Sitting in the passenger seat of a Ford Model T on a hot August day in 1930, Grant Wood was looking for inspiration, as his car meandered along the rural roads of Eldon, Iowa. Suddenly he noticed an out-of-place Gothic-styled window in an upper eave of a farmhouse and ordered his driver to pull over.
Fascinated by what he felt was the pretentiousness of the window’s craftsmanship in this obscure locale, he sketched on paper the outline of what would later become his most famous painting, titled “American Gothic.” You recall it from school — the picture with the older, unamused couple, holding a three-pronged pitchfork, looking as if they held a deep, dark secret, inside.
To me, Wood’s iconic painting is the 20th century beginning of the word “Americana.”
Wood believed that cities were becoming the cultural centers of American life, but that it was still rural America from which flowed the true source of the American identity. After all, the land came before the people and the people showed up a few at a time, then they multiplied. But in places with fewer people, and more space, things are still closer to their original state, and so I guess in a sense, he was right.
It is through this lens that I view the Trump victory.
Volumes of books will be written about it all, how Trump won in 2016, lost in 2020, then won again in 2024 in a “win for the ages,” as our friend Jim Nance might say.
Why has all this unfolded this way? What can we learn from it?
Close your eyes for a second, and imagine that you ran for president.
You walked away from a great life, sacrificed your family and business, only to be made fun of, underestimated, ridiculed, dismissed as a joke. But then, imagine that moment, late on election night, after months of going through the bamboo beating that defines all campaigns, when suddenly, you are declared the winner.
Those first few moments are surely filled with disbelief, replaced by excitement and wonder at all the possibilities that lie ahead.
Likely, after celebrating with your friends and family, you would try to sleep, but morning would come before you dozed off. And before you can even make a cup of coffee, a staff member comes in and tells you that that the FBI director had planted listening devices on your campaign; before the eggs and bacon arrive, you learn that your political opponents claim you are “illegitimate” and vow to “resist” everything you hope to accomplish.
A member of Congress says he will file articles of impeachment.
This is all before noon the day after you win.
How would you feel?
But unimaginably, what if it got worse? What if, over the next four years, you were barraged with lies about “Russian Collusion,” subjected to false impeachment proceedings — first for trying to hold a corrupt Ukraine accountable for squandering American tax dollars, then for being accused of a weaponless “insurrection” that was nothing more than a group of people outraged over the corrupted way the past election was run?
What if they went after your kids and your family?
What if China allowed a virus to spread that would upend the world; your public health professionals lie about its origins, and the vaccines and school closures; and everyone blames you?
How would you feel after four years of all of this?
I know how I would feel: I would say “to hell with it.” Most of us would extend the middle finger to the world and then jet off to a private island and sip on a piña colada and try to move on.
But that is not what Trump did.
He did the opposite. Why?
To assuage a deeply narcissistic personality? To exact revenge on all his enemies?
That is what they would have you believe. But I have a different theory.
During his four years, he must have seen and learned a lot that confirmed his instincts about the deep state, about the military industrial complex, and about the rampant corruption in DC.
He must have been convinced that countless opportunities to improve the lives of American citizens were being squandered because of lobbyists, corrupt media and so-called “journalists,” and self-dealing sycophants.
Then, Biden wins and he watches from the sidelines as the country goes to hell, domestically, and her influence and prestige abroad evaporates due to DEI appointments and incompetence.
But Trump didn’t throw in the towel and go to a beach. Instead, he got up off the mat, brushed off the dirt and grime and stench of Washington DC, and started climbing the mountain for a second time. He persisted, as they like to say.
Then, he focused like a laser on the issues that mattered to the majority of people. In urban areas, people were more concerned, it appeared, with abortion (neatly renamed as “reproductive rights”) and this nonsense about “threats to democracy,” which I find funny, because it was democracy that resulted in him being re-elected.
But in the rest of America, voters cared more about safety from dangerous illegal immigrants, the price of food, and returning sanity to classrooms than they did about dividing everybody based on race and gender ideologies.
The majority voted against a vice president who was an incompetent candidate, despite the media’s insistence otherwise.
They voted for a border wall.
They voted against men in women’s sports.
They voted for an end to the endless war machine.
They voted against an “America Last” mentality, especially in western North Carolina, where people suffered and went without, while establishment politicians borrowed against future American tax dollars to send to Ukraine.
The list goes on an on.
The results really boil down to what it always does in a race for the presidency: Trump reflected the views of a majority of voters, and Harris did not.
I can think of no better example of a 21st century iteration of “Americana” than a guy beaten down, almost out, getting up, dusting off, and fighting back and winning.
That is what our country is all about.