What gave Trump a landslide win? It wasn’t the economy, stupid

Americans of all colours, genders, geographic habitats, occupations, ethnicity, and whatever other grouping one can devise gave a deeply flawed Donald J Trump a popular majority, victories in all seven swing states, and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress — in part, because more than eight million of those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home.
The ice had not melted around the champers before the president-elect confirmed the doubts of some of his more reluctant supporters by announcing plans to populate his cabinet with stunningly unqualified nominees.
When many Democrats swung to Ronald Reagan in 1980, it was because they needed a president who would repair the economic wreckage that they blamed on Jimmy Carter. This could not have been the reason for party-switching this time around. The American economy is growing at an annual rate of about 3 per cent, real incomes are finally rising, unemployment is low, and investors have no cause for complaint.
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As they marked ballots to turn out the party in power, Americans across all age groups and most income groups were telling the non-partisan Conference Board that they are increasingly optimistic about their economic futures.
The great economist FA Hayek warned: “Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist … the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.” Now is the time for economists, including this writer, to take the warning to heart and recognise that it was not, after all, “the economy, stupid” that propelled Trump to a landslide victory.
To get a clue on what drove the result, consider this little exercise:
Pollster: Sir, would you mind telling me why you voted for Donald Trump?
Respondent: (Thinking) If I say my daughter just lost a high school swim meet to a genetic man, and my ten-year-old son found a tampon in his lower school bathroom, I will be called a sexist. If I say my town’s budget is in disarray because of the cost of housing illegal aliens, I will be called xenophobic. If I say my school board has changed the name of my old high school and taken down a statue of George Washington, I will be called a racist. If I say I am sick and tired of being blamed for burning the planet, I will be called an ecoterrorist … (Audibly) It is because of inflation and the economy.
The technical term for the tendency of respondents to answer in a way that will be viewed favourably by others is social-desirability bias. It explains why three out of four voters responding to a CNN exit poll gave inflation as their reason for choosing Trump. Maureen Dowd, The New York Times’s Trump ubercritic, called on Democrats to realise that “hyper-political correctness … alienates many Americans”. A Massachusetts congressman told reporters: “I have two little girls. I don’t want them run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” And one voter told reporters: “I have nothing against Democrats’ ideology or transgenders, but stop pushing it down my throat.”
In the secrecy of the voting booth and wherever mail-in ballots are marked, voters acted on their indignation.
This is not to ignore the effect of the ineptitude of Trump’s opponent. Kamala Harris was anointed by President Biden, Barack Obama and the Democratic elite to avoid the annoyance of a democratic primary. Ironically, she took the field against an opponent who had triumphed in democratic primaries across the country, and accused him of being a fascist. When she did answer an occasional question, it proved she was wise to shun press conferences. Harris was comfortable with the advanced cultural attitudes of her party.
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Nor were economic factors completely irrelevant. Voters remembered that when they turfed Trump out in favour of Biden, eggs that now command $3.17 per dozen were selling for $1.32, and 30-year mortgages that now carry an interest rate of about 7 per cent could be had for less than 3 per cent. They also remembered that inflation was not a factor in their lives.
But it may well have been last-minute culture-issue ads run by Trump that turned the tide. One showed biological male athletes side-by-side with young girls and women, another showed Harris supporting taxpayer–funded gender-reassignment surgery for prisoners. A pro-Harris group reckons the latter advert caused a late 2.7 percentage-point shift in Trump’s favour.
Economists, accustomed to being seen as possessing the models and magic that move elections, should be content with lesser roles. “If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on the level with dentists, that would be splendid,” wrote John Maynard Keynes, Hayek’s principal ideological sparring partner.
Economists just might achieve Keynes’s “splendid” result by taking Hayek’s advice to be more than an economist.
Even without the participation of these practitioners of the dismal science, this election might well be the precursor of a wake for woke.
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Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser