Most of us are trying to make sense of how the unfathomable has happened. As Jimmy Kimmel noted, we were choosing between a prosecutor and a criminal, and we voted for the criminal. But this is democracy, and it only works with an informed citizenry. Here are 10 reasons America went for Trump:

1. It has become impossible to break through the far-right’s disinformation machine. It’s easy to see Americans as just plain stupid, racist and/or cruel. But the reality is slightly more complex. Donald Trump successfully demonized the mainstream media by calling it “fake news” and journalists “enemies of the people” in order to sow doubt about ALL fact-based reporting. That, coupled with 24/7 Fox “News,” Elon Musk’s “X,” and Meta (after Trump threated to jail Zuckerberg for fact-checking far-right lies), kept sealed many Americans in a disinformation bubble. Facts are so hard to discern here that families have been torn apart because we can no longer have fact-based conversations. Unlike other countries, we do not regulate social media in any way, so it is completely free to boost lies and disinformation, which it does beyond measure.
2. Americans don’t know what fascism means. With most of our WWII veterans dead and gone, those who could remind us what fascism and dictatorships look like up close are no longer here to explain how easy it can be to lose one’s freedom when we vote for an autocrat. Those who pay attention know that Donald Trump has no respect for truth, democracy, democratic institutions (i.e. sending his armed mob to the Capitol), human knowledge or the rule of law. He ran for president in 2024 to stay out of jail, which would have been a certainty if he had lost.
3. Americans don’t remember Trump’s first term. This country’s collective memory is infinitesimal. Trump’s coup attempt following the 2020 election culminating on January 6 has been completely forgotten and/or sane-washed. So has the absolute dumpster fire of his presidency, from his mishandling of the pandemic (697,000 people died of COVID-19 in the United States between March 2020 and October 2021, according to the National Institutes of Health; it’s at least possible that Obama’s pandemic prevention team, dismantled by Trump, could have contained COVID before it was a global crisis) to the outrageous abuses of power, corruption and overwhelming grift. Things were looking so bad in 2020 that Americans overwhelmingly voted Trump out and Joe Biden in. Then they forgot why.
4. Joe Biden was unable to communicate his successes. Biden had to put out the dumpster fire still burning when he took the presidential oath of office near the destruction from January 6. Biden fought inflation, boosted manufacturing jobs with the Chips Act, started rebuilding American roads and bridges, paved the way for millions of workers to be eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay and cleared The Pill for over-the-counter sales. Biden is the most pro-union president we will see in our lifetime, yet in the voting booth, Americans decided the billionaire with a reputation of not paying his bills was better for working people. Voters in 2024 said they didn’t feel good about the economy or their economic futures. History may be kind to Biden for many reasons (with the exception of running in 2024), but it’s no secret that he was never a truly inspiring speaker, and his age severely compounded his communication problem. Also, No. 1.
5. The Bro Vote. Misogyny is more a part of American culture than we want to admit, and until the ERA is finally enshrined in the Constitution, women are not equal citizens under the law in America’s democracy. This was the entire point of abortion bans — controlling women’s bodies is a far-right staple that will escalate to birth control and beyond. Trump’s entire persona is based on a deep disrespect for women, especially any woman who would oppose him or call him out for his lies. He has been found liable for sexual abuse and infamously bragged about “grabbing them by the pussy.” He has never been held accountable for his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. In far-right politics especially, controlling women is an important way to return to an idealized Mad Men era, where men were men and wives did what they were told.
6. Trump is the most unabashed liar in American politics. Joseph McCarthy would have won this title before Trump, who believes that facts are whatever he says they are. This will become apparent to Americans (again) when it is too late. Trump can repeat a lie effortlessly and so often that’s it’s impossible to fact-check him in real time. He does this deliberately, without a conscience to hinder him, because he knows if a lie is repeated enough, it feels true, especially to the uninformed.
7. America no longer has an informed electorate. Because Americans are no longer living in a fact-based reality, we vote with our feelings. An Arizona State University student who stood in a huge line to cast her vote for Trump on election day told reporters she wanted to vote for Trump because he would protect her right to choose. The man most responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade got her vote. I don’t know if she’ll ever understand where her logic went wrong, but if college itself has turned into a fact-free zone, we’re doomed.
8. Russian interference is real. Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion with help from foreign investors — a sum that seemed positively stupid until he succeeded at buying American democracy, using “X” to amplify Trump’s lies and get him reelected. Trump has long had a direct line to Putin, whom he not only admires, but kowtows to, for reasons we can only imagine are tied to the financing behind much of his fortune. When U.S. banks wouldn’t loan to Trump after his bankruptcies, he found willing investors from Russia, probably needing to launder money. Anyone who has ever been to Russia can tell you it’s not a country to emulate (ask the WNBA’s Brittney Griner, who was imprisoned there). But Americans aren’t world travelers. It’s said that the Cold War never ended; Russia just purchased America’s Republican Party.
9. Traditional political advertising doesn’t work. The left literally has every A-list artist and musician behind it, because in fascist and repressive regimes, artists and intellectuals are the first to be snuffed out. Yet, with all the star-studded campaign rallies and TV appearances, Harris couldn’t beat the far-right’s disinformation machine and the fact that social media companies’ algorithms have effectively brainwashed a majority in this country.
10. Traditional media is broken. Americans will not pay for fact-based news; we overwhelmingly get “information” from social media and podcasts like Joe Rogan’s. This dismantling of traditional media is long and complicated; newspapers began imploding more than 30 years ago as advertising dollars moved online. News gathering was never a moneymaker; real reporting is expensive. Historically, news was a byproduct — a vehicle around which newspapers and networks could place highly lucrative advertising. During the tech boom, advertising completely moved to digital platforms like Google and Facebook, and newspapers and traditional media outlets became the typewriters of the information age. They could no longer compete financially, struggled to move to online platforms and make money, and still struggle today. The “fix” has been in part to charge for subscriptions, which leaves facts to those who can pay for them and makes citizens in a democracy reliant on lies from fact-free social media feeds. Ultimately, news gathering needs to be a nonprofit enterprise. Democracy really is dead without the Fourth Estate as a check on power and corruption. This is something we’ll have to sort out if democracy in any form will survive. And a center-left social media platform has to be created to compete with No. 1.

