Why Americans Voted for President Trump in 2024

Donald Trump moments after an attempted assassination clipped his ear

Last night, the US voted President Donald Trump back into office, winning both the electoral college and the popular vote.

Many reasonable left-leaning folks are confused why Americans would vote for President Trump.

Here's my gentle, non-snarky introspective why we did so. Maybe it's useful to folks who genuinely want to understand. Here are 10 reasons why folks like me voted for President Trump:

1. Abortion
2. Inflation
3. Immigration
4. Free speech
5. Competency
6. Small government
7. DEI madness
8. Free Palestine cult
9. Authenticity
10. LGBT excesses

I explain each below.

1. Abortion. 

This is the greatest moral issue of our time. Our conviction is that killing unborn children is a form of murder. Trump appointed justices that overturned federal protection for abortion; he is the pro-life candidate who has, by his appointment, saved thousands of innocent lives.

For many, especially religious conservatives, abortion is the single issue that caused us to vote for him. In the 19th century, many of the slavery abolitionists were religious people who believed all humans were created in God's image and worthy of value. Many of the abortion abolitionists today are the same: religious people who see unborn children as humans created in God's image and worthy of value.

2. Inflation. 

The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics uses Consumer Price Index to measure inflation. Here is that index over the last 20 years. I created this chart based on data from usinflationcalculator.com

During the last 4 years, inflation reached record high levels. Families pay a lot more for groceries, gas, electricity, basic necessities. People are poorer because of foolish fiscal decisions from the Biden administration, particularly printing extraordinary amounts of money during the COVID pandemic. It devalued the dollar and caused inflation to skyrocket. Several polls indicated inflation and the economy to be the key issue for US voters this year.

The Biden-Harris administration demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause of inflation, instead blaming the problem on "price gouging", even in industries like the grocery business where margins are razor thin.

3. Immigration. 

Illegal immigration in the US. I created this chart based on unauthorized immigration data from usafacts.org

During the last 4 years, illegal immigration greatly increased and the Biden-Harris administration did little to stop it. This has negative downstream effects: a higher welfare tax burden for citizens and legal green card holders, fewer jobs for citizens, more crime, changing demographics, foreign culture. Trump is rightly seen as tough on illegal immigration, whereas Harris was appointed border czar and oversaw this immigration disaster.

4. Free speech. 

In an unprecedented assault on free speech in 2020, left wing authoritarians banned a sitting President from social media. For the first 3 years of his administration, the left tried to delegitimize his Presidency via the Russiagate witch hunt. Several blue states tried unsuccessfully to get Trump removed from the ballot prior to the election. 

This applies downstream to average citizens. Even now, sites like Reddit routinely ban conservative commenters, shut down conservative subreddits, and suppress dissent by mislabeling any opposition as sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigot, etc. 

The pandemic also saw a great deal of censorship. Anyone who opposed the government's emergency powers were muted, banned, shunned. It became a grave sin to question the mandatory closing of businesses, the origins of the virus, the efficacy of masks, or even the COVID vaccines pioneered by the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. People were banned from social media accounts and labeled conspiracy theorists. One of my family members was threatened with dishonorable discharge from the military for refusing to take a vaccine. Many lost their jobs over their convictions. Hell, I'm strongly pro-vaccine and some of my posts on social media were censored and deleted for discussing -- merely discussing! -- alternative treatments for people who were already diagnosed with COVID.

Harris and Walz ticket demonstrated a lack of understanding of what free speech is or why it's important. Walz erroneously stated at the VP debate that "free speech doesn't include misinformation.", and repeatedly said in interviews free speech doesn't include hate speech or misinformation. In fact, free speech does include hate speech and misinformation: otherwise the government could e.g. deem any critique of the President as misinformation or hate speech. I hope folks can see the issue with that.

5. Competency. 

Some past Democratic candidates like Obama have been intelligent, competent, even persuasive, but Harris was visibly not so. Often she responded to simple and direct questions with word salad non-answers, e.g. the Brett Baier interview. She refused to do longform, unscripted interviews with opposing (Rogan) or neutral (Lex Friedman) interviewers. Her voting record was ranked as farthest left of all Senators during her time in office. She was appointed as "border czar", but oversaw the worst illegal immigration in decades.  She didn't win the Democratic nomination but was shoved into the role after Biden's poor debate performance. She had never won an election outside of her blue home state of California. 

Trump, by contrast, ran a successful 4-year term with no new wars, a booming economy, international strength. Both Trump and Vance engaged in many adversarial interviews -- indeed, 95+% of newspapers and legacy media donate overwhelmingly to Democrats -- and answered convincingly. They engaged in long-form, unscripted interviews to explain of their positions.

6. Small government. 

Conservatives believe that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. A vote for Trump is a vote for smaller government. The US debt is at $35 trillion (!) in debt, and the interest is snowballing. The new administration promises to create a Department of Government Efficiency which will slash the size of the federal government, reduce federal spending, trim the bloated welfare state, stop injecting billions of newly printed dollars into the economy, deregulate, and reduce inflation. Harris/Walz looked more of the same: unfettered government growth, spiraling debt. The great entrepreneur of our age, Elon Musk, as part of the new Trump government vows to deregulate and cut red tape, unleashing a new era of innovation and business growth.

7. DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) madness. 

Biden administration appointees include US Health secretary Rachel Levine, a man identifying as a woman, and US Secretary of Nuclear Energy Sam Brinton, an LGBTQ activist who is currently in custody for charges of grand larceny.

