Trump’s Defeat of Harris Likely Represents the End of the Traditional Political Establishment in America
The metaphor was fitting. An old, corrupt, and senile leader in Joe Biden desperately trying to cling to power and protect the special interests that have been attempting to destroy the country for so long. While Vice President Kamala Harris was obviously eventually the Democratic nominee, Trump was once again running against the establishment. Harris’s campaign was bought and paid for by special interests who supported an open border, continued wars in Europe, and the further expansion of government domestically as well.
The establishment stopped at nothing to try and keep now-President-elect Trump from regaining power. Trump was impeached, indicted, and also faced constant negative and fake news stories over the last 8 years. Harris heavily outspent Trump and she had nearly the entire legacy media on her side, she still lost. The 2024 Presidential election showed that the establishment has lost control of the country. Harris received almost exclusively positive media coverage from the legacy media while the press also relentlessly attacked Trump, it didn’t matter.
Even though the Biden regime was incompetent and Harris was a weak candidate, the fact remains that Trump’s MAGA agenda has a bigger voting coalition than the establishment can defeat. The President-elect received 75 million votes in 2020 and nearly 75 million votes in 2024. Trump won the popular vote by nearly 2.6 million votes. The Democrats have received under 68 million votes in every Presidential election other than 2020. The current policy platform of the Democratic party which is focused on climate change, raising taxes, and the LGBTQ community, is not appealing to most middle and working-class voters. The fact that the establishment could not beat Trump even with indictments, prosecutions, and the legacy media lining up in their favor, shows the left needs to completely reposition the party and run different kinds of candidates.
With the country now having resoundingly rejected the political establishment twice in the last three presidential elections, more candidates from outside of government will likely be running for office, and these individuals will have more credibility as well. More people from outside of government will be emboldened by Trump’s victories, and the President elect’s success will also make it harder for Washington insiders to present themselves as viable candidates as well.
When a candidate runs against the establishment, an individual is challenging the people who control the country, not just politicians. Trump ran against the corporate establishment and legacy media, as well as the corrupt political class. Many of the President-elect’s biggest enemies were establishment Republicans such as Bush, Cheney, and Mueller. The fact that the establishment tried to stack the deck against Trump and still lost by a resounding margin shows that the decline of the legacy media’s power and the public’s distrust of the traditional political class has reached a breaking point. American politics has likely changed forever.
