They sneered at MAGA for four years, called them garbage and anti-American, and used “woke” politics and lawfare to silence their voices.
And in one night, former and future President Donald Trump kicked them to the curb, winning what presidential historian Craig Shirley called a culture war.
“Some elections are about economics, like 1932, or foreign policy, like 1960. This was a war of cultures. This was us versus them, the insular elites. You’ve met them. You talk to them. We’ve all dealt with them. Snooty, insular, arrogant, out of touch, corrupt elitists,” the bestselling biographer of former President Ronald Reagan said.
There are several chair legs to Trump’s victory, including reviving his support among men, winning over Hispanic and black voters, and pushing a successful ground and early vote effort.
From fry cook at McDonalds to President of the United States in only 2 weeks. Donald Trump, living the American dream. pic.twitter.com/dpJ1MB0Anz
— Nick Short (@PoliticalShort) November 6, 2024
But Shirley said an overriding theme was Trump speaking for working people, as he did in his 2016 victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Only this time, he was fighting an entrenched enemy who felt superior in seeing Trump lose to President Joe Biden in 2020 after two impeachments.
“Trump was able to capture that. You know, he served that. He served it beautifully. I mean, the ‘garbage’ thing and the McDonald’s thing. He understands commonsense Americans. He’s part of that. Those are his people,” Shirley said in an interview on Wednesday.
The biographer, who has been tagged as Trump’s biographer, said the president-elect represents the next generational shift of the Republican Party with his victory that rewrote the GOP coalition to include more Hispanic and black voters.
🚨🇺🇸KAMALA: “WE HAVE TO STAY WOKE”
“I don’t care if you more woke, or less woker… just stay woke.”
The fellow panelist looks so uncomfortable…pic.twitter.com/2BgiUBm3Rp
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 5, 2024
“It continues an evolution of the Republican Party started in 1964 with Barry Goldwater. It started with Barry Goldwater breaking the party away from the country club, Eastern elites, and toward the hunt club — Western-based, more populist. Reagan continued it obviously in 1980, and Trump has completed that,” said Shirley, who is already working on Trump’s biography called, naturally, Comeback.
Sarah Matheson Steeby, with RMG Research, which is home to Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan polls, agreed. “Legacy media and the elite 1% behind them underestimated the feelings of everyday Americans,” she said.
“This is the election where the legacy media became irrelevant. To their ongoing frustration, they were unable to sell their narrative to voters,” Rasmussen added.
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Shirley said that echoed his belief that the Trump victory was a cultural win.
“Trump had everything thrown against him. He had lawsuits, and he had threats of jail, and he had corrupt judges, and he faced all the elements that go into making the American Left, big media, big Hollywood, big universities, big corporations. And you know what? It just proves my point. This is about an aversion to the big corrupt culture,” he said.