Most Americans are merit-focused: the best person for the job, regardless of skin color, race, gender, religion. But the Biden administration's appointees were often not based on merit, but on skin color or minority status: Sam Brinton, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Rachel Levine, and perhaps even Harris herself are examples of people who likely would not have reached their current levels but for their minority status.

The Harris/Walz ticket asked we "vote for people who look like America" -- but this appeals to outward, immutable characteristics like race, gender, or skin color. 

During the last 4 years, the Democratic party had cozied up to race rioters (e.g. George Floyd protests) who destroyed businesses and shut down cities because the protestors were diverse. The legacy media excused this, with a CNN reporter famously claiming they were "fiery but mostly peaceful riots" while a city burned behind them.

Harris famously spoke out during that time in favor of defunding the police, at a time when law and order were badly needed. (She later recanted that belief when it became politically expedient.)

The hypocrisy inherent within DEI initiatives were also seen during the COVID pandemic, when experts urged everyone to quarantine at home...except the race rioters, who were told to keep gathering in large groups and keep protesting because they were protesting against the disease called racism.

DEI excesses also include silly and hypocritical land acknowledgements, pronouns in bio, and other performative gestures that normal Americans roll their eyes at.

By contrast, the Trump-Vance ticket proposed rolling back the DEI madness, removing political indoctrination from the education system, and returning higher education to a place with free and open exchange of ideas:

pic.twitter.com/d6BiayAjwy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2024

8. Free Palestine cult. 

Pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University

The Democratic Party embraced flag-burning, terrorist-supporting pro-Hamas groups who celebrated the rapes, tortures, kidnappings and execution of October 7th. 

Leftist contributor to NBC and Teen Vogue praised the October 7th slaughter of Jews.

It welcomed the far-left terrorist sympathizing students and the months long sit-ins at university campuses that threatened Jewish minorities and made campuses a place an unsafe place for the free exchange of ideas. Jewish students and faculty were harassed. 

Some 30 Harvard groups, including student and faculty groups, signed the above letter in solidarity with Hamas in the week following the October 7th massacres.

One Stanford professor told Jewish students in his class to stand in a corner, told them this is what Israel does to Palestinians, and chided them, "Colonizers killed more than 6 million. Israel is a colonizer." 

This pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party includes powerful members of Congress including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, AOC, and several other members of the squad. Many of their values go beyond support for civilian Palestinians and creep into antisemitism or full-blown support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. 

The free Palestine cult impacted Harris' own campaign: one of the early favorites for VP was Pennsylvania governor Joshua Shapiro. The antisemitic wing of the Democratic party pressured Harris to not pick Shapiro because he is Jewish. One wonders if Harris could have won Pennsylvania if Shapiro was her running mate.

9. Authenticity. 

Harris would change her accent depending on who she was speaking to. Her own positions changed whenever politically expedient (e.g. defund the police). Walz claimed to be a football coach, but tweeted about a political ally "running a mean pick 6". He claimed to be an avid hunter but during a hunting photo op, had trouble loading and arming his weapon. 

The Harris and Walz campaign claimed Trump was Hitler. It compared his rally at Madison Square Garden to the early Nazi rallies. But Trump had 4 years in office and decidedly wasn't Hitler. On the contrary, President Trump became a great friend of Jews and the people of Israel, even moving the US embassy to Israel's capital, Jerusalem. 

To this day, there is even a town in northern Israel named after President Trump.

The northern Israeli town of Ramat Trump רמת טראמף, Trump Heights, named for the friendship between President Trump and the Jewish people.

And in this election, more Jews voted for Trump than any other Republican candidate in history.

Trump's daughter Ivanka married a Jewish man, Jared Kushner, and they are raising their children as Jews. Here's their family celebrating Hanukkah:

If Trump is Hitler, Hitler must be spinning in his grave knowing he's become one of the greatest friends of the people he tried to exterminate.

The Harris-Walz ticket also critiqued vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance as "weird".

But in the VP debate, Vance showed himself to be one of the most genuine, down-to-earth people to run for office in recent memory. 

10. LGBT excesses. 

The Democratic Party and the left advocated for excesses in the LGBT movement, including the chopping off of healthy sexual organs in prepubescent children. It waged lawfare against parents who opposed it, and in some cases, separate confused children from their parents in the name of trans rights.

The Biden-Harris administration appointed men-cosplaying-as-women to significant roles in the government and military and demanded we call them women when any ordinary person can see they're men. It supported biological men competing in women's sports and access to private female spaces like locker rooms and restrooms.

Biden administration appointee Sam Brinton

Harris supported taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants and prison inmates. Many public schools now fly flags advocating for sexual deviancy when most American parents just want their kids to have a decent education without sexual indoctrination. 

Leftist public school teachers advocated for pornographic books in schools provided they are LGBT-focused. The Biden Administration issued statements in support of this, demonizing opposition to this as book burning. 

The Biden Administration's statement regarding pornographic books in schools, framing it as about book burnings.

The LGBT excesses also include attempted expansions of LGBT to so-called "two spirit" individuals, people with a pseudo-spiritual belief they were born in the wrong body, "minor attracted persons", people who claim to be animals, and other gender or sexual deviancies that normal Americans recognize as harmful to a healthy society. 

While I don't speak for all conservatives or all Americans, I'm a lifelong conservative and have an ear to the ground in that space. I believe these are some of the significant reasons that most Americans voted for Donald Trump as our next President.