that instituted lockdowns that kept them away from their loved ones, required masks on their children at all times, and forced vaccine mandates to be able to keep their jobs. My body, my choice, eh? Except you.

Those most familiar with RFK Jr. were longtime proponents for better health who had been pointing out major problems with the American health and drug system for years. Among those were perhaps one of the most powerful groups of all, the MAHA moms. Turns out, the women who were largely expected to turn out for Kamala to protect the right to kill their babies instead showed up to protect the right to keep their babies, and keep them healthy. Any mom will attest to the fact that they know their children best, and it’s Mama Bears who will, and have, seen firsthand how they have to do whatever it takes to protect the well-being of their children.

So many parents have come to realize, many after extreme consequences for their child’s health, that it is they, not doctors or teachers or any other less invested party, who have to be the biggest advocates for their children. RFK Jr., and now by extension the Trump team, are willing to have that conversation, to entertain new research and yes, question the science. Not because the science is fake, but by definition, science should continuously be questioned. This used to be the scientific process; now it’s the ramblings of conspiracy. RFK Jr., and those who echoed his concerns, didn’t even merit a call back from the Harris campaign.

Lack of Trust in Media and the Democrat Machine

Perhaps the most significant reason for Trump’s rise in popularity is that he capitalized on the frustration and mistrust of legacy media and the Washington D.C. machine. It wasn’t that Trump created an era of disinformation; the distrust and sentiment of being lied to long preceded Donald Trump. He was just the one savvy enough, or courageous enough, to stick out his own neck and call it out. For years, the media and “business-as-usual politicians” have been telling people what they’re seeing right before their eyes isn’t real. The rise of social media and censorship attempts on free speech have only fueled that fire, not with misinformation but with the belief that the government by the people and for the people is indeed unaware and even against the people. Democrats have killed themselves with death by a thousand cuts, saying they’re the party of everyone except you: the immigrant who waited for their green card legally, the mother in crisis who wanted resources to raise and not reject her baby, the parents who wanted their kids in school during Covid, the Marine who lost a friend during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the family watching the news who questioned Biden’s mental capacity and were told they were falling prey to deep fakes, are all sick and tired of being laughed at and dismissed by Democrats and the talking heads of legacy media.

Trump made inroads with every demographic because he tapped into something much deeper than policy; he made people feel like they mattered again, like they were deserving of a voice in society, as the other side continued to shout their baseless insults. Obama called them bitter clingers, Hillary called them deplorables, and Biden called them garbage. Well, Mr. Obama, cling they did—to another candidate, even one many felt was as imperfect as Trump. They clung to the one who welcomed them as the left continued to push them aside as insignificant garbage.

Trump proved that despite his own wealth, he was able to connect and inspire everyday Americans from all walks of life better than the Democratic lineup of shiny, unrelatable celebrities and lifelong politicians. Whether the left agrees with the voter's reasoning or not, they can’t argue with how Trump has made people feel, and what he inspires in them going forward.

The Rectifying Road to Unity

The right now has a broad coalition that includes men and women from every corner of the country. The Democrats will not make political headway by writing off anyone who thinks differently than them, digging themselves deeper into their own echo chambers. This election was a clear directive from everyone the Democrats have ostracized, all of the “except you’s.”

If Democrats are going to continue to decry that every Trump voter is a racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted Nazi, then they will continue to misunderstand what it is that Trump was able to capture in the hearts and minds of his voters. True unity necessitates that Democrats look beyond their slew of baseless, undefinable insults and remember that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”