The historic comeback of Donald Trump (R-FL) is certainly one for the history books, but just as Republicans are autopsying the election to see what went right for them, Democrats should be eager to get under the hood and figure out how to stave off a landslide defeat in four years.
Unfortunately for them, they seem more intent on placing blame on one another, rather than speaking directly to the voters and asking them what they want.
First, while they practically all blame each other for the dismal performance in this election, at least on the presidential level, none of them are quick to ascribe the loss to Kamala Harris (D-CA). Instead, they insist she ran a “historic” campaign, while Trump had virtually no ground game and made mistake after mistake. They also praise the fact that she “only” had 107 days to get a nationwide presidential campaign off the ground, and given the time she had, she did fairly well.
This thesis ignores that Democrats and Democrats only created the environment in which they now live. In fact, this thesis probably does more to prove the point that Democrats are victims of their own “success.”
The party had plenty of opportunities to primary Joe Biden (D-DE) when they could. Midterm polling often polls the next presidential race, just as a handicap, and many 2022 polls had Harris as a candidate, while Biden was also being polled against Trump. The Harris polls went away until late June, after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, which we can only surmise was a bait-and-switch for Trump.
It was common knowledge that Biden was not mentally up to the task even as early as the pre-COVID portion of his 2020 campaign, but even throughout his administration, the American public has been relentlessly gaslit about just how bad Biden’s faculties were.
Again, as we’ve written before, we believe that what the party did to him is inexcusable, embarrassing, and completely usurped Biden’s ability to write his own legacy. We wish him well and hope he can enjoy the rest of his years unbothered by the modern political arena.
But it doesn’t excuse the fact that Democrats insisted on doing their own rendition of “Weekend at Bernie’s.” In fact, many are now wishing that Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had been the nominee, not just this time, but in 2016. We’ll serve as the casual reminder that rank-and-file Democrats are still incensed about the DNC’s essential rigging of the primary away from him to go with the more establishment pick in Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
This also gives way to another thesis of this election: progressive politics didn’t take down Harris. The rank-and-file on the left are pointing to evidence that Harris had openly walked back more of the progressive tenets of the Democrats’ wish list, and they insist that Sanders would have been the change that they’re looking for.
They miss, however, that Sanders is undeniably progressive in his views, and while he poses perhaps the best foil to Trump out of any other politician who’s galvanized a significant portion of the population with populist overtones, he’s still progressive. Sanders being on the ticket might have helped Democrats, but there was a grassroots shift within the parties towards Trump. Should Trump not deliver on his promises, namely his taxation plans, then that would keep much of the electorate in the balance.
The reason Harris lost this election is not because she shied away from progressive views. It’s because some hot-button progressive takes are simply deemed too far to the left for this country to stomach, with or without Harris’ vocal support on the campaign trail. It’s the same logic they tried to use to discredit a significant Trump coalition. The mere ghost of Donald Trump was seemingly enough to tank the electoral prospects of any generic Republican.
And that reason brings us full circle to our editorial message this week: Democrats defied the midterm curse in 2022, just barely losing control of the House and actually flipping a seat in the Senate in what was supposed to be a wipeout and a referendum on Biden’s policies. The Democrats knew that they had captured lightning in a bottle with the abortion issue and played their hand all the way to the finish line. They were certain they were dealing with not only a much more auspicious floor for the 2024 election, but they also seemed certain that the Trump Era was more or less over. Trump-endorsed candidates, or at least those with a Trump-esque style of politics, lost badly in winnable races. This was all the evidence the left needed to celebrate early ahead of 2024, ensuring that abortion would be the topic that engaged the most single-issue voters and that Trump’s movement was embarrassingly over.
Those assumptions are what lost Harris the White House. We also think that had Biden been the nominee, Trump would have absolutely won in a landslide. Since our presidential forecast was 100% accurate, we believe we’re more equipped than most prognosticators to make that call. In short, electoral defeat was certain for Democrats. They overplayed their hands where it ultimately didn’t make much of a difference and prioritized those strategies over winning issues. It doesn’t take a historian or electoral genius to know that the candidate who wins on the economy, barring extenuating circumstances like a pandemic, is the one who wins the election. Trump had those numbers on Harris in spades, but the political savants across the country seemed to buy into Democrats’ optimism, however accurate it was for a short period of time.
Since electoral defeat was near-certain for the Democrats, they had to pick a candidate to galvanize as much of their base and stem their losses as best as possible. In this regard, Kamala Harris was the utilitarian pick. Her candidacy produced the best net happiness or comfort over the greatest net disadvantages. She turned out women and stemmed losses with them, although suburban white women appear to have been won by Trump, and she was able to stem losses among minority voters who prioritized identity politics over actual policies.
The once-impenetrable Democratic coalition of women, minorities, and laborers has mostly fallen apart, but will only remain intact if Trump cannot deliver on his gargantuan fiscal policies.
Nancy Pelosi (D, CA-11) now says that she wished that there was an open primary to allow a better candidate and perhaps live up to the name of their party instead of letting filthy-rich power brokers decide Harris was their best bet. We agree with the former Speaker, but we can’t help but quote her own words back that Biden was a “perfect president.” Pelosi didn’t see the need to disrupt power until Democrats had gotten everything they wanted from Biden, but Pelosi also didn’t balk at a Harris candidacy either.
Their own hubris lost them this election in a stunning fashion and their own hubris will lose them the next one in a landslide if they can’t help themselves from casting blame on each other.
But no one has received a bigger glob of spit in their faces than the voters. Democrats instantly turned on their base, claiming that the turnout wasn’t there, women didn’t value their “rights” that are supposed to evaporate the second Trump takes the oath of office, and minorities bought into a snake oil campaign. They can’t stop for just one moment to see why their candidate lost and why their platform just isn’t palatable to a majority of the country.
At this rate, they seem to be hedging all of their bets on Trump not delivering on his promises. That way, they don’t actually have to change the fabric of their party and keep the country in the eternal throes of reactionary politics instead of delivering substantial change.
