There are many many people who claim to know exactly why Trump lost The White House [see photo]. Some say he lost because Zuckerberg spent millions in a targeted effort to "get out the vote for Democrats". So what? He lost because "mail-in" ballots were used to harvest votes against him. So what? He lost because the mass media spent four years pushing propaganda against him. So what? He lost because the Intel Agencies centred in Washington DC used their "black ops" capabilities against his re-election Campaign. So what? And so on.
None of that made the slightest difference to the fate of Donald J Trump. Trump lost The White House the moment he appointed his daughter and son-in-law to positions in the West Wing. With that single act he indicated to DC, and the world, that he was not serious about running a disciplined and competent Executive Branch of Government. With that single act he suggested that he would run The White House, and his Executive Branch, the same way he ran The Trump Empire. It would be loosely centred around him, and his ego, and thus it would not ever garner the competencies he needed to run America and her foreign policy. But even that is not the real reason that Trump lost the 2020 election for President.
The real reason he lost the 2020 election was that the electorate did not trust him. They lost their trust in him when he demonstrably showed that he had no idea how to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. In a sense he put himself above it all. First and foremost he farmed out the control of his response to the Covid-19 pandemic to the Vice President and a team of health bureaucrats. This may not have been a mistake in terms of the outcomes that the American Society achieved in fighting this virus; however, it did mean that State Governments became emboldened to become rogue actors in the fight against Covid-19. The image the electors got was that The White House was not in control of the country and they blamed President Trump for that state of affairs so they voted against him.
Sure the cross-tabs on various voting patterns across America might present the illusion that the 2020 race for The White House was a close run thing but that is not true. Biden spent most of his Campaign in his basement. The other Democratic hopefuls were a gaggle of geese who never won any real traction with the electorate at large. So it was always going to be a muted Biden who was left to sit-and-wait to assume the role of the next incumbent of The White House.
In the end... Trump lost The White House because he was not able to put his ego in the closet and use his boundless energy to reform the Executive and through it the Federal Bureaucracy. He could have abolished the Department of Education in the first few months and devolved the spending and control of the system to the States and Local Governments. He could have built "the wall" as he promised so that Americans felt safe and secure on the Mexican border. He could have worked much more purposefully and productively with Corporate America to repatriate manufacturing and other capacities back into the country. He could have followed through on his NATO initiative to help them construct a modern European based military force [and perhaps have withdrawn US troops from Germany]. He could have pressured the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates and cancel quantitative easing. He could have reduced the size of the Federal Bureaucracy. He could have hired more competent people to work with him in The White House and selected a better mix of Cabinet colleagues. And so on....
Richard.
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