logo
welcome
Guardian

Guardian

Why did voters abandon Kamala Harris? Because they feel trapped – and Trump offered a way out | Aditya Chakrabortty

Guardian
Summary
Nutrition label

68% Informative

The 19th-century US populism had a healthy strain of leftwing politics.

Yet for much of this election year , the populists’ modern-day successors in the Democrats have served up an anti-populism.

Americans were told they were wrong to see the corrosion of Joe Biden’s abilities, and wrong to think that his replacement should not be decided in a giant backroom stitch-up.

The electoral result was that working- and middle-class voters peeled away from the Democrats .

Trump is easily the richest man ever to serve in the White House , with a personal net worth of about $5.5bn (4.3bn) A marketing man, skilled at targeting discontent, Trump does not follow his crowds.

Rather, he is led by the money men around him: the fossil fuel executives, the shadow bankers, the crypto bros and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk .