Donald Trump won each of the seven battleground states, turning the entire blue wall red. He flipped six states that Biden had won in 2020, securing 312 electoral votes compared to Kamala Harris's 226. Trump won the popular vote by about 4 million votes. It is extraordinarily rare for a president to make such a comeback after losing a reelection bid so badly. Trump's rebound, as Niall Ferguson writes in The Free Press, is even bigger than Napoleon's in 1815. And yet, it happened. Donald Trump gained support from every racial group except White people, where he lost one percentage point compared to 2020. CNN exit polls showed that he won about 13% of Black voters, up from 8% in 2020, and 45% of Latino voters, up from 32% in the last election. He secured the majority of Latino men nationwide, and in some counties, he gained a majority among both Latino men and women. He won among voters who make less than $100,000 and captured 44% of union households. Trump picked up support among young voters, who usually lean Democratic, but he lost ground with seniors. He gained the support of more voters in major cities like Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago—though those cities still overwhelmingly backed Kamala Harris. How did this happen? Identity politics. Around half a percent of American adults identify as transgender or non-binary—that's one in 200 people. Yet many Americans - Democrat and Republican - based their votes on that single issue. Manifestations of this issue include the push to say “birthing person” or “people with ovaries” instead of “woman,” and the fact that a parent who doesn't want their children exposed to these ideas gets demonized and, under certain circumstances, loses custody of their kids. I have no doubt that gender dysphoria exists, and we should help those people feel comfortable in their bodies and in society the best we can. But many people on both sides, who are untouched by the issue of transgender rights, fought so passionately for or against this issue. Democrats decided to die on this tiny hill. Elon Musk became enraged and radicalized by this issue and used his influence to back the Trump campaign. Donald Trump campaigned on slogans like “she's for they/them; he's for you.” Try walking into a Latino household and talking to them about gender dysphoria and see how far that gets you. In the end, it seems that more people find transgender activism annoying than relevant to their lives. It's baffling for me to hear people still say things like “America was never going to elect a Black woman in 2024” or “we’ll never escape the cycle of White supremacy.” Race and gender are not the problem. Kamala Harris lost for other reasons. The number one podcast that Black men listen to is The Joe Rogan Experience. Donald Trump appeared on the podcast two weeks ago for an unedited three-hour episode, where he not only discussed his policies but also shot the shit with Rogan about MMA and life on Mars. That interview hit nearly 40 million views on YouTube in 3 days. Democrats talk a lot about land acknowledgments, yet sixty-five percent of Native Americans voted for Trump. The Democratic Party lost more people of color than they ever have in a presidential election. There are real racists who support Trump, yet that still wasn't enough of a problem. If the Democrats want any chance at winning the next election, they need to grow a spine and say, “we're not going to stand with Hamas sympathizers”, and “we're going to focus on working people” rather than being whipped around by the whims of the blue-haired college student at Barnard. The Republican Party has been having an honest conversation about the real things that ail us all - inflation, the dwindling middle class, the rise of China, the housing crisis, the opioid crisis, the chaos at our southern border, free speech, and the decline of American power. Donald Trump picked up the Democrats' long-abandoned pro-labor agenda around the economy. How have Democrats talked about the working class? They talk about the working class in their Ivy League classrooms like they're animals that need to guided. Trump got the Democrats' old base - the multiracial working class - because he picked up the Democrats' old agenda. No more wars - the Republicans cast themselves as the anti-war party. The Democrats used to be the party of "abortions should be safe, legal, and rare." That's now Trump's position. He's pro-choice for 15 weeks. He promised that he would veto a national abortion ban. He wants the authority to lie with the states, where many Democrats think it belongs - or at least used to think it belonged. The Republican Party now resembles what the Democratic Party looked like under FDR and Truman. Under these administrations, Democrats were firmly pro-labor, advocating for working-class rights, economic reform, and a restrained approach to military intervention post-World War II. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Truman's Fair Deal aimed to improve the lives of the multiracial working class, addressing labor rights, social welfare, and economic security. This era was known for policies that prioritized workers’ rights, economic relief, and limited global interventionism - principles that resonate with a lot of the current Republican rhetoric. Even Jimmy Carter emphasized restrained foreign policy and limited intervention, alongside an energy policy that aimed to make America more self-sufficient. Donald Trump won because he is pro-worker, anti-war, anti-free trade, strong on immigration, and socially moderate - a platform that resembles what used to be the Democratic Party. Trump effectively became a “Democrat” - or never stopped being one.