Election night 2024 felt like the aftermath of the 2016 election: Many of the beats were the same, but the details were different. The initial results were worrying and the outlook did not improve from there. I wasn’t as surprised, and yet it affected me just as deeply, if not more.

If you’re like me, you’ve been trying to keep a lot of different ideas in mind at once over the past few days – and you still have a lot of questions. I won’t pretend to have all the answers, because no one does. But we’ve collected your questions on Vox’s Instagram page, our Explain It to Me inbox, and the Explain It to Me podcast phone line.

Here are four common questions from Vox readers and listeners, along with my best read on them (with help from one of Vox’s most astute young political minds) as we sift through the fog of election week.

Did Trump overperform or did Harris underperform?

We all want to distribute blame or credit. Was Kamala Harris doomed by the political context? Or has his campaign made missteps? Both can be true. Which most determined the outcome?

The truth is that it is difficult to say what was decisive. Nate Silver can run 80,000 mock elections, but the rest of us only experience one reality. We cannot know the counterfactual and it will take time to the data that tells the story of this election to concentrate.

With that caveat out of the way, I’m skeptical that Harris ever had a chance – and I’m more inclined to attribute her loss to the conditions she was running in, rather than the choices she made during her race .

Something stood out to me throughout election night: every time MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki took stock of a bellwether county in a swing state, he compared the 2024 margins to those of 2020 and 2016. He often pointed out that Donald Trump is returning to his 2016 levels, while Harris is trailing President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance, closer to (and yet generally better than) Clinton’s in 2016.

Look at this map from the Washington Post which traces the transition from 2020 to 2024 in the presidential race by county. There are red arrows everywhere. You should read exit polls with caution, but this appear Trump made gains with voters across the board. This suggests to me that there was a structural problem, as much as any strategic problem, for Harris.

Fortunately, one need not look far for structural explanations. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote about the global anti-incumbency wave that appears to have swept away Trump and sunk Harris. This harmed both the Conservatives (in the UK) and the Liberals (in the UK). South Korea).

The constant is that people are fed up with power after Covid-19 and the global inflation that followed. Aggregate economic indicators may still be strong, but wage growth has only narrowly outpaced inflation. Consumers do not feel cash-strapped and a slowdown in inflation does not mean No inflation. Interest rates have also remained high, reinforcing the feeling that things are expensive.

America could also be a little more conservative than Democrats thought, which is why Trump sought to portray Harris as a liberal out of touch with reality. Perhaps the Biden-Harris administration could have managed inflation better. But it upsets governments around the world.

More than anything, people were just frustrated: In an October Gallup poll72 percent of American adults say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. It will be difficult for a sitting national leader to win in such an environment.

Let’s remember the state of the 2024 campaign after the Biden-Trump debate And the clear proof of improving the Democrats’ chances after Harris came to power. She tried to circumvent Americans’ anger at the status quo by running as a challenger even though she was a sitting vice president.

But it didn’t work, and maybe it never worked. People were fed up with the Biden-Harris administration. They wanted a change. This is what Trump was selling.

What will Trump do?

Here’s the bottom line, beyond any details that might be subject to change: Trump is less likely to be constrained by other Republicans, by advisers more loyal to the office than him personally, and by Democratic norms than he was during his first term. .

Now for the details. In the aftermath of his victory, the Trump campaign promised to launch “the largest mass deportation operation” in US history on his first day back in office, a sign that he could be even more aggressive on his flagship issue. He could adopt these tariffs as he pleases unless Congress stops him in the next two months. His team has telegraphy an immediate expansion of oil and gas exploration. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said impudently that the Trump administration would advise on day one to remove fluoride from U.S. water supplies, a preview of the public health agenda likely to follow. We can also expect some sort of reshuffle within the federal bureaucracy.

However, caution should be exercised. Trump signed the so-called “Muslim ban” on January 27, 2017, but it was blocked by the courtsincluding the Supreme Court. It took him a year and a half to get court approval of a modified version. Similarly, Trump’s attempt to approve Medicaid work requirements was later stopped by a federal judge. One of the biggest questions of a second Trump term is: How well will the judiciary hold him back, if his own people don’t?

In Congress, Trump and Republicans already aspire to further cut taxes and gut the social safety net. But it will still be difficult to get these plans adopted. Control of the House is still undecided and even if the Republican Party wins, its margin will be extremely slim. The failure to repeal Obamacare in 2017 is a very recent example of a new Republican majority’s top priority failing due to public backlash.

What does Trump’s election mean for the world?

Before the election even happened, a Vox reader asked us: Why are the US elections so important to the rest of the world?

The United States has the most powerful army in the worldit is one of the two most important diplomatic players in world affairs (even if China has caught up), and its foreign aid programs are a vital lifeline for humanitarian efforts across the world. When it comes to foreign policy in particular, Trump has wide latitude to do whatever he wants with little to no input from Congress.

We know the consequences of misusing this enormous power. The US military was obviously used to terrible endingsAmerican diplomacy can be ineffectiveand U.S.-funded humanitarian work has a mixed record.

This is why the election of Trump changed the fate not only of 330 million Americans, but also of many millions more around the world.

Israel’s war in Gaza, efforts to contain mpox in Africa, famine in Sudan, war in UkraineTaiwan’s future as an independent nation: These are some of the high-profile issues over which Donald Trump, rather than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, will have significant leverage and influence. PEPFAR, the AIDS program that became the flagship success story of the bipartisan global health consensus that took shape under George W. Bush, will have to be reauthorized next yearand there are signs of wavering Republican support. Trump will hold the veto during this debate in Congress.

What will really happen? I don’t know. But I know that Trump’s election has defined what will be possible.

What are the Democrats doing now?

I want to briefly turn the newsletter over to Vox senior political reporter Christian Paz, who spoke with Explain It To Me podcast host Jonquilyn Hill to analyze this year’s election and has a read as good as anyone in the state in the Democratic Party:

There is still this assumption that a diverse America would inevitably lead to progressive, liberal, or Democratic dominance, regardless of other factors, which, once again, continues to prove wrong.

In fact, this election will be one where racial polarization decreases, particularly among Latino voters. They voted the same way or in the same direction or in the same direction as white voters. Democrats got the turnout they wanted, but it turns out the voters who turned out just didn’t want to vote for a Democrat.

Democrats are banking heavily on educated and suburban voters, while hoping to maintain their previous margins with working-class voters of color and attract enough white working-class voters to push them over the top. This gamble did not pay off.

It will take months for Democrats to figure out how to recalibrate going forward, through the 2026 midterms and beyond. Looking at the fallout from 2024 so far, Christian said: “There’s a mix (in terms of) what the electorate wants. »

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