Summary
Trump won Dearborn and made significant gains in Hamtramck due to anger among Arab American and Muslim communities over deaths in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Trump received 42.48% of the vote in Dearborn and 42.7% in Hamtramck, compared to 36.26% and 46.2% for Vice President Kamala Harris, respectively.
Despite Trump’s victory in Dearborn, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator lost to the Democratic nominee.
This study from 2014 really explains this election for me.
For the bottom 90% of the US population, democracy fundamentally does not exist. The actions of legislators reflect the opinions of the wealthiest 10% of the population.
“Democracy,” for 90% of the population, is a complete sham. Since 2016, Democrats SHOULD have been taking a hard left turn towards progressive populism. They should have been pursuing policies that are actually popular among the common people, even if those are unpopular among their wealthy donors. But while they ran on the idea of democracy, Democrats have done NOTHING to make their party actually reflect the needs of regular people. They should have been offering a bold vision to help the American people. But the DNC decided that the whims of donors was more important, and they lost as a result.
Why would you expect people to care for a democracy that means nothing to them?
Because the other alternative is to take everything you hate about the way it all works and make it objectively worse, balanced even worse out of your own favor.
Look, I do understand that American democracy is fundamentally broken, and I empathize with that. I too wish for a viable third party candidate to break us out of this hellscape. But this wasn’t the time. So instead I voted for the party that’s been pushing RCV initiatives in some areas rather than handing a win to the party that promised they would abolish elections. On one hand we have a possible path forward and on the other hand we have guaranteed destruction, I don’t like it any more than the next person but I consider a vote against guaranteed destruction to have been one that wasn’t wasted. I hate that that is what American politics have come to at this point in time but I can observe the world around me and act accordingly.