Why Democrats Lost
Leadership Lessons for Business from Trump’s Win
In the post-election postmortem, analysts have been dissecting the Democratic defeat like blind men describing an elephant—each touching a different part, yet missing the entire creature. Hundreds of explanations have emerged, from messaging missteps to demographic shifts. But these are mere symptoms, not the underlying root cause.
Attempts to move from diagnosis to strategy quickly turn into verbose speculation. What democratically minded citizens need is not another laundry list of ‘why-losts’, but a fundamental understanding of the systemic dynamics driving electoral outcomes.
In this article, we attempt to analyze the core mechanism determining Trump’s political success. While economic conditions and social issues play a role, this analysis focuses on the often-overlooked element of values alignment which, arguably, is the crucial factor determining the leader’s success or failure, in politics as well as at work.
Using Schwartz’s basic Human Values model for consistency, the analysis explains why some leaders connect while others fundamentally fail to resonate—a lesson as critical for the White House as it is for a business organization.
The #1 Reason Why Trump Won
There’s yet one scathing reason why Trump won and Kamala lost. It is not listed among the top 100 reasons, such as ‘lost touch with the working class’, ‘the burden of incumbency’, ‘should have dropped Biden sooner’, ‘relied too much on consultants and pollsters’, yada yada, all good – but pointless.
The #1 reason why Trump won, or rather, Biden/Harris lost, is that Trump is a better liar. This single reason may be a roll-up of all the other top 100 reasons. Yes, you’ve read this right, and I know that I will get flak for this disclosure from all sides. But this is a result of an ongoing research work that has started several years ago.
However, this top reason is not the root cause; rather, it is an immediate consequence of the root cause, observed in political campaigns and organizational leadership.
Let’s get to the root cause together, read on.
How to Win Votes and Influence Innocent People
Winning a political campaign or becoming a successful business leader means that you have more followers than the other guy (or gal). To ensure solid followership, you need to have values that are aligned with those of the majority of the people involved (i.e. party members, supporters and voters in politics, or the executive team and employees in a business organization).
Ideally, you share the same set of values with your people. But real life is never ideal. And there’s another caveat: adults have a very rigid set of values that change slowly with age but cannot be changed overnight unless the person goes through some drastic near-death experience.
The challenge is to figure out and convince the majority that you share their values. Thus, faking values is something quite common in politics. If there are several contenders, then the one who demonstrates the strongest alignment on shared values wins. Conversely, the perceived misalignment of values leads to lost votes in politics and poor organizational efficiency in a business environment.
Cultural Compatibility: The Hidden Success Factor
Decades of business and consulting experience suggest that cultural compatibility, rooted in values alignment, largely determines a team’s functionality. Despite its obvious and measurable benefits, promoting cultural compatibility remains a challenge against counterproductive and often aggressive DEI policies.
This is especially relevant today, in the knowledge society, where the outcomes of any endeavour have become more dependent on the human factor than on the “traditional” primary factors, like land, labour and capital.
A tool for measuring and assessing individual values and calculating compatibility was developed over a decade ago. Currently known to clients as the Q7 Collectiver Culture Compass, it facilitates the creation of highly functional and efficient teams at the organizational level. Individuals can also use it to assess their potential compatibility with prospective teams.
Elon Musk
While testing and refining the Q7 tool, in 2017, we decided to build Elon Musk’s values profile. We wanted to understand and analyze the values profile of a successful businessman and see if it affects the culture of Tesla Corp. For obvious reasons, we could not just call Elon and ask him to do the Q7 questionnaire. So, we crowdsourced Musk’s profile using social media. Quite unexpectedly, the profile became pretty stable after the very first completed questionnaires. Having received 60 or so responses, we closed the poll because Elon’s profile and his “star” on the Values Map appeared to be perfectly stable.
It is worth noting that an HBR article (2018) profiled Tesla culture alongside several other prominent companies. To map company cultures, we used the same scientific base, and Tesla’s “star” landed close to where Elon’s star was located in 2017.
Donald Trump – 2018
When Donald Trump became President and proved to the world that he is somewhat unconventional, we decided to map his values, using the same tool. This time the crowdsourcing process was less dynamic. Not many people had heard enough about Donald Trump to be able to offer any insights. Plus, already in 2018, quite a few folks preferred to steer away from Trump-related subjects and DM’d Collectiver with their concerns.
Still, like in the preceding case of his now First Buddy, Trump’s values profile was defined by readers with remarkable certainty. It was clearly not overlapping with Musk but quite expectedly skewed toward Power and Security, squarely in the Self-Enhancement quadrant.
