The post mortems will continue for years to come, on into the uncharted future. In the year 2525, historians on Ceti Alpha V will be holding symposia on how exactly Donald Trump managed to get reelected in 2024 despite being vilified in the most outlandish terms and even saddled with the sobriquet “convicted felon” after bogus convictions in cases designed solely to besmirch his reputation and diminish his electoral chances.
In our own day, leftist pundits and “experts” will continue to inundate us with the straight dope on why Trump won for as long as they can think of new ways to say “racism” and “fascism.” Patriotic analysts, meanwhile, will patiently continue to remind people about the bad economy, the left’s cultural madness, the threats to the freedom of speech, and all the rest of what doomed the Harris campaign. All that is absolutely valid, but there is one overarching reason why Donald Trump won the 2024 election that is being overlooked amid all the rejoicing on the one hand and the insanely hyperbolic emotive hysteria on the other.
Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2024 because he is funny.
Yes, really. Yes, I am saying that Trump’s sense of humor won the election for him. Kamala Harris tried to cultivate a populist image of her own by claiming that she had worked at McDonald’s, and Trump actually went to one and worked there. Old Joe Biden called Trump supporters “garbage,” and here comes Trump in a garbage truck and addressing one of his rallies while wearing his garbage collector’s vest.
Whatever else this was, it was funny stuff. Here we had a politician who wasn’t afraid to have a little fun and not take himself so seriously all the time. This contrasted beautifully with the deadly seriousness and self-righteousness of the left. On the one hand, there was Trump, relaxed, happy, having fun, and promising a return of the government to the people, and on the other, there were all of the left’s front-line corruptocrats, including Old Joe and Nancy Pelosi, po-faced, grim, enraged, and feigning the outrage of the saints over Trump’s alleged crimes.
Then there was the left’s candidate herself. Every time she did it, leftists swooned and cheered her on, but when Kamala Harris answered hecklers by telling them, “I am speaking,” she didn’t actually sound like what she was reaching for: a girlboss in confident, competent command. All she came off as was a stiff, haughty, sanctimonious, impotent schoolmarm, wagging a futile finger at her class while the unruly boys threw spitballs across the room. We all went through fourth grade, and few, if any, Americans want our fourth-grade teacher to be president of the United States.
Harris compounded this impression with her fourth-grade level analysis of the issues of the day, such as this classic from 2022: “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong.” It’s all too easy to imagine her saying exactly that to a bunch of elementary school kids who, bored out of their skulls, start talking over her droning monologue until she grandiosely intones: “I’m speaking.”
Related: Trump’s Victory Restores Faith In the American Political System
When it came down to a choice between the scolding schoolmarm, who laughed uproariously but was never funny, and a man who laughed easily but never inappropriately and wasn’t afraid to puncture the bubbles of pompous politicians, the outcome wasn’t in serious doubt. This is not to say that Americans are so superficial and shallow as to choose a president for his entertainment value, although that is exactly one of the leftist talking points that are going around in the wake of the Harris debacle. The reality is that Trump’s sense of humor and Harris’ arrogant vacuity were valid and revealing indications of their characters and of what kind of presidents they would be.
The American people chose as president a man who is genuine and sincere in his determination to sweep the deep and endemic corruption out of the American government and to make elected officials truly “public servants” again. The people rejected a candidate who promised nothing but more of the hypocrisy, falsity, and sanctimony that we have come to take for granted as part of playing the political game in America today. Donald Trump showed that none of that is necessary or even desirable and portended a return to the days when the U.S. government was truly “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” If they’re worth their salt on Ceti Alpha V in the year 2525, they’ll still be talking about that.
