In the Nov. 14 edition of the Homer News, in a letter to the editor titled “A Request for Answers,” a writer asked for a more thorough explanation of why a majority of voters cast their ballots for President-elect Donald Trump versus his opponent. With the hope that his request was sincere, and the thought that many others may have similar questions, I will attempt to provide at least a couple of the most often cited reasons.

First, because Mr. Trump had already served as president for four years, we had clear examples of the results of his policies from those four years juxtaposed against the most recent four years of Biden-Harris policies. That comparison provides many stark differences. Some have to do with personality and/or style. Others have to do with results.

It is the differences in results that I believe caused so many traditional Democrat voters to vote for Trump this time around along with traditional Republicans and many independents. These included a large swath of those who have been called “the working class.” These folks were particularly hard hit by inflation and the influx of illegal immigrants, which many believe drove down unskilled labor rates.

Let’s look first at these two areas — inflation and illegal immigration.

Because my goal is to present factual data rather than the bombast that accompanies so much of the dialogue between the two sides in our country, there will be a lot of numbers to absorb in the following explanation. Please bear with me:

Inflation: Per the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the rate of annual inflation under Trump from 2016-2020, was consistently just above 1% per year. Under Biden-Harris it was 7% in 2021, 6.5% in 2022, 3.4% in 2023 and 2.6% in 2024. Although the runaway rate of inflation caused by Biden’s overspending was going down each year, the cumulative result is that prices today are approximately 19.5% higher than they were when Trump left office. Some, like housing expenses are even higher.

In an attempt to reduce the rate of inflation, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates considerably. While this has indeed helped to reduce the rate of inflation, it has also more than doubled the cost of financing a home or business. Further, it has had a disastrous effect on the cost of the federal debt. The interest payments alone on the U.S. debt now exceed the entire budget of the Defense Department. ($893 billion for the debt versus $824 billion for defense per the Congressional Budget Office.)

These increases in the costs of food, gas, heating fuel, housing and other basic essentials has been particularly hard on working class people and even young professionals. Imagine trying to buy your first home with the inflated prices of real estate and mortgage rates above 6 or 7%. Perhaps this is why Trump won such a surprising percentage of young voters.

Illegal Immigration: According to the House Committee on Homeland Security, under President Biden and “border czar” Vice President Kamala Harris, the annual border encounter numbers have proven to be catastrophic. Since the start of fiscal year 2021, Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide. By contrast, CBP recorded around 3 million from FY2017-2020 combined. In addition to these encounters, CBP has recorded another roughly 2 million known “gotaways” since the start of FY2021, approximately four times the number recorded from FY2017-2020. This influx of illegal immigrants has put downward pressure on wages throughout the country. Crime by illegals has also been a very rancorous issue.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration and Vice President Harris said throughout their tenure that the border was secure and inflation was either transitory at the beginning or more recently, that the economy was doing fine. The common sense and daily experiences of Americans going to the grocery store, filing their gas tanks and seeing the horrors on the streets of American cities knew this wasn’t right. And they voted accordingly.

America First: Since the writer raised a question specifically about America First and what that means, it is my view that it is a focus on what the priority of things should be. For example, should the U.S. pay the lion’s share of the costs of the NATO Alliance when the combined economies of Europe rival that of ours? This is an issue Trump raised early in his first term. It was widely and erroneously interpreted as a lack of support for NATO. On the contrary, he simply wanted the Europeans to pay the share of expenses they were supposed to pay per the treaty they all signed. Fortunately, many NATO countries began to do just that after Trump challenged them.

The writer of the Nov. 14 article also asked questions about many less quantitative issues. In his approach he revealed a fear that each of these issues would result in extreme results. Unfortunately, some in the press have pushed these extreme scenarios. Because I don’t want to be argumentative and because there is no clear truth to cite in most of them, let me just suggest that we all have faith in the ameliorating process of congressional deliberations as well as the input of the cabinet. The diversity in the ideological views of the cabinet members Trump has nominated is remarkable.

This country has seen much worse times and we’ve pulled through. Please do not fear the worst will happen. Better to focus on the positive aspects of less intervention and restoring economic prosperity for all Americans.

Finally, while I do agree with the writer that civil discourse is no longer civil, this loss of respect and reasoned dialogue in the face of disagreement has ample examples on both sides. Let’s not continue to travel that unfriendly and vitriolic road. Discord and rancor do not advance our civilization. Constructive, thought-provoking dialogue will do much more to renew our focus on healing our nation.

In summary, to me elections are primarily about polices. Others may differ, but when a comparison is so readily available of the relative results of different policies, the results of those policies are obvious and compelling. Let’s use this new course to pull together to rebuild and strengthen ourselves as a nation.

Brenda Adams is a former executive in the computer industry and the founder, designer and former owner of a Homer-based, award-winning garden design business. She has written two books on northern garden design and has taught advanced design classes to the Alaska Master Gardeners of Alaska. She is a sought-after speaker throughout Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.