Fast Forward to 2024
Producing individual profiles of “influencers” used to be a challenging exercise, with questionable output. How could the obtained measurements be verified?
Enter AI. Often hollow and unstable just a year ago, the results produced with the help of AI are more meaningful today – and arguably correct. Not so long ago, we used AI to get into the psychology of life-long contradictions between two world’s topmost management gurus, and the AI’s help made a lot of sense <link>. A year later, obtaining and verifying the values profiles of Musk and Trump did not take long.
Here’s what we have in total, today. I used three LLMs to calculate values profiles of the US election key participants that may hold the key to the Dems’ demise.
Let me pause and brag here. This incredible correlation of independently obtained results is a clear indication that there must be something right about our Q7 Culture Compass!
The correlations between the three sets of results was around 0.9. What’s more encouraging, the correlation between the ‘old’ crowdsourced profiles and AI-generated profiles was 0.86 for Musk and 0.97 for Trump <EM 2 profiles graph>: <DT 2 profiles graph>:
A slight variance between the two Musk’s profiles is explained by the naïve public perception of Musk-2017 (dotted line) as being more pro-environment. Since then, several revelations shifted his profile towards Self-Enhancement (solid line), and not surprisingly, closer to Trump. But we’ll get to that later.
US Election 2024
Inspired by this success, I continued working with my team of friendly LLMs and mined additionally the following profiles:
- generic Dem voter, Rep voter, and Average voter profiles (based on exit polls, specific to 2024)
- Kamala Harris
- Joe Biden
Let’s see how these values profile align and how their (in)congruence affects the election outcome.
The Electorate: A Values Battlefield
Using multiple exit polls and various assessments conducted by major pollsters, I created two distinct values profiles – of the typical “Rep” and “Dem” voters. Then, through an extensive discussion with my team of friendly LLMs, I had the profiles charted by the same Q7 tool. No surprise, the two profiles are distinctly different.
Registered Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters – “Dems” – tend to focus on values related to “Self-Transcendence,” and their top issues include women’s rights, social justice, care for others, and abortion rights. In 2024, however, even with their universally-conscious worldview, which is a known tendency of people with higher level of attained education, they show a growing concern for Security (the spike at about 5 o’clock).
Reps, in turn, are focused primarily on Conservation and Self-Enhancement. Those values include issues related to economy, immigration, foreign policy, and religion.
Why Trump Won
Spoiler alert: It’s not what you think.
To win votes or become successful in politics or business, the aspiring leader must share the same values with the people he or she leads. Could a billionaire narcissist with questionable morals align with blue-collar workers, rural populations, and those without a college degree? Not exactly. But here’s the kicker: He didn’t have to.
Let’s plot Trump’s profile alongside the Dems and Reps profiles and use the Q7 tool to calculate their congruence:
As you can see, Trump (orange line) is moderately aligned (0.38) with the Rep values and definitely misaligned (-0.5) with Dems. You are not surprised, are you? Neither was Trump.
As a professional and naturally gifted salesman, Trump did his best to “mirror” his target market (the electoral majority) by telling them exactly what they want to hear – even though most of his campaign promises are questionable, to say the least. But they are in line with what the electorate wants (or afraid) to hear.
Remember these gems?
– “They are eating the dogs, they are eating the cats”
– “Executing babies after birth”
– “End the war with Ukraine in one day”
The list is virtually infinite, and each such statement helps rekindle the hopes (and fears!) of the unsophisticated majority.
Still, having a 0.38 alignment with your target customer is not a guarantee to win the market. Unless your rivals help you close the sale.
Why Kamala Lost
Here’s where some people may get embarrassed.
Kamala’s genuine values profile is in better alignment (0.60) with the Republican voter than with the Dems (-0.37)! No wonder she could not convince the majority of Americans, even though many pollsters maintain that Dems may have an overall majority over Reps if everybody votes.
She tried lying to match her “advanced” blue electorate values – but failed spectacularly. Her own, real values happen to be closely aligned with the values of an average voter (blue dotted line). All she had to do was open her authentic self, with a few subtle, “blue” tweaks – largely a matter of semantics. But she proved to be a very poor liar and failed to convince either side, effectively appearing as woke to one half and a traitor to the other.
Here’s another non-surprise: Kamala’s profile is smack on (0.87) on Joe Biden’s (dotted line):
No wonder, they have co-existed in peace and harmony for four years.
Kamala is perceived slightly higher on Stimulation but lower on Self-Direction. And that’s exactly why, when asked to name any of Joe Biden’s decisions that she would have done differently, her response was “None comes to mind.”
