It Happened
with John McWhorter
As of this writing, the presidential races in Nevada and Arizona have yet to be called, but we can say this: Donald Trump won the Electoral College, and it’s a near certainty that, when the final vote tally comes in, he’ll have won the popular vote as well. He will once again assume the presidency. In this clip, John and I are talking before the election. I have no wish to rub Trump’s win in anyone’s face—I didn’t even vote for the guy. But I do think this overwhelming victory lends credence to my prediction that, in time, his presidencies will come to be viewed as some of the most significant in American history.
John and I are planning to sit down today to record our (slightly delayed!) October Q&A session, and I have no doubt we’ll wind up talking about the election one way or another. That episode will be a subscriber-only affair. So if you want our immediate post-election reactions, click below to become a full subscriber.
This is a clip from the episode that went out to paying subscribers on Monday. To get access to the full episode, as well as an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
This is the election where the American public saw that the chaos around Trump came more from his enemies than him.
One bad joke in six (?) hours of campaigning drove three days of headlines. Really? That’s the molehill you are staking your credibility on?
More ink was spilled on whether those five words would destroy Trump’s chances with Latinos than the strange process that catapulted Harris to be the nominee.
They tried to foist Walz off as an avatar of Midwestern masculinity.
Then there was all of the hyperbole around Trump:
He was Hitler, Mussolini, & Stalin all rolled into one.
He’s going to be putting journalists in camps.
He won’t allow history books to be written.
The public saw through the media generated noise and figured out Trump (or Vance) wasn’t the monster they’d been told.
The amazing thing is that not only did Trump win, but contrary to John's glib assertion that there was no chance he would win the popular vote, Trump looks like he may very well win the popular vote as well once everything has been counted. If this holds, I believe you should press John on this particular fact Glenn.
Hopefully this is a death knell for the divisive brand of identity politics that the left has been pushing over the past decade or so. Trump managed to increase his numbers among various groups that conventional wisdom said he couldn't possibly be the candidate of choice for. I was amazed by the fact that roughly 55% of Hispanic men voted for Trump in this election, the guy who everyone in the mainstream media said was a racist because he wanted to deport illegal immigrants.
What was also fascinating was that in a number of red states there were ballot initiatives that were passed supporting things such as minimum wage increases, paid sick leave and abortion rights while those very same states voted strongly in support of Trump. One point that shows like the Young Turks has been making is that when it comes to the bread and butter issues that affect ordinary Americans on a day to day basis, there's actually a clear consensus among large swathes of the population irrespective of political leaning. What divided us were the culture war issues peddled by the radical left that ended up alienating many Americans across racial and gender lines. It turns out that people care about crime in their neighborhoods and the cost of living far more than whether or not we refer to individuals with the proper pronouns. The left's insistence that biological males should be allowed in female spaces such as women's sports also alienated many liberals such as JK Rowling, who's been quasi-cancelled in the last couple of years ever since she outed herself as a TERF.
I know Glenn that you stated that you sat out this election because of Trump's role in January 6th. John shares many of the same reservations. I don't disagree with most of the critiques of Trump's temperament and certainly January 6th was an aberration given our historical norms. But I think that what this election shows is that the claim that Trump was a threat to democracy ultimate rang hollow to many Americans. Many people in this country have little faith that America is truly a democracy rather than an oligarchy where the political elite serve the donors as opposed to the constituents they ostensibly represent. I believe this is why so many people were willing to overlook Trump's numerous excesses, because they fundamentally see a system that's even more corrupt and rotten to the core. Better to let a madman blow it all up to pieces rather than continue to suffer the endless oppression perpetuated by the elites and the establishment political class.