Obviously, the hardcore rightwing nut jobs voted for him because they’re hardcore right wing nut jobs who want fascism. But we’re not interested in them. They don’t win elections in their own, as evidenced by Biden winning 2020.

It’s the people in the “middle” we’re interested in, the ones that don’t seem to owe a determined allegiance to either party. This time around they genuinely believed that Trump was the better choice to tackle corporate exploitation.

This belief was not based in anything in his platform or his politics - they find that stuff too complicated to parse, for the most part - but rather in the way he presents himself as an outsider, someone who’s mission is to burn down the status quo.

The status quo is corporate exploitation. The Dems presented themselves as a party of normalcy. A party that would defend and uphold the status quo and maintain continuity. Never mind that Biden actually made a lot of strong moves to reign in corporate power. That’s hidden in the details. The theme of Kamala’s campaign was “Business as usual.”

Trump presented himself, as always, as the enemy of “Business as usual.” They didn’t care about the details, just the broad notion that he would upset a system that needs to be upset.

This is why a substantial number of AOC voters also voted for Trump. A lot of these people care far less about party lines than you might think. What they care about most is the idea, the belief, that a candidate will stand against a broken and fucked up system that is killing America and the world. The Dems can’t win those voters by continuing to be a party of “Steady hand at the tiller”, which is why the left needs to primary the fuck out of every do nothing corporate Dem and put a progressive firebrand in their place, just like the right did to the GOP in the Tea Party takeover.

The person with the most power is traditionally listed before the slash.