Everyone is in a tizzy.
That is my official diagnosis of the post-election hangover in my world. My phone is full of text messages from people I haven’t heard from in years, looking for commiseration. I taught my first class a week after the election and it took an hour for my students to process enough grief so that we could talk about cheerier topics like the high price of telecommunications in American prisons. I’m aware that a big part of America is living its wildest dreams. But in my corner of the world, one big question lingers: How did we get here?
The long and the short of it is that circumstance and history forced Kamala Harris, a potential change candidate, to run as an incumbent during a global anti-incumbency, pro-authoritarian political wave. The only surprise here is that anyone expected the United States to be exceptional by bucking the global headwinds that favored a conservative populist.
Those headwinds helped Donald Trump grow his support among young voters, Latino men and Black men, among others. For as long as I have been eligible to vote, the line on the G.O.P. has been that it is old, white and boring. Trump’s appeal with young people refutes that as much as his success with nonwhite men does.
Trump did not win over these minority and young voters because he figured out how to appeal to their identity. He excelled at tapping into the information ecosystems — social media, memes and the cultish language of overlapping digital communities — where minority and young voters express their identity. That is a meaningful difference. Trump’s rhetoric and agenda may appeal to some voters based on racial identity, but the bigger story of Trumpism is how economic polarization is scrambling and complicating identity politics, especially in online spaces.
Trump’s political strengths are well documented. He is loud and bombastic. He is illiberal and rude. These characteristics make it easy for liberals to dismiss his demonstrably effective ability to generate affect. He encourages his supporters to lean into their feelings — to feel seen, acknowledged, welcome. That affect is politically powerful, especially in the digital age.
There is a growing body of social science research about the emotionally evocative digital cultures that circulate a lot of nonsense ideas and sell a lot of junk to create influencers. That potent mix of money, influence and emotion was key to the mass proliferation of two ideas that Trump’s brand of politics has brilliantly translated into electoral success: men and women are natural categories, and he can bring back the post-World War II economy.
