The recent presidential election and inauguration—as distant as they may already seem given how much has happened and continues to happen since—gave us a glimpse of the transformation the American political landscape has already begun to undergo: The defunding of public media sources, the targeting of dissenters across private media, the persecution of vulnerable groups as scapegoats for our deeper economic and cultural tensions and the rapid implementation of technocratic mechanisms catering to tech billionaires who bend the knee…among other things. It is important to understand just how we got here to effectively address why we are experiencing such tumultuous political change. Why did the Democrats lose so badly, and how did the previous administration’s blunders contribute to this? How did Trump so easily and effectively woo so many young Americans, and what in particular about his rhetoric was so appealing to so many, given the state of the US during the elections? Most importantly, where may we be headed now? This analysis attempts to provide some context to help answer these questions, and aims to provide a more generous critique of all the moving parts at play, straying away from the bipartisan rhetoric that trips up so many due to the very bipolar nature of American politics.
Cazmir Thomas-Jordan Zaborowski (2025) studied this question.