Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election despite slandering immigrants over America’s problems, propagating misinformation, and threatening women’s healthcare.
CBS News Political Contributor Joel Payne said that an ad ran by the Trump campaign “did real damage” against the Harris campaign. The ads that the Trump campaign ran at the time were about transgender operations for prisoners. His campaign’s message was clear: Kamala Harris is for they, them. President Trump is for you. It’s an outright mockery of the use of pronouns, but Payne believes that Trump’s reductive messaging damaged Harris’ campaign. These are just one of the many paid media attacks that were levied against Harris during the campaign season.
Aside from denying the attacks he employed against his political opponents, Trump hammered down on his focus on the economy and immigration. He conveniently blamed immigrants for stealing American jobs and promised a stronger economy throughout his rallies. Although immigrants were scapegoated for Trump’s benefit during his campaign, many of his voters agreed with Trump’s sentiments on deportation and tightened border security. As this disgruntled social media user puts it, “He won on hate and fearmongering.”
Messaging matters
In addition, Trump’s messaging has largely focused on improving the economic state of America. We can debate or disagree with the proposals he had in mind. Nevertheless, data suggests that a majority of voters were confident with Trump’s ability to make sound economic decisions.
Americans viewed inflation as a major concern, which has been higher in the Biden administration. Kamala Harris attempted to distance herself from Biden with several statements, but voters may not have gotten the message. This isn’t to say that Kamala Harris’ platforms on the economy weren’t enough. She promoted affordable housing by providing $25,000 for housing assistance to first-time home owners. She also proposed reduced healthcare costs and giving tax cuts to lower and middle-income families.
Despite these, the outcome of the election indicates that either those policies weren’t satisfactory to Americans—or that the marketing of such platforms wasn’t heavily pushed throughout campaign season. Trump and his allies aggressively pushed the notion that Harris was merely an extension of the Biden administration and not a leader who came in with her own economic policies. They’ve also made her take blame for illegal immigration during the campaign—and these immigrants were viewed, in turn, as a problem. It was a brilliantly insidious strategy.
Published: Nov 6, 2024 12:29 pm