Oddbean

A lot of the “Trump won because….” takes feel incredibly US-myopic. This was the year of more democratic elections across the world than almost any other and nearly all of them “surprised” in how strongly they voted against the party in power (both left and right). The universal rule of politics remains undefeated - people vote their pocket books.

(Not that Kamala wasn’t a pretty poor candidate or that Trump didn’t generate excitement, of course, but the economy is a *really* strong headwind in any election, one that’s nearly improve to overcome)

yes. i see many people reading too much into demographics etc. well guess what, people like money in the pocket, regardless of the colour of their skin and regardless of wheter the candidate they vote for actually delivers or not.

Yip, Botswana just had their ruling party of 50 years lose drastically in this year's election, but still a peaceful transition of power is taking place. In South Africa, the ruling party since the start of a democratic South Africa, failed to secure a majority and instead formed a government of national unity with opposition. Also entirely peaceful. Japan (effectively) and UK also had their governments flipped. Lot's going on and not a general shift to left or right, just a shift to "the opposition".