That response, arguably, was the beginning of the end. But let’s give her credit: It was an honest response. Now we know why.
Power Dynamics: Trump and His First Buddy
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” as Niels Bohr sagely remarked. But using our Q7 analysis and a healthy dose of common sense, we can map out a high-probability scenario for the Trump-Musk dynamic.
Let’s compare the values profiles of the two people who are going to determine the destiny of American people and arguably the world in the coming years.
Trump and his BFF Musk are significantly aligned (0.54). Trump is better aligned with the electorate at 0.21, while Musk’s is at odds with the average voter (-0.45).
This is a typical scenario in a business organization, where the CEO is purposely selected to serve as a bridge between the Board of Directors and the workforce.
What’s Next
Although Trump and Musk share a self-focused nature, their aspirations exist on different levels, eliminating them as a potential point of contention. Trump – and old white conservative businessman – sees the ultimate power as being the legitimate Capo di Tutti Capi, permitting select others to come, kiss the ring and perhaps ask to become yet another state within Great America. But as Trump is aware that his leadership can be questioned, he defaults to a textbook strategy of autocrats, surrounding himself with useful idiots.
Musk is a visionary. Already seeing himself as the winner of the Monopoly game on the planet Earth, he is planning to “occupy” Mars. To achieve this, he needs to ensure complete dominance over Earth. Securing his de-facto control over the most powerful economy is a thoughtful first step.
For this, Musk is following Lenin’s playbook of “occupy railway stations, power plant, post office, telegraph, and State Bank,” Musk is methodically seizing key infrastructure: communications (Starlink and Twitter), logistics (The Boring Co.), and finances (DOGE as the alternative currency that may replace the dollar).
Being a natural entrepreneur, Musk understands that his window of opportunity is very small. That’s why Musk stays 24/7 with Trump: to make sure that all useful idiots are of the top quality. Special attention is given to the Army and Law-enforcement controls – because those are the areas that Musk is not able to control. At least, not yet.
Musk gets it: in the knowledge economy, even crypto money’s just paper. The real power – cutting-edge ideas – can’t be passed on to your kids. So he’s racing against time, knowing his true wealth is what he can create before the opportunity slips away.
However, from bird’s view (or from Mars), Trump and Musk are working on identical agendas, only on different levels.
Back on Earth, Lesson Learned for business leaders: The same tribal dynamics, value clashes, and powerplays that shape political battles are alive and kicking in every boardroom, conference call, and team meeting—because the same psychological patterns of ambition, values misalignment, and tactical positioning play out at every level of human organization.
This analysis reveals the critical role of perceived values alignment in electoral outcomes. While genuine congruence with the electorate’s values is advantageous, convincingly projecting this alignment—even inauthentically—can prove decisive. However, this is a double-edged sword: Kamala Harris’s campaign serves as a cautionary tale, demonstrating how a miscalculated attempt to project inauthentic alignment can lead to an ultimate failure. This resonates deeply in the business world, where genuine values alignment fosters lasting trust and loyalty, while insincere displays lead to disillusionment and failure. Authenticity remains key for long-term success.
A Bonus Note of Optimism: Democracy Will Be Back
Statistically, only about 1 in 10 startups achieves significant success. There’s a good chance that this Musk’s venture will fail. Based on their values profiles, I’d give the Trump-Musk bromance between six months and two years max.
Musk’s predisposition towards Self-Direction and Stimulation, laudable during the honeymoon phase, will eventually clash with Trump’s risk aversion. In the meantime, the disillusioned electorate will realize that they are being taken for a ride. You can only lie for so long, and useful idiots have a limited shelf life, regardless of their level in the big picture.
Lower public support leads to mass disenchantment, and that drives down productivity and GDP – which leads to deeper disenchantment, looping the vicious cycle. In business, this may lead to bankruptcy, lay-offs for the employees – and a new startup for the entrepreneur.
In politics, we do not have this flexibility to fire the wrong people and to hire the right ones nationwide: we have only one nation. But if Democrats are wise enough to vote down or delay Trump/Musk’s self-serving ideas, they’ll have a clear path to the midterms. By then, Trump will likely be happy to sell the MAGA business to the highest bidder – but there’ll be no bidder in real life.
By the midterms, America could see the return of democracy with a small “d”—a victory for governance by and for the people rather than a slide into broligarchy. This requires a leader who values authenticity and integrity above partisan agendas and aligns with the values of the majority of people, not of the party activists, i.e. – with the center, where most Americans naturally reside.
A leader rooted in these principles can organically generate universal support, proving that democratic values transcend party lines and reminding us that true democracy belongs to all.