MAGA is back. This time with a mandate — and unburdened by what has been.
Donald Trump made history again this week and will be the 47th President of the United States.
The last president to return to the White House after losing a previous reelection was Democrat Grover Cleveland, who was the 22nd president (1885-1889) and then became the 24th president (1893-1897).
And the Trump campaign managed to do it with a massive fundraising disadvantage. Harris, who took over Biden's cash when she became the nominee, raised close to a billion to Trump's $388 million per FEC filings between Jan. 2023 to Oct. 16, 2024.
During his victory speech, Trump spoke of the win and having a mandate to act, but also about his administration and the Republicans winning due to a focus on common sense.
The Mandate
As of this article, Trump has won the majority of states and their electoral votes and is on track to win the popular vote. The Senate has flipped to Republican control and the House is expected to follow.
With Trump's win and Republican control of Congress, the Trump administration has a clear mandate from the voters to act on the key issues such as prioritizing American energy sources, lowering prices, bringing down inflation, securing the border, mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens, tackling crime, an American workers-first trade policy, tax relief, and rollbacks of crippling regulatory rules, including reversing Biden's rewrite of Title IX.
The coalition Trump built with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elon Musk also speaks to a broader mandate of reining in a bloated federal bureaucracy. It's my guess that Kennedy will gut the Food and Drug Administration, Musk will give fiscal haircuts to every agency, and Gabbard may be giving orders to military leaders who used to order her around.
Musk's ownership of X should not be discounted in the results of this election. Last time around, it was called Twitter, and it censored the Hunter Biden laptop story and anyone questioning COVID topics. Twitter also had a running list of conservative accounts that were either shadow banned or banned entirely from the platform. This time around, that was not the case. In fact, with the addition of Community Notes, there was a whole new level of interaction on the platform.
Additionally, with Trump in office again and Republicans controlling the Senate, some have speculated he may be in a position to replace two more Supreme Court Justices as Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been rumored to be considering retirement. There has also been speculation Sonia Sotomayor may retire due to health reasons. That could mean three more picks for Trump.
MORE TO THE STORY
Transition already happening
The transition has already begun, with President Biden calling Trump on Nov. 6 to start the process.
“President Joe Biden called President Donald J. Trump to congratulate him on his victory and extended an invitation to the White House to ensure a smooth transition between the current Administration and the incoming Administration. President Trump looks forward to the meeting, which will take place shortly, and very much appreciated the call.” – Steven Cheung, Trump Campaign Communications Director
Harris called too, per the Trump campaign.
“President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier today where she congratulated him on his historic victory. President Trump acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country.”
World leaders are already on the move and connecting with Trump. Work on avoiding WWIII is already afoot, with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu already communicating with Trump and the Kremlin is already stating it is "not ruling out talks" with Trump prior to the inauguration in January.
The Concession
Harris disappeared from her watch party on election night and like Hillary Clinton in 2016, she sent someone else out to tell her supporters she wouldn't be addressing them that night.
The following afternoon Harris gave her concession speech at Howard University, her alma mater. It was an unremarkable campaign stump speech. She spoke for about 20 minutes, reading her lines off a teleprompter.
And we will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square. And we will also wage it in quieter ways: in how we live our lives by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up, to fight for the dignity that all people deserve. The fight for our freedom will take hard work. But, like I always say, we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work can be joyful work. And the fight for our country is always worth it. It is always worth it. To the young people who are watching, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed. But please know it's going to be okay.
There was no introspection in her speech. In fact, Democrats on the whole appeared to have learned nothing from this cycle, with multiple media outlets reporting Democrats blaming Biden for Harris' loss instead of acknowledging they not only failed to listen to the voters, they demonized the majority of them. As a contrasting example, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang's op-ed this morning is worth your time.
Where is Walz?
In the concession speech, Harris mentions her running mate, Tim Walz, who seems to have vanished from view.
In terms of introspection, the selection of Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is something the Democrats need to hold the mirror up to their faces on. Harris didn't need Minnesota; she needed Pennsylvania.
The amount of baggage Walz brought to the table in terms of woke ideology, ties to Communist China, and his handling of COVID lockdowns and funds, hindered the campaign. The VP debate with JD Vance only served to further underscore what a bad pick Walz was.
Harris Underperformed
On Wednesday, CNN's Jake Tapper was stunned to find out that Harris failed to surpass Biden's 2020 performance in a single state.
“Holy smokes! Literally nothing?” Tapper said.
The opposite was true of Trump, shattering demographic records and receiving support in regions Republicans haven't been able to crack for decades.
“Black and Latino voters, particularly men, tilted more toward Trump this year than in 2020, with Black support nearly doubling to 15% and Latino support growing by 6 points, to 41%, according to preliminary results from AP VoteCast, a large survey of people who cast ballots this year," the Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump's support with noncollege minority voters exploded.
"Among those surveyed, Trump won noncollege voters of all racial backgrounds by 12 percentage points over his Democratic opponent, compared with a 4-point edge in 2020—an important shift toward the Republican Party in a group that accounted for nearly 60% of all voters," per the Wall Street Journal.
Also - Gen Z propelled Trump to victory. Campus Reform reported, “support among voters aged 18-29 jumped from 36 to 42 percent,” for Trump.
Bonus Items
America's Hall Monitor notices something
We still need to talk about what happened here
Political Text Messages
Like no election before, everyone was inundated with political text messages this cycle to the point we wanted to break our phones.
Well, this bonus item is about that but you won't want to throw your phone.
Brad Hessel, the Libertarian candidate for NC's 18th Senate District, posted a text message he received from a progressive group called "Down Home North Carolina."
"Most-Ridiculous-Election-Text-Message Dept." wrote Hessel in a post on X. "Here is a new contender."
Here's the image he posted:
Not only did Down Home NC spell BOTH of the name wrong, Everitt may have lost the seat. This race is headed for a recount, so time will tell.
