I never thought I’d wake up to see David Lammy congratulating Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States – a man he once accused of being a “racist, KKK and Nazi sympathiser”. But wonders never cease and here we are.
The euphoria felt by many around Mr Trump’s decisive victory may seem like a shallow win of the “Right” over the “Left”. But it’s so much bigger than that.
In her role as Vice-President, Kamala Harris had the luxury of a sycophantic mainstream media, control of both Houses of Congress, and a thumping popular majority. She was also a woman and an ethnic minority to boot – two things she used to relentlessly clobber her opponent. Quite frankly, she had everything going for her. Yet still she failed.
She was beaten by a man who is a convicted felon, was twice impeached, has been mired in numerous personal scandals, and was the victim of not one but two assassination attempts. For all intents and purposes, before his historic victory yesterday, Donald Trump was (politically speaking) a dead man walking. He should never have got this far.
But he did. And he has not only won the electoral college and the popular vote, but also the Senate and most probably the House of Representatives too.
Americans not only chose to forgive many of Trump’s misdeeds, but they also brought him back in spectacular fashion. Not because they changed their opinions of him – indeed, many may still see him as crass and callous – but because they had had enough of Joe Biden’s America and, by extension, Kamala Harris’s too.
Ordinary voters cared more about jobs, the economy and immigration – key voting issues, not women’s reproductive rights, no matter how important that may be. Years of rampant inflation, an open border, a surge in crime, woke policies, and a string of foreign policy blunders became too much to bear. And voters had had enough.
Americans across the map rebelled, with Hispanic voters leading the way.
The backlash was simply incredible. Red areas became redder, and solidly blue districts saw their leads narrowing. The Republicans amassed a truly diverse coalition of support, from Latinos in Arizona to Jews and Catholics in New York, from black Southerners in Georgia and North Carolina to the Amish in Pennsylvania.
Even pro-Palestine Arabs in states like Michigan were not swayed by Kamala’s inconsistency over the Gaza war.
This election result was a fundamental rejection of the flawed worldview that has come to characterise many Western elites – namely, the embrace of declinism, identity politics, and an elite consensus completely detached from the rest of the country. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we face the same problems here in Britain. And Trump’s win is a wake up call for our politicians and the Left.
Unsurprisingly, our clueless chattering classes are already asking how this happened. Maybe Kamala needed a couple more celebrity endorsements? Or perhaps they didn’t call enough voters ‘deplorables’, ‘garbage’, ‘fascists’, ‘racists’, ‘homophobes’, and every other name in the book? Isn’t it ironic that the same smug British commentariat clutching their pearls, looking down their noses at Americans, have little to say about our cold little island ridden with crime, pothole-filled roads, unaffordable housing, a broken justice system and ludicrous energy prices?
If our politicians don’t take heed of Trump’s victory and listen, the same backlash will soon arrive here.
Our concerns are not the trivial moaning of ignorant simpletons who spend too much time on social media. They are anything but. They are real, and they are not going anywhere. We have had enough of sky-high energy prices, high taxes and crumbling infrastructure. We are sick of unsustainable levels of immigration (both legal and illegal), shoddy policing, weak defence spending and woke identity politics tearing at the fabric of our society.
But most importantly, we have had enough of the Rory Stewarts of the world (who, incredibly, fancies himself a Conservative) pontificating shamelessly about problems they know little about and taking the electorate’s vote for granted.
Trump’s victory was only the start. And we across the pond are watching.
My recent visit to Florida showed me Republican enthusiasm wasn’t simply a fluke. Or the machinations of a few racist misogynists. People of all races and religions were happy to support President Trump. More than once, I was caught up in traffic in Miami because of Trump supporters’ cars. Something deeper was brewing in a once crucial swing state that decided the 2000 presidential election by a few hundred votes.
The American people have voted, and their message is clear. This is what happens when you choose to ignore and insult people’s concerns. We, too, are sending a clear message. And if Westminster doesn’t wake up soon, something similar will be coming their way.
