I Traveled to 46 States in America This Summer. Here’s Why Trump Won.

A week after Democrats’ election loss, accusations have flown in every direction within their Party. Some fault President Joe Biden for an egoistic refusal to drop out of the race earlier. Some blame the Harris campaign for failing to serve key demographics and communicate a clear vision for the country. And some blame Americans, claiming that racism and sexism drove voters toward Trump.

These factors certainly exist, but we’re missing a larger piece of the picture.

Over the summer, I traveled to 46 states in the U.S., creating a YouTube series highlighting slices of life across the country. In conversations from my nearly three-month road trip, I spoke with Republicans who were certain that inflation is entirely Biden’s fault and Democrats who, despite their frustrations with corporate profits and desires for universal healthcare, hoped for a more moderate candidate. From supporters of all candidates, I heard a shocking amount of misinformation.

After combing through hundreds of hours of interview footage from swing state Trump voters, I am certain that, as much as other factors influenced the outcome of the election, our crumbling media landscape — which has caused a rift in our democracy — is most to blame.

In the postwar period, news was dominated by three main channels, and because of the Fairness Doctrine, each station reported the same stories and covered multiple sides of each issue. Viewers picked which channels they watched mainly based on their preferences for news anchors’ personalities. Of course, this model had its problems, but, at the end of the day, it meant that Americans worked with a shared set of facts.

A shared set of facts is not the world we live in today.

Throughout my interviews, conspiracy theories were rampant, and on at least five separate occasions across separate states, I was told that Bill Gates tampers with our food, adding plastic to our fruits and vegetables to make his medical investments more profitable.

In conversations with voters, neither side seemed able to name many specific policy issues they cared about; everyone just seemed to repeat the words of their favorite pundits, podcast hosts, and internet personalities.

Although this behavior is harmful, I don’t blame everyday Americans. Blame falls on the media that has ostracized, disillusioned, and misinformed them.

I first saw this trend with low-wage workers in West Virginia, who — despite falling inflation rates — have seen stagnated salaries and clear increases in food costs. Channels like Fox News bred anger and resentment for many of them.

Take July of this summer, for example, when for the first time in his presidency, prices actually fell under the Biden administration. Traditional media establishments rushed to celebrate this victory, with one article from CNN declaring, “The White House can finally cross out ‘inflation’ on its list of presidential liabilities.” However, outside these bubbles, I observed many Americans held a different view.

In late July, I was welcomed at a massive family reunion in Tylertown, Mississippi, where one Trump voter — a middle-aged, Black, family man, pastor, and soul food enthusiast — made this clear.

“When I go in the grocery stores, and I gotta spend my last to get groceries, you mean to tell me I’m not gonna look and see who’s gonna vote to help me? I voted for Trump and I’d vote for him again, because he put money in our pocket,” he told me.

In their coverage, mainstream news organizations obsess over the Federal Reserve’s next rate cuts while failing to connect with people concerned with their next meals. With titles like “Vance: Young Americans ‘Are Becoming Paupers’ Due To Inflation, High Housing Costs,” sites like The Daily Wire had their fingers on the pulse of American sentiment, welcoming new readership from those who felt neglected by traditional media.

This problem was not just confined to the economy. While Biden’s mental state was deteriorating, liberal media outlets seemed to under-cover these stories, sheltering him from scrutiny of his declining capabilities, until the infamous presidential debate.

Formerly trusted networks slowly made themselves indigestible to the polarized American public, and in 2024, for the third year in a row, a Gallup poll found that more Americans indicated having “no trust” in the media than those who trust it a “great deal/fair amount”.

So where does the average American turn when the nation’s media cannot be trusted? For many people, it was YouTube talk shows, Newsmax, and podcasters such as Joe Rogan.

While Democrats seek to blame various internal factors for this election’s loss, I cannot help but think of Joe Rogan’s Trump endorsement, the many blind lies I heard from ordinary citizens across the country, and declining trust in American journalism.

As Harvard students and members of higher education institutions, we have a part to play in the problem. At Harvard’s Institute of Politics, those who denied the 2020 election results have been precluded from speaking at the JFK Jr. Forum. While the goal is understandable, it shields students from understanding the American viewpoints they represent.

There is a difference between platforming intentional and manipulative misinformation and listening to and learning about where people are and what they believe.

As a pipeline to mainstream media, Harvard, and its future journalists, have to consider the audience they lose when they stay inside of their bubble and ignore the issues of everyday Americans.

The disappearance of factual importance in our world is alarming and dangerous, but if we, as aspiring journalists, politicians, and engaged citizens, want to be taken seriously in communicating Trump’s threat to democracy, inflationary tariff policies, and so on, we owe American voters that seriousness, too.

Ezekiel A. Wells ’27 is a Double Concentrator in Environment Science & Engineering and Economics in Eliot House. He spent last summer traveling to 46 American states conducting interviews for his YouTube series, “Crossroads America."