How Did Trump Win?

*Published with the generous permission of Amee Vanderpool. Read more of her excellent work at Shero.

By Amee Vanderpool

I love to make vision boards — there, I’ve said it. But, they are not all devoted to my dream cottage in the country that I started creating when Pinterest rolled out. When something big happens, that upends my life and my way of thinking I have to dissect it and chew on it for a minute, taking some time to pinpoint where I went wrong with my understanding of a situation and how confident I was in that delusion.

I’m sure it is likely a healthy response to trauma, but I literally need to see where I went wrong. I’m also sure it has to do with retracing my steps and making sure not to make the same mistake again, and on and on, but I connect it to my propensity to be a control freak.
I have been ruminating on this latest Trump win that has stunned the world and left us unprepared, while Republicans put out the illusion that they had it all mapped out and planned all along. I don’t know what’s worse: feeling like my assessment of things was completely off or feeling unprepared against a team that boasts players like Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller…wait - my breakfast is suddenly not sitting so well.

Until I have the answer — that is to say, the answer that satisfies all of the questions still lingering about this last election, and gives some insight into where my feeling and understanding of things went wrong, I intend to conduct a post mortem on the events of the last few years and find what might have been overlooked. I have to answer the riddle of this mistake in my head — that won’t stop replaying itself over and over — that has left me with a feeling that we are headed into the same mistake, again.

To this end, I have been perusing all of my past writing, all of the warnings, all of the things that caused the most concern about the Trump Campaign in 2024, in order to find some kind of explanation that can help me get a better perspective. The people in Trump’s world do not make a big effort to hide their undertakings, so why is this so hard to get the answers we need, when a lot of this evidence is right in front of our faces? My biggest concern is that this last election had nothing to do with Trump at all, and there are several players who will come to the surface as the rubble and damage shakes out, sort of like a Steele Dossier, that is actually a smoking gun and provides real answers.

My latest working theory is not particularly amazing, is pretty basic, and is justified by the things we already know: those behind the Trump win were collectively working on a training plan all along that could reach into the farthest regions of the underworld, that would help Trump secure this win. The following is an article published in SHERO this summer that confirms the effort and money behind Project 2025 and the plan to re-elect Trump.

It feels like there is some bigger, smarter network behind the surface of Trump’s plan, that is really in charge and making covert moves that will stun the world once we find out who is behind them. Until then, read this and tell me if you have any ideas about who the hell is actually behind all of Trump’s latest success, because I am simply unwilling to gift Mark Meadows with the ultimate political Svengali award at this point in my life. (Especially not right before Christmas.)