Dem Post Mortem

[SLD]

Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. What minority is small enough and despised anough to safely deflect guilt for the loss of a national election onto? Someone who stayed home is more guilty than someone who actively voted in a dictator, apparently.

Well, yeah as a matter of fact. Trump's vote turnout was less than his vote in 2020. Elections are always about turnout. Granted she didn't inspire people. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people who sit out elections? They are indeed fucked up people.

You really can't see what's wrong with accepting white bigotry as a given while screaming your hatred toward a refugee people who've been subjected to genocide?

What are you talking about? I’m talking about people who stayed home and did not vote. I thought that was your comment. If I misunderstood, my apologies. But people who stayed home and failed to vote . . Well there’s a special place in hell for those bastards.

 

[bilby]

It’s basically open season on anyone the Apricot points its tiny finger at. Pardons all around, if needed.

Tee it up. This is one armed veteran.

I doubt that your status as an amputee will protect you.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It’s basically open season on anyone the Apricot points its tiny finger at. Pardons all around, if needed.

Tee it up. This is one armed veteran.

I doubt that your status as an amputee will protect you.

Dude, we aren't in the mood.

 

[bilby]

It’s basically open season on anyone the Apricot points its tiny finger at. Pardons all around, if needed.

Tee it up. This is one armed veteran.

I doubt that your status as an amputee will protect you.

Dude, we aren't in the mood.

Hey, there's no law against joking.

There probably will be next year though.

 

[Patooka]

With all the shit that has happened since 2020 (most notably all the fucked SC rulings), I'm never going to understand how so many Americans could be so unmotivated this election. It will forever baffle me.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. What minority is small enough and despised anough to safely deflect guilt for the loss of a national election onto? Someone who stayed home is more guilty than someone who actively voted in a dictator, apparently.

Well, yeah as a matter of fact. Trump's vote turnout was less than his vote in 2020. Elections are always about turnout. Granted she didn't inspire people. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people who sit out elections? They are indeed fucked up people.

You really can't see what's wrong with accepting white bigotry as a given while screaming your hatred toward a refugee people who've been subjected to genocide?

What are you talking about? I’m talking about people who stayed home and did not vote. I thought that was your comment. If I misunderstood, my apologies. But people who stayed home and failed to vote . . Well there’s a special place in hell for those bastards.

I’ve been perusing the vote totals (not just percentages) on the CNN “magic wall” app and, with the caveat that not all results for 2024 are in yet, it appears that in many if not most blue areas Trump got same or similar number of votes as in 2020 and Harris got substantially fewer votes than Biden did in 2020. Turnout for Dems was down everywhere.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

With all the shit that has happened since 2020 (most notably all the fucked SC rulings), I'm never going to understand how so many Americans could be so unmotivated this election. It will forever baffle me.

It is complicated. People don't like complicated. They don't understand that in Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, that SCOTUS grabbed a lot of power by revoking the Chevron Doctrine. They don't understand tariffs, geology, climate. But grown men in girls bathrooms... they get that. The GOP has always aimed for the id, and Trump aimed for the 19th century id. The id is easier to understand, easier to anger, easier to manipulate. Inflation caused by supply / demand issues and the need to stimulate the economy because GOP run states have shit for safety nets.. it ain't No Tax on Tips.

 

[crazyfingers]

Turnout for Dems was down everywhere.

Yes it's extremely disappointing. I don't understand how someone who voted to dump Trump and vote for Biden in 2020 would just sit home this election. Just the totals, not all votes counted of course, but Trump may be down a couple million from 2020 but Harris is down 14 million votes from Biden/Harris in 2020.

If I was motivated, but I'm not, I'd do a deep dive. But I'd love to see what demographic of 2020 Biden voters sat out 2024.

 

[Derec]

Why did she lose?
1) She’s a she, and an African American one at that.

I don't think so.

2) Uninspiring leadership

This. She had an initial surge of excitement after she was elevated to the top of the ticket. But she thought she could ride "vibes and memes" and waited too long to talk about issues. And then she had a hard time distancing herself from Biden or from her own statements from 2019.

3) Stuck to a script too much, not authentic

That too.

4) Biden stayed on too late - he never should have run to begin with

This is the single most important factor.
He and his team should have realized that he was not up for it back in Summer 2023. That would have opened up the primary season, and even if
Add to that the fact that the Dems were pretty much gaslighting the public by denying Biden's obvious decline all the way up to the announcement.

5). Bernie should have won 8 years ago. Stupid Dems nominate people who have no chance of winning.

I think Bernie would have lost worse than Hillary. US is a center-right country, and would not have elected the junior senator from Vermont who calls himself a socialist.
That brings me to
6) The Dems moved too far to the Left. After Trump's victory in 2016, there was a leftward lurch in the party. Many moderates in the House but also DA offices were purged and replaced with radicals. That's when we got AOC and the rest of the Squad as well as DAs like George Gascon, Chesa Boudin and Alvin Bragg. Our lpetrich started three megathreads on the topic of left-wing Democrats primarying moderates. This affected the leadership. Biden's $3.5T Spendapalooza was inspired by Bernie's spending plan, and Biden even incorporated AOC's climate paramilitaries into the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act". The party moved too far to the left for much of the electorate in the swing states.

 

[Derec]

Sexism. it's obvious to me, that it's sexism.

That is too simplistic and lets the Dems off the hook for messing it up, again.

Too many Americans don't want a woman to lead them and all the crap that the Repugs said about a man voting for a woman isn't a real man...

Disclaimer: I voted for Harris. But I wasn't enthusiastic.
Many men, esp. white men, are sick and tired of being accused of -isms and -phobias simply for being critical of certain orthodoxies.
Take trans issues. I am generally supportive of trans people. But activists take it too far. With biological males in women's sports. Expecting everybody to list their pronouns even though vast majority of people are cis. Not having any expectations of actually transitioning before treating people as the desired gender. I have even seen demands that people should inquire about people's pronouns daily, because people should be able to choose them based on mood like clothing. Things like that go too far and turn people off.

 

[Derec]

Immigration. Like one of the least problems we have, blossomed into another political anvil for the GOP to drop. They made such a big deal over it. Trump told the GOP not to vote on an immigration deal. Biden had done things to start working on the immigration "issue" by targeting investments in Central America, but that takes time and again... TLDR;.

Mass migration is a real issue. Yes, Trump played politics with a compromise border bill. But I also (along with the Pepperidge Farm) remember the 2019 primaries where Dem candidates were one-uping each other on being more permissive toward illegal immigration.

In other words... the Biden Admin didn't brag enough and the people are easily swayed by bullshit.

One problem is that the economy does not feel great to many people. Inflation is down, but its effects linger. Interest rates are high after being very low for a generation, which makes buying cars and homes far more expensive. At the same time, housing prices are still high.

I still think that Harris - Whitmer was the ticket.

Or even better, put Whitmer at the top of the ticket and go with a running mate that is a good fit for her.
Biden should have dropped much sooner and allowed a competitive primary.

I know we'll have our resident Shapiro guy come in, but exit polls showed his approval was below 50% in PA.

Do you mean me? [citation needed] for his approval rating btw. And what was Walz' approval in MI or WI?
I now do not think picking Shapiro would have made a difference, except to make the defeat a closer one. Kamala's margins of loss were too great. It was a death of a 1000 paper cuts for her campaign.

Going DEI with Walz might have been a mistake. We'll never know.

I think it definitely was. I do not agree with your "DEI" quip.
But Walz was selected partly because he fit Kamala's "memes and vibes" style of campaigning. "Coconut pilled". "Kamala is brat". Walz' "weird" fit right in. There was also the issue that Shapiro was anathema to Michigan Muslims and fauxgressives.

 

[Derec]

A great opinion piece over on NY Times. I do not think many will want to hear it though, as it offers some tough-to-swallow pills.

A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat

Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political competition — an insult to the democratic process that handed the nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to take Biden’s obvious mental decline seriously until June’s debate debacle (and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more), making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.
[...]
The dismissiveness with which liberals treated these concerns was part of something else: dismissiveness toward the moral objections many Americans have to various progressive causes. Concerned about gender transitions for children or about biological males playing on girls’ sports teams? You’re a transphobe. Dismayed by tedious, mandatory and frequently counterproductive D.E.I. seminars that treat white skin as almost inherently problematic? You’re racist. Irritated by new terminology that is supposed to be more inclusive but feels as if it’s borrowing a page from “1984”? That’s doubleplusungood.
The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency.

He concludes with:

Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how’s that ever going to be a winning electoral look?
I voted reluctantly for Harris because of my fears for what a second Trump term might bring — in Ukraine, our trade policy, civic life, the moral health of the conservative movement writ large. Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change.

Blaming this loss on "sexism" is exactly the wrong approach.

 

[Derec]

I don’t think much of a post mortem is needed. Harris was actually a pretty good candidate by historical standards,

What makes her a "pretty good candidate"? The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
KH lost bigly to a 78 year old loudmouth with a felony conviction, even though he got fewer votes than last time he ran (and lost). She dragged many Senate seats with her, and most likely also the House. The pudding is a disaster!

Not that some of us did not see it coming while the pudding was being prepared. We were ignored. Hillary-era "most qualified in generation" argument was resurrected and applied to Kamala Harris.

and clearly a decent and intelligent person.

But one with bad judgment. She showed that in 2019. And while it was possible for her to downplay her 2019 missteps when she was the running mate, it was hard for her to run from her statements when she was at the top of the ticket.
She also did not have much time to establish herself as a candidate. Blame Biden and his team for that. He should have gracefully bowed out from running in Summer 2023 instead of Summer 2024.

Trump is deeply stupid and deeply wicked, but those traits allowed him to correctly gauge that most Americans are just like him. So they voted for him.

He lost votes compared with 2020. The problem is that she lost even more Biden votes. A lot more.

I believe that’s the only relevant post mortem, with the added virtue of brevity.

No, it is the completely wrong approach. There is no criticism of the candidate, the incumbent who held on too long, or the Party itself. How are mistakes going to be avoided if they are not acknowledged?

 

[Derec]

How bad is the fucking economy? It's not. It's fucking great and has been fucking great. Inflation is up, but so are wages so who gives a shit. That's what she should have said. She never fought. She tried to answer their questions. She should have called them morons for questioning the economy.

Calling people names is not a good way to get them to vote for you.
Yes, economy is good by many metrics such as the stock market and unemployment. But it is tone-deaf to ignore that it is not great for many. Inflation, while down, still has lingering effects. Housing is expensive. Interest rates are high.

And the Border. What's fucking wrong with the border? How exactly is it impacting the average American that people want to come here. You know why people are coming, because Biden and Harris are doing a great job running the country. We need immigrants you fucking morons!

Again with name-calling.

Yes, we need some immigration. That does not mean that every level of immigration is good, or that we should take in random people who show up at the border. Or fly in people with incompatible cultural values from places like Afghanistan and Gaza.
This immigration absolutism is neither good politics nor good policy. Neither is calling people "racist" or "xenophobic" for rejecting immigration absolutism.

The biggest economic problem we have is demographic aging and that is due to a lack of workers - especially in many low wage shit jobs. We need immigrants to come and pay into social security so we can continue the program.

We need to learn to live with a stable population. Continued population growth (especially exponential growth) is unsustainable, whether through immigration or through having more children.
And immigration from culturally incompatible regions has its own problems. People feel alienated. Strangers in their own land.

But she never said anything like that she should have defended herself instead of tried to make excuses. She should have called Brett Baier and donald trump idiots to their face. She should have done it in the debate. Instead she just gave smirks. It didn't work.

I think your approach - to not acknowledge genuine concerns many people have and call people who disagree "idiots" - would work even less.

 

[Tigers!]

Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. What minority is small enough and despised anough to safely deflect guilt for the loss of a national election onto? Someone who stayed home is more guilty than someone who actively voted in a dictator, apparently.

Well, yeah as a matter of fact. Trump's vote turnout was less than his vote in 2020. Elections are always about turnout. Granted she didn't inspire people. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people who sit out elections? They are indeed fucked up people.

Do you think that compulsory voting might have some merit?

 

[TSwizzle]

Oooft, Bernie letting off with both barrels;

'It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,' Senator Bernie Sanders said in a blistering statement. 'First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.'

Is Bernie still a bit salty about 2016?

 

[ZiprHead]

Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. What minority is small enough and despised anough to safely deflect guilt for the loss of a national election onto? Someone who stayed home is more guilty than someone who actively voted in a dictator, apparently.

Well, yeah as a matter of fact. Trump's vote turnout was less than his vote in 2020. Elections are always about turnout. Granted she didn't