It took only a few hours on the night of Tuesday, November 5 to Wednesday, November 6, for Donald Trump to be declared the new president of the United States at the expense of his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris. With at least 277 electoral votes, the Republican will return to the White House for four years, having already occupied it from 2016 to 2020. Media outlets across the Atlantic are still focused on analyzing the election results while beginning to outline its potential consequences for the country's future.
In the eyes of the Wall Street Journal, the kingmaker has a name: Joe Biden. The business newspaper largely blames Trump's victory on the mistakes of the outgoing administration. "Biden veered left to unite Democrats, rather than unite the country," laments the paper, which drew up a harsh assessment of his four years in office: A "decline in real wages as inflation soared, a divisive cultural agenda driven by identity politics, chaos at the southern border and the collapse of American deterrence abroad."
According to the authors of the article, economic issues were Trump's best card: "No matter the media lectures that the economy is great, voters who depend on wages and salaries (not assets) felt differently." They also pointed out that Democrats could have capitalized on the "threat to democracy" embodied by Trump and his "character." But the Harris camp "overplayed their hand even here, as their comparisons to fascism and Hitler weren’t believable."
In an article published by the conservative channel Fox News, political scientist Doug Schoen also says he believes that Trump's victory was significantly influenced by economic issues. He writes that it shows that voters want "smaller government, deregulation and lower taxes." Moreover, Schoen remarks that this "surprisingly substantial" victory is forcing the Democrats into a profound "reassessment," particularly because Kamala Harris had focused heavily on defending abortion rights during her campaign. According to Schoen, the election result shows the "weakness" of that approach.
He goes even further: "The return to the White House of a clearly flawed Donald Trump also represents a repudiation of Democratic woke policies. Whether it be on transgender issues, affirmative action or issues related to the role of parents and the traditional nuclear family as a central component of American life." Breitbart News, a controversial media outlet closely aligned with Trump describes Trump's victory as the "greatest comeback in American history," adding that Harris "relied heavily on the issue of abortion rights but offered few other policies to voters."
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