Donald Trump’s resounding victory—winning all battleground states and securing the popular vote—was a triumph that few anticipated. But his success isn’t just a testament to his appeal; it also highlights the Democratic Party’s remarkable ability to engineer its own downfall.

Over the past four years, the Democrats have squandered credibility, alienated key demographics, and transformed their party into a caricature of elitism and incompetence, paving the way for this decisive Republican win.

The collapse of the Democrats began with the embarrassing charade surrounding President Biden. His visible cognitive decline made him a tragic figure and an easy target for criticism. Yet party operatives and allies in the media insisted on pretending he was fit for office, sacrificing their own credibility in the process. When Biden finally stepped down, the same figures who had defended him turned on him like vultures, exposing the shameless opportunism that has come to define Democratic leadership.

Biden’s exit only made room for Kamala Harris—a choice that further alienated voters. Harris’s track record of political missteps, combined with her lack of voter support during the 2020 primaries, made her an obvious liability. Her tenure as vice president had done little to reverse this perception. From nonsensical public statements to a reputation for ineffectiveness, Harris became a symbol of a party out of touch with the electorate. The result? A 6.8 million vote drop from Biden’s 2020 totals, flipping the popular vote to the GOP for the first time in 20 years.

Once the party of the working class, the Democrats have lost touch with the blue-collar voters who were once their foundation. Policies promoting open borders, unchecked immigration, and burdensome regulations betrayed working families who saw their jobs shipped overseas or undercut by illegal labor. These failures left the door wide open for Trump to step in with promises of border security, lower taxes, and a resurgence of American manufacturing—messages that resonated with voters who felt abandoned.

The Democrats didn’t just lose the working class; they alienated big business too. Despite overwhelming support from billionaires, their “Tax the Rich” rhetoric and calls for redistribution drove key industries into the arms of the GOP. Kamala Harris’s clumsy appeals to raise taxes, paired with a broader narrative pushed by figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, turned corporate America against the Democrats. Even in strongholds like California and New York, cracks began to show as business leaders looked to the right for policies that supported growth.

For the first time in decades, the leaders of the Tech Industry have openly endorsed the Republican candidate and, as much as this was a personal victory for Trump, it also showed the lack of vision on the left.

Perhaps most striking is the Democrats’ loss of ground with minority voters. Over the past four years, Trump’s focus on law and order, education reform, and job creation helped him make inroads with Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Jewish communities. By contrast, Democratic policies—such as leniency on urban crime, poorly executed immigration policies, and a failure to address economic realities—destroyed neighborhoods and alienated these same groups. Trump’s ability to gain 2.8 million more votes than in 2020, particularly in minority communities, demonstrates the breadth of the Democrats’ failure.

The Democrats’ campaign messaging was another glaring weakness. Instead of addressing issues that mattered to voters, they fell back on a tired abortion narrative. Meanwhile, the key planks of their progressive agenda—climate policy, gender ideology, and economic reforms—were conspicuously absent from the conversation, likely because they knew these policies alienated large swaths of the electorate. Even their abortion platform failed to galvanize enough support to offset broader dissatisfaction with their governance.

What we see today is a party without a plan, struggling to adapt to an electorate that has outgrown its stale rhetoric and empty promises. Their loss of credibility, failure to connect with working-class voters, alienation of minorities, and disastrous leadership have left them floundering. But make no mistake: the Democrats will soon find a new narrative, a new cause to rally their base. And when they do, Republicans will be ready to tear it apart—just as they always have.

For now, the Democratic Party has mastered the art of losing. Their inability to address the concerns of everyday Americans has handed Republicans a historic victory.

As the left scrambles to reassemble itself, the GOP can savor the moment, secure in the knowledge that they’ve delivered what Democrats could not: a message that resonates and a vision for the future. Now is the time for them to execute on President Trump’s America First mandate.

George Harizanov is the CEO for the Institute of Right-Wing Policies in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is frequent TV commentator in Bulgaria and he can be found on X @@georgeharizanov