It's been happening for months now across several cities, with zero government or media acknowledgment. It's too loud to be the majority of fireworks or gunfire, and now people are cooking up conspiracy theories about it

I've actually heard these before myself, when I used to live with my grandparents

The two main plausible theories people are coming up with are

Tannerite (a relatively easy to purchase explosive used for firearm practice, but is now a popular pastime for some reason amongst the large methead population of Indiana)

Or

Sonic booms from undercover military aircraft, because they only happen past midnight.

I think the latter is more possible because the towns who most often recall bearing such things are close to Grissom Air Base, which has a history that would grant it up to mysterious acts under government command.

There are "racial minorities" among the Trump supporters and followers, despite Trump's openly racist and borderline eugenic discourse. Especially among the Latino people, where Trump gained quite a following. Why? Most of the non-White voters of Trump are men, and adhere to his conservative ideals beyond his racism. Especially over one point: homophobia. His Latino followers are hoping that by electing him they will get rid of transgenders people and the "woke madness" once and for all - this specific point of his campaign, despite actually being quite "minor", truly was a big thing for them, and his fearmongering about "Schools will turn your little boys into little girls" echoed with them. Latinos aren't the only minority to vote for Trump, but they are the ones French media speak the most about.

Turns out, Kamala Harris didn't cause a massive support of women across America: many of them still voted Trump. On a related note, commentators noted that it seems the United-States really are not willing to have a female president at all.

Part of the reason why people didn't see the red wave coming was because they under-estimated the middle-class, which is where Trump has his greatest following. The middle-class, and the literal middle of America, as this is where he resonated the most, unlike the coasts where he met some resistance (though it has been noted the coasts are more "upper-class" than the rest of the country)

Another part is how people neglected the economical factor: most Trump followers, many of those that voted for Trump, are putting their hopes and faith in him for bringing back the financial ease and comfortable lifestyle they used to have, for battling the financial crisis and inflation. Turns out, money IS indeed the motor of everything, and it was Trump's promises of money and wealth for everybody that truly won them over.

That and immigration: these are apparently the two big points that truly had Trump winning, from New-York where people are inded fed up with the mayor's handling of immigrants, to Kansas where... there's one of the smallest number of immigrants, almost none, but they're still very firghtened and angry at the issue. Trump's promises of sending the army down to the Mexican border had already formed a following base years before, but now he is also pulling on the lever of "I will bring back your men home so that they won't have to die in another land for foreigners". Interestingly, it means that with him (and his followers) the USA is giving up its former role of being the arbitrator of the world and the "policeman global conflicts". Trump promises that the American army will only care about the USA, its borders and nothing else. Even though it is also a lie because whole he speaks of bringing the soldiers home, he of course has a whole different discourse when it comes to the weapons and political plays. By this I mean:

Trump is very insistent on defending, protecting, helping Israel - or, to be more precise, he is very clear that he is a good friend and the main support of Netanyahu, and that he will help him lead his wars as much as he can. He will also helps them worsen, because unlike for example Biden and Harris which after unconditional support for Israel admitted things were going to far, a ceasfire was needed, and denounced Israel causing disastrous mass-deaths, Trump is very clear that he doesn't believe in ceasefires, nor does he belive that Israel and Palestine can coexist peacefully. Furthermore: Trump aligns on Israel because he has a strong personal beef with Iran, which is one of Israel's main enemies, originally in a more indirect, but now much more direct way. Trump even suggested that Israel be more open and violent in its attacks of Iran, even saying they should hit nuclear sites. It doesn't help that Iran is one of the countries suspected of trying to mess up with the votes and parazite the campaigns with misinformation (the other big one being Russia, but since Trump loves Putin he doesn't speak much about THIS invasion of American politics).

The fascinating thing is that there ARE Muslim followers of Trump. Muslim Trumpists exist, despite all the above, and Trump's fearmongering based on Islamic terrorism. French journalists asked them why they voted for Trump, and their answer was "To punish Biden". They wanted to punish Biden (and by extension Harris) for helping Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. When answered back that Trump vowed to prevent any Muslim person from entering the USA and to reject Palestinian immigrants, the Muslim voters explained that at least Trump only closed the frontier, while Biden "killed" their "brothers".

Another consequence of Trump's promises to have all American soldiers return home: it is likely the American forces will pull out of Ukraine. It was already a big complaint on his part to send so much money in Europe, and when he met with Zelensky he publicly said that he considered on the same level as Putin and wouldn't favor any of them. Add to that how much he said that Putin was great and his friend, and how he said with him the Ukrainian war would be solved in 24 hours, and how ominously Putin's official message after the election was "The Kremlin will judge the new president on his actions, not his intentions"... Oh yes and how Trump LITERALY SAID "Ukraine is gone" not that long ago, despite Ukraine still fighting for its life and to defend Europe as a whole... It is pretty clear that Trump just wants to kick Ukraine into Russia's maw, and that his "solution" for the war is to have Russia win Ukraine. As he said for the Israel-Palestine conflict, he doesn't believe in ceasefire nor in peaceful cohabitation... It also helps that a LOT of his followers don't know where Ukraine is or what it looks like, and that many of them didn't even know Ukraine existed before Russia attacked it.

Because of this, the French president official reaction to Trump's election was first a message saying "Congrats for winning by a landslide", quickly followed by another one saying "I am very happy to announce that me and the Chancellor of Germany are going to work on making a stronger, safer, more independant Europe". Aka: we know that Europe can't count on America anymore, we know that we have been too Americanized and have grown dependant of the USA, time to pull ourselves together and let America in its own mess.

Oh and also: since Trump believes climate change is a scam, despite huge storms hitting twice where he lives with disastrous consequences, and promises to rely a lot on fossil fuel and polluting business to bring back American economy to the top and make the USA the wealthiest country... The world is kind of fucked as a whole, and the weather is going to be FAR WORSE.

Plus: this time Trump's domination is far more powerful than before, as he got almost full powers, benefits from the consequences of his previous presidency, doesn't have people against him in his own party (unlike the first time he got elected), has gotten rid of those that tried to criticize or slow him down around him, AND this time he actually knows what he is doing, as the first time it seemed he wasn't planning on actually becoming president.

There's probably more about it, but that's just a handful of what I got from the news channel this morning as I woke up. Be it true or false, whether you agree or not, I just share in case you ever wondered how it looks from over here.