# Why Trump Won: Analyzing the Election Outcome - **Episode:** [144](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/144.md) (2024-11-12) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** politics, election, trump - **Time:** 2:42–7:50 (start 162s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/144?t=162](https://truthliesandwork.com/144?t=162) --- [2:42] Leanne Elliott: Well, unless you have been, um, blissfully living, um, off-grid for the past week, then you would have seen that Donald Trump won the 2024 US presidential election, securing 286 electoral votes to Kamala Harris's 226, surpassing the 270 required for victory. The world has been reacting, and there are a lot of Democratic supporters who are asking why. Why did this happen? Um, this isn't political. I just thought I'd share some explanations on the outcome, um, and reactions from prominent psychologists to hopefully help Those who maybe are a bit disappointed with the result process the outcome. I'm going first to John Amici. We know John, organizational psychologist, former NBA player, does not, does not hold back when he is giving his opinion, and he didn't this week. This is just one of a few posts he's put out since the result came out. He said, People don't care that a rich man is a predator, a liar, a bigot, and a dolt. Some rationalize their choice on the grounds of economy or family values, but really, he hates the same people they do, and that's the draw. Trump voters will celebrate, but they'll learn he hates you too. Sadly, he's demonstrated he doesn't have a conscience, so the guardrails that protect those without power have been transferred to a man with unlimited power, no sense of duty, and probably little ability or willingness to restrain that power to avoid harming those he serves. This result was inevitable because the social norm of decency has been eviscerated [4:12] Al Elliott: Eviscerated, that's a hell of a word [4:14] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, did not hold back. That wasn't even all of it either. That was just an extract of probably about half of it. But yeah, clearly not, um, not a fan of Donald Trump. Um, you'll remember that actually, if you go back to our episode with John Michie, John called this back in, I want to say, February, March [4:30] Al Elliott: Yeah, so it'll be episode 70-ish. Yeah, 80-ish [4:33] Leanne Elliott: Called that it'd be an absolute landslide. Um, and it wasn't a landslide, but it was a fairly convincing majority, wasn't it? Um, other psychologists have reacted as well. Ryan Martin, also known as the Anger Professor, um, he posted that, uh, one of the first things about America right now is how we accept male anger and hostility in politics as a strength and then silence more composed voices. We've normalized hostility and cruelty. The only psychologist I could actually find, a prominent psychologist I could find, that seemed to support Donald Trump— may come as no surprise— was Jordan Peterson. All right. Um, he tried to argue that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, suggesting that Trump's previous, previous presidency sets a positive precedent— it's a lot of Ps there— in terms of a strong economy and no new wars. Um, I'll be I'm not sure Jordan was psychologizing very well there. Yes, past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, but there's a bit more nuance than that when it comes to actual performance in work. Go and check out Adam Grant's Hidden Potential if you want to learn more about that. But my beef with Jordan was actually that he left out a lot of data when it comes to Trump's track record. He does have a history of falsifying 30,000 documents or misleading or giving misleading statements during his time in office. In office. He does have a questionable commitment to democratic principles, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, which also played a part in the January 6th Capitol riots, did leave little to be desired. And then let's not also forget the legal troubles. Trump is a convicted felon on 34 counts of falsifying business records and is awaiting sentencing actually later this month. So I think that actually probably says more about JP as a psychologist than it does necessarily about Donald Trump as a president. If you're talking about psychological assessment at work, then he's not talking about it very well. I think what JP actually means here is nostalgia. And I think this is maybe a reason why a lot of people have voted, voted for Trump in the election this year. And I think also why a lot of people voted for Labour in the UK this year. Nostalgia, it is that kind of psychological sense of self-soothing when people look back, and they often gloss over the rough edges. Memory is highly selective, and we tend to remember the broad positive strokes and forget the negative details. So yes, Trump is a controversial figure with a deeply complicated history, but this nostalgic appeal does have power, especially for people who feel disconnected or adrift in a changing world, particularly perhaps a more liberal world [7:07] Al Elliott: Yeah, I think a couple of things. First of all, nostalgia. The problem with nostalgia is it's not as good as it used to be. Um, yeah, and also the campaign that both of them ran was similar to the Clinton campaign. If you're interested in the story or the branding behind campaigns like that, go back to Dr. JJ Peterson. Um, no, that's not right. Is it Dr. JJ Peterson? [7:26] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. Very different from Dr. Jordan Peterson [7:30] Al Elliott: Sorry. Sorry, JJ. Dr. JJ Peterson, um, from StoryBrand. And he went into some really, really interesting, um, the mechanics of the campaign, of the 2016 campaign. And he explained, he gave one little hack that would've possibly meant that, uh, Clinton would've won [7:44] Leanne Elliott: Yes, there you go. I'm sure Trump will feature again in our news roundup over the next 4 years. And we'll see. Al, what have you seen this week?