Here’s a bonus, and it’s a biggie: Billionaires.

I’m no economist, but there MUST be an economic theory that democracies crumble when they reach a certain threshold of wealth concentration. The top 1 percent of income earners in 2023 held about 30 percent of the nation’s wealth: $44.5 trillion. The top 1 percent also own more wealth than the entire American middle class.

This concentration of wealth is the reason Americans don’t “feel” that Biden improved the economy. They also don’t understand it’s been decades in the making — mostly because of the far-right policies they just voted for. These tax-cuts-for-the-rich policies continue to concentrate wealth at the very top and at the same time pit people against “big government,” which becomes increasingly unresponsive to basic human needs, such affordable childcare, paid family leave, enviable infrastructure or a healthcare system that doesn’t literally bankrupt American families.

Trump’s tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans will continue to concentrate money and power at the top. He has expedited the creation of oligarchs in this country, both to enrich himself and to protect his power. Yes, I said oligarchs. Our billionaires — just like Russia’s current oligarchs and the 1930s German industrialists who aided and abetted the Third Reich — supported Trump.

Authoritarians need a powerful billionaire class to help keep people in check and uninformed. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg could have supported democracy, but they chose to champion Trump’s fascism, both to keep their lucrative government contracts and to further enrich themselves. Thiel — who mentored J.D. Vance — has outright said he doesn’t believe in democracy. These men sit high on the list of the Villains of American History.

For the first time in my memory, young people voted with Republicans, because they don’t feel hopeful about their future or their place in the world. Trump will only exacerbate this (see No. 1 and 5). But unless Democrats can figure out a winning message that helps American’s newest voters feel less hopeless, the shift to authoritarianism will continue. So much damage has already been done (social programs cut and billions spent creating a police state) that it will take decades and generations to restore American democracy, civil rights and economic power for young people and the middle class.