Now that the dust has settled and the finger pointing has subsided, America has now accepted that Donald Trump is now going to be the 47th President defeating Vice President Kamala Harris by a wide margin.
The voting constituents sent a clear mandate to the Democratic led government on what is important to them and what they are looking for going forward. While many pundits in the media were trying to figure out what went wrong on with the Democrat's campaign strategy, it all boiled down the a few topics that was missed the last few years.
High Interest Rates and even Higher Inflation - It took over 20 years for residential mortgage interest rates to go from 8% in 1997 down to 2.5% in 2021 for it to be reversed in less than a year. This caused a major shock to the system in 2022 when homebuyers was not able to purchase homes because of the increase in the cost of borrowing money; and homeowners were not able to sell their homes because of the loss of willing and able buyers. This caused a minor crash in the real estate market and also caused a ripple effect for small businesses and the car buying market.
This wasn't addressed by Kamala Harris since she was apart of the current administration when this occurred and it made voters wonder if the American Dream of owning a home or starting a business was still attainable. Yes, she offered a homebuyer's credit if she was elected, but if mortgage rates were still going to be high, that was not too much help to consumers.
Another economic issue that wasn't addressed as important was the tackling of sky high prices on everyday items because of inflation that also occurred during this current administration. Despite what a lot of people say, Americans voted with their wallet because they was tired of working 10 times harder to make half of the money and then see most of it swallowed up because of inflation. Basic food items are new twice to three times the cost of before the Pandemic without a clear plan on how prices were being brought down.
Checkout this graph of Fast Food Prices Before and After the Pandemic
Billions sent to Migrants and Ukraine - The immigration crisis spun out of control the past four years with millions of migrants coming from Venezuela and Honduras into major US cities. Several hotels are now shelters for migrants, and migrants were also provided with meal stipends costing billions to tax payers. Voters were not happy about this either. Once again, the current administration did not address this situation adequately and left it up to the local governments to deal with the problem their self. There was no concrete plan of how this was going to be handled in the future whenever Harris was pressed about it on the campaign trail.
Voters, who are also tax payers, were also frustrated with the billions of dollars sent to Ukraine and it's President Volodymr Zelenskyy as a blank check with no exit strategy or resolution to the war with Russia. Americans were tired of hearing "We don't have the funds to take care of this or that in the US" but see billions sent to Ukraine. Therefore, the voters took action at the polls.
VP Harris at her concession speech at Howard University. Photo courtesy of Richard Agard
Too Little, Too Late - It became difficult to convince voters you will fix problems that persisted for the past three years. President Biden, possibly because of health issues, practically disappeared for the past few years, and did not look like he can seek re-election after his disastrous debate against Trump over the summer. He took a while to bow out of the race, giving Harris less of a time to prepare and she also had to deal with the issues of the current administration.
They do not say "It's about the Economy Stupid" for no reason. Voters showed what mattered this election cycle, and it was their bottom line. Now we have to see what happens the next four years with this next Trump administration.
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