The majority of Americans who voted, at least in the swing states, have voted for the republicans. Why? Do the republican policies reflect popular opinion? Or is it that their vibes are more aligned with the public? Or maybe people are worse off now than they were 4 years ago and are hoping to turn back time? As a non-american I don't quite get it. People must think their lives will materially improve under the republicans, but why?
Democrats had nothing to offer beyond not being Donald Trump. They copied his policies, celebrated endorsements from hardcore republicans, and bragged about wanting to put republicans in positions of power in Harris' cabinet. Every vote for Harris was a vote for Trump. Trump has been the center of the democratic party since he won the 2016 primary. The two cornerstones of democrats strategy have been that they are not the person Donald Trump and that any criticism of the democratic party is Russian propaganda. It works better than it should because most Americans have the memory and political literacy (and sometimes even the literal literacy) of a goldfish, but it doesn't work well enough to win elections unless their opponents do an even worse job campaigning.
this, and plus: the far right worldwide is offering the "radical" solution of tearing it all down. people want this, people are sick and tired of whatever we have now and republicans offered an alternative.
the electoral "left" is pretty much just offering the status quo. nobody fucking wants the fucking status quo.
Let’s be real, the electoral left in the west is gone. Many reasons: the idiocy that de-Stalinisation was, completely derailing leftism for the next 70 years, the complete corruption of socdems into lackeys for capitalism, the decoupling of politics and economy in the west (bravo Jean ~~money~~ monet), and the slow, methodical, destruction of state programs and education. All of this led to a world where people cannot understand cause and effect, that politics and economy cannot be separated (no matter what the Central European Bank would like you to believe), and that the world isn’t a chaotic mess with evil forces pulling strings, but a rational one where material conditions dictate action and reaction.
Naturally when all of these conditions are achieved, people will flock to a simplistic worldview and solution which is what fascism offers, no matter your skin colour or location, look at Japan or Rwanda for salient examples. You might say the same of Marxism, if you were deeply ignorant of how much work is required to study it and understand it, yet even cursory knowledge allows you to make more sense of the world. When I was a run of the mill EU neolib, I was confused at the world, and didn’t understand why so many people were furious at western governements, and thought slop like “Hypernormalisation” was groundbreaking, now I see it’s completely aimless and idealistic, and I understand the status quo is literally the devils work.
Actually one funny outcome of becoming a hardcore communist and unapologetic Stalin fan is that my faith in Christianity which was practically gone has strengthened the more I learned. I remember meeting a communist priest who taught me about liberation theology, the guy thought that achieving communism was basically the second coming, that really inspired me.
Now, coming back to your initial comment, it is true that after 70+ years of status quo bullshit, a lot of people have had enough and coincidentally, leftism is very, very slowly rebuilding itself in the west, sometimes in clumsy ways, but rebuilding nonetheless. We’ve seen attempts successful or not in France, the UK, Spain, even Canada or the US. Sometimes (most times) results are disappointing, or even crushing (looking at the NFP in my country), but results nonetheless. Hell, maybe the masks slipping off this past year regarding the genocide waged on Palestinians may be the proverbial punch in the face many need to finally wake up and organise, because blowback will come back home at some point.
I think your comment about leftism slowly rebuilding in the west is a good one. I've seen a lot of people dismayed about how there was literally 0 leftism or even hints at appealing to leftists during this election, but ultimately that's because a real left wing movement can't come from the government, it has to start at ground level.
yeah, a moderate dose of cynicism and skepticism is good, but to fall for fatalism is liberalism. I'm sometimes irritated by idealists who throw their arms at any defeat like everything is over, like building a party can be done with zero failures and learning gleaned from them. You see those types a lot on social media since they rarely engage in any way with politics irl.