[ToucanLoucan]

I mean, they didn't vote for him because they enjoy he lies. They voted for him because the truth is inconvenient to the political agenda they want to see enacted.

That's why pointing out the right's entire platform is made almost entirely of contradictions doesn't change anyone's mind. They don't believe what they believe because it's internally consistent or coherent; they believe what they believe in because if it's correct, it substantiates the other things they already believed in, and/or it reinforces their existing biases. Tons of folks I grew up with will support the Republican party till the day they die because they came from a Republican family that voted Republican because they ARE Republicans, in the literal, identity way. The fact that basically every Republican policy demonstrably makes their lives harder is irrelevant; voting Democrat would be a break from the identity they cohere with that goes back generations.

For as much as the right endlessly whines and moans about "identity politics" it's really the only thing still holding their voting bloc together at this point.

[nuancebydefault]

Okay, i understand rupublicans will be republicans, since otherwise they have a conflict in their own identity. But how to explain that the 'swing' people swung to the dark side? To me, this makes USA look like another planet with alien logic and ideas, impossible to understand.

[ToucanLoucan]

The structure of your question implies that a ton of voters changed their minds between the Democrats and Republicans between the 2020 and 2024 election, and while it's probable that some did indeed do that, that didn't decide the election. In both of those elections the winner by a landslide was "I don't care." Trump received ballpark 3 million more votes in 2024 than he did in 2020, but that still only represents the will of about 23% of the country, and the Democrats 22% of the country. "I don't give a shit" wins in a landslide with 55%.

(Also that's strictly the popular vote numbers, and doesn't account for the electoral college wherein millions of votes in both directions meant nothing because either the population centers overruled the will of rural voters or failed to do so and was itself overruled by them but I digress)

The issue isn't people "changing to the dark side," the issue is how energized the voting bloc for each party is, and how important they feel voting for their candidate is. Trump, for reasons beyond my understanding, gets his voters fired up. I honestly can't fathom how anyone can listen to that man speak and think he should be in charge of a lemonade stand let alone a country, but they apparently do. Much ink has been spilled ruminating on why Harris couldn't get it done, and the top theories seem to boil down to a few things:

* The most obvious: she's a woman. We haven't yet had a female president, and I don't think it's possible to ignore the role sexism has played in getting Trump in power when both the elections he's won thus far were against women, separated by one he lost against Biden, who besides being a man, had little really to get people excited, apart from not being Trump. Though after 4 years of Trump, not being Trump was probably more attractive too.

* The second most obvious: inflation is fucking obliterating America right now, and regardless of why you think that might be, or how stupid you think the following logic is, it holds historically true that people hold the White House and the party that occupies it responsible for things like that. The fact that Trump's few declared policy ideas are virtually guaranteed to make the economy worse in numerous ways wasn't enough to sway people from that either, or they simply didn't think about it that far (see the google trends for a massive surge in searches about "what are tariffs" after election day)

* The third most obvious: Harris' campaign was pretty middling. She didn't win a proper primary to secure the nomination; it was basically announced in the 11th hour that Biden wasn't going to run for re-election and instead of the standard process to select a nominee, it was basically a hand-wave and suddenly Harris was the candidate. And like, I didn't hate her (and did vote for her) but I'll be the first to tell you her campaign was... aggressively mid. There was a huge swell of support when she was announced to be replacing Biden but that seemed to be less a "pro Harris" support as much as a "thank goodness it isn't Biden" support, and the latter just didn't have the staying power to sway people long term, or keep the base energized.