Trump wins US election as Elon Musk emerges as key power player

Trump wins US election as urban-rural divide emerges

Donald Trump is returning to the White House. The confirmation of his victory in the United States presidential election has forced the establishment to reshape its narrative, as much of the analysis had assumed a Kamala Harris win. The provisional count, with 193 electoral votes against 168, painted a map that is almost entirely red, except for the major urban centers.

The count and the shadow of electoral fraud

As the scrutiny pogre, the ghosts of 2020 were revived. Some claimed, without providing any verifiable proof, that the result was predetermined and that votes were being manufactured in the early hours of the morning; an image of trucks loaded with ballots arriving late at night in Pennsylvania even circulated. These are claims that are not backed by any evidence and reproduce the pattern of distrust seen in recent elections.

The other side of the count was the distribution of power. Projections suggested that Democrats could take control of the House of Representatives by a minimal margin, which would leave Trump in the White House but without total control over the legislature. For some analysts, a divided government is the best possible news: it forces compromise and curbs extremes.

What the electoral map reveals: country vs. city

The voting map told a simpler story. The states where economic power is concentrated—New York, California, Seattle, Boston, Chicago—remained in Democratic hands, while the rest of the territory, rural and working-class, voted en masse for Trump. The dominant reading speaks of a profound disconnection between urban elites and voters outside of major metropolitan areas.

The most frequent analysis suggests that the American left has lost touch with its historical base: the worker who votes based on their paycheck rather than social engineering. That divorce, more than the candidate's charisma, would explain the result. The geography of the vote is, they say, proof that the message no longer reaches where it once did.

The real power of Elon Musk

If there is one name hovering over the result, it is Elon Musk. A current of opinion considers that the true winner of the night was not so much Trump as the entrepreneur, whom they place as the most powerful person in recent history. His explicit support for the campaign and his growing role in reshaping the State have fueled all kinds of theories, from the New World Order to the most far-fetched conspiracies, almost always without proof.

The less fanciful version is also the most uncomfortable: a single individual who controls the dominant electric vehicle company, the largest satellite network, and a global communication platform. The fact that such a cocktail is managed by one person is, at the very least, something the economy has not yet managed to digest.

Tariffs, immigration, and Ukraine: the economic agenda

On the economic front, expectations revolve around three fronts. The first: tariffs on Chinese products, presented as a tool to protect domestic industry. The second: control of illegal immigration, under the argument that maintaining low wages through constant flows of cheap labor benefits large corporations and harms the average worker.

The third, and most uncertain, is the war in Ukraine. Some argue that a NATO defeat would mark the beginning of the end for the American empire and that no emperor dismantles his own empire, meaning the conflict will not be settled by decree. Others see Trump as the only player capable of forcing a way out.

A calculation circulating in the conversation summarizes it this way: the US and European domestic markets are not large enough to sustain these massive export-based industries, and competing with China in the rest of the world without imperial coverage is, quite simply, impossible.

The reaction: relief, sarcasm, and significant distrust

The victory was met with a mixture of relief and mockery. Much of the conversation celebrated the end of the Democratic cycle, with eyes fixed on the faces of establishment-aligned media and a settling of scores with so-called proge culture. The sharpest irony recalled that all major media outlets played against Trump and that, nevertheless, he won.

In contrast to catastrophic narratives, a more tempered reading emphasizes that Trump has been president before and did not result in an apocalypse: he improved the economy and did not parade anyone in uniform. That some of his proposals—border control, tariffs, closing the Ukraine conflict—are debatable does not make them the end of the world. On that point, there is agreement.