Republicans are going to rock Washington in a different manner this Jan. 6.
Despite all the online “lib-maxing” and good vibes, Democrats again stare down national defeat to a former reality TV star. Despite an insurrection, all the lawsuits and criminal charges and Roe v. Wade, Donald Trump wins again.
And it wasn’t just a win — the man won the popular vote. Defeating the vice president of an incumbent administration overseeing a good economy, with felonies to his name. For Democrats, this is one of the greatest political failures in modern American history.
The next few days will be filled with commentary about what went wrong for the campaign: this demographic didn’t show out like needed; this messaging was poorly framed; this issue was the wrong one to focus on.
It’s none of that. You can’t reorganize and you can’t re-galvinize from this. The problem is the holistic operation and inherent assumptions of the Democratic Party.
The party seemed to have turned a new leaf with Kamala Harris’ ascension. Suddenly their brand was energized again, not as soulless as the Clinton campaign or as out-of-touch as the sitting president.
Harris spoke on issues intended to resonate with a wide array of voters, and did so with vigor Democrats hadn’t seen since Obama. The mobilization efforts of volunteers and fundraising efforts were unprecedented. She presented the case against Trump like the prosecutor she is, and how her senile boss couldn’t.
But it was still too much the old guard — pun intended — for voters. Though Harris can pander to a jury with the expertise of a lawyer, it doesn’t mean they’ll ultimately believe in her as a candidate.
There’s a reason she was decisively rejected in the 2020 primary. Harris is a career politician who hasn’t ever crafted a brand of politics distinct from what the polls tell her she should base her platform on. You ultimately cannot blame voters for not voting for a candidate they didn’t believe in, and one that gave them nothing genuine to vote for.
Trump continues to win because he at least has an authentic identity that people, for better or worse, resonate with.
I have never come across a single person who told me they were voting for Clinton, Biden or Harris because they believed in them as people, or that the candidate even excited them. Conversely, I don’t know a Trump voter who cast their ballot with a hint of reluctance.
The blame falls again and again on the Democratic Party and the internal system that puts forth these candidates with flawed logic: Who’s going to give us the best chance to beat the other guys, regardless of what our constituents really want? Regardless of the issues we should actually address or what vision would actually be the most beneficial for most Americans?
Trump is one of the most unpopular American politicians of all time. Democrats had three layups in a row, and only scored once. And barely at that — the rim’s diameter was doubled with the help of a global pandemic, and they still watched the ball roll around it before dropping in.
The establishment decision to hand Hillary Clinton the nomination in 2016, simply because it was her turn, is the absolute core of everything we’ve experienced in the years since and the years to come. Clinton was a hollow politician who had been vying for the office for decades and would say anything to get there.
Bernie Sanders was the antithesis of Clinton, whose grassroots support was so powerful it defied internal party operations all the way to the end. Again in 2020, it took almost every primary candidate coalescing against him and behind Biden to stave off his message.
Instead of embracing the passion and popularity of progressive politics, Harris and Democrats decided the best course of action this cycle was to parade around as many Republicans as possible to appeal to the middle. For the love of God, she was singing Dick Cheney’s praises. How feckless a message is that? In what sense does embracing the most notorious warhawk in modern history make you an empathetic campaign?
The GOP isn’t winning on the issues — just look at the number of people who voted for abortion access in individual states, and how the measures outperformed Harris. Missouri, one of the reddest states in the country, easily approved a proposition to hike the minimum wage and guaranteed paid sick leave.
Progressive populist economic and social initiatives are incredibly popular. The DNC has the institutional power to platform someone who really believes and can build a campaign on these issues, but doesn’t.
Late last night, North Carolina’s Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton took to twitter to share some words of wisdom: “Sometimes God’s own thunder couldn’t make someone do the right thing.”
Point taken. And I love Clayton; I think she is one of the few Democratic strategists in the country that can hold their head high right now. But good Lord if this isn’t the most perfect allegory for the party’s hubris and complete detachment from reality.
Likening Democratic efforts to those of an all-knowing benevolent deity. The moral-superiority angle does not work if you continually make the face of your party someone who can only feign empathy and has to get a team of writers to construct her a humanitarian core.
I thought the central message of the Harris campaign, “We are not going back,” would effectively resonate with the median and independent voters the campaign needed to win, and that they would do so comfortably.
Well the American people chose to go back, instead of somewhere forward with you, Dems. The Democratic Party is about a decade too late in taking a look in the mirror, and everything that’s followed is the result of their own infatuation with themselves.
