Why Trump won (and what the media missed along the way)

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

It’s been more than a month since Donald J. Trump won the presidency both by the popular vote as well as the Electoral College. The red wave also won the Senate majority, the House majority, and maintained the majority of state governorships (27 Republican, 23 Democratic) and the majority of  state legislatures (23 Republican, 15 Democratic and 12 states with divided governments).

The worst part is that it was all over before midnight on Election Day 2024.

The votes from California, Washington and Oregon didn’t even count. How did this happen? Did anyone see it coming?

I believe I may have the answers.

In order for the average non-Trump supporter to understand how Trump won, it’s important for them to understand what happens at a typical Trump rally.

I live in Ben Lomond. Our family’s construction company is located in Boulder Creek. Knowing our neighbors and our San Lorenzo Valley community as we do, I’d be willing to bet that 99% of them have never attended or watched a Trump rally.

I understand and accept that. Trump and the MAGA movement may not be their “thing.” Nevertheless, Trump and the MAGA movement is the “thing” of millions of Americans.

Since the November 2020 election, Trump has put on 900 rallies. There were 1,562 days from Election Day Nov. 3, 2020, to Election Day Nov. 5, 2024. That works out to a couple of rallies every week over the four years.

The average attendance at a Trump rally involves thousands of people – anywhere from 5,600 (Harvard University) to 45,000 people (Trump campaign). That includes rallies in rural areas such as the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13, when about 18,000 people showed up. It also includes 24,000 people who attended the second Trump rally in Butler on Oct. 5.

It also includes the Madison Square Garden Trump rally in New York City that drew 20,000 inside and a massive overflow crowd outside. Just how many people wanted to get in and couldn’t fit is disputed (Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, put it at 200,000). Regardless, the crowd of MAGA people was big enough to completely shut down the streets in midtown Manhattan around the Garden.

Nine hundred rallies with about 5,600 people calculates (conservatively) to more than 5 million people. If you accept the larger, Trump campaign numbers, it’s as many as 40 million people who have personally attended a Trump rally in the past four years. Regardless, it’s a lot of people.

Trump rallies are free to attend. Serious Trump supporters begin lining up outside the event a few days before the rally. They do that with the hope of being among the lucky ones who will get a seat inside when the doors open early on the morning the day of the rally.

No matter how large the hall, stadium or auditorium might be, it is soon filled to capacity. The overflow crowds gather around huge jumbotrons placed in many locations outside of the now fully packed hall to watch the rally.

The average Trump rally lasts many hours. Many local leaders as well as nationally known individuals speak before Trump. The last speaker is always Trump. He delivers his speech, without notes, which usually runs over an hour.

Up front and center at every Trump rally is a special reserved section for the media. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox, the BBC and other international media outlets are always in full attendance at every rally. They are sent to capture the substantive value of the rally, to report on the candidate and campaign.  

Nevertheless, it’s always been a mystery to me that even though the mainstream media often captures every minute of every Trump rally, few of them broadcast or rebroadcast much of the substance. They look for moments that play to their liberal audience, but they don’t report what makes Trump so attractive to those attending. To see and explain why he resonates. They don’t pan the crowds and show what they are experiencing. Perhaps they don’t understand it. 

That is the problem.

Due to the media’s lack of interest in sharing what supporters see, the only way to actually see a complete Trump rally is to be there in person. The only other possible way to see the entire rally is to find an alternative internet streaming it.

Right Side Broadcasting Network, a tiny internet channel, has streamed every Trump rally in its entirety, live, uncut and uncensored. It appears to me that the world’s mainstream media is there just in case Trump says or does something “newsworthy.” Someone trying to assassinate Trump on July 13 during the Butler rally was considered a “newsworthy event” by the mainstream media. 

Outside of someone trying to kill Trump at his rally, the lack of coverage by the mainstream media might lead one to believe that almost nothing worth covering has happened at any of the 900 Trump rallies over the past four years.

So just how did Trump win? It’s really a simple math question.

By Election Day 2024, millions of Americans had attended a Trump rally. Many millions of these MAGA supporters were willing to sleep in their cars, their vans, their campers, their recreational vehicles or their tents just to be among the “lucky ones” to get inside to see Trump.

Millions of ordinary Americans were willing to stand in long, uncomfortable lines for many hours, sometimes days, just for a chance to see Trump in person. 

On Nov. 5, these millions of Americans – plus many more – voted for Trump.

And the rest is history.

What amazes me most is that this has been going on for four years. In spite of that, I’ve rarely come across a non-Trump supporter in the SLV area who had any idea of what has been going on at Trump rallies all around the country the past four years.

Shame on the mainstream media. They had front-row seats to the Trump MAGA movement and they kept it a secret from their dwindling audiences.

They chose to ignore what was happening right in front of their eyes for years.

Did they do that to “protect” the public? Or did they hope that by ignoring Trump, he might just go away? 

Those mainstream media outlets failed their public and shamed themselves in the most spectacular way.

I think Stephen Miller, Trump’s former top immigration adviser, who will serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy this time around, might have said it best in an email after the Madison Square Garden rally: “Lefty celebrities in gated mansions with private guards, private concierge doctors, and private tutors for their kids endorse Kamala while forcing you to live with open borders, nightmarish crime, dismal schools, overwhelmed hospitals and tiny paychecks that leave you in debt.”

Shame on the mainstream media. By omission, they have lied to their public for years about Trump and what was really happening with the MAGA movement.

They have themselves to blame for what happened on Election Day.

Tom Decker builds affordable homes, with a focus on homes for victims of the CZU fire. In 2024, he ran for Santa Cruz County supervisor for District 5. He has lived in Ben Lomond for almost 20 years. His family’s business is located in downtown Boulder Creek. He and his wife are blessed to have six children and 19 grandchildren.