Comment by prewett

I've slowly been coming to see voting for Trump as a populist revolt against the educated elite. The educated elite has embraced the Progressive Left, but refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people are simply do not agree that this is a positive development. But the Progressive Left keeps making that position not acceptable. Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment--and the fact that it got laughs--is a minor example. The Progressive Left has been making it harder to live as someone with a different opinion, and 2024 was the year everybody else revolted; I think even white men finally voted majority Republican, after the minorities slowly peeled off over the past decade. Trump is appalling, but I think the election makes more sense if you look at it as the non-elite population saying "we want less Progressivism", and Trump promised that he would deliver. Since nobody in the elite was listening, they had to say it louder and louder, until Trump became their mouthpiece. (This is probably all subconscious, of course.) If educated elites continue to along their current path, which I expect, because this seems to be a matter of essentially religious righteousness for them, I expect it will be said even louder, with potentially disastrous consequences for everyone. Continued Progressivism will also be disastrous, but in a different way. It won't be Putin, but dissent will certainly not be tolerated. Similar dynamics are happening in the UK, except that I don't think there is a Trump figure there, so the message is more diffuse. I expect you can probably look at Canada to see how continued Progressivism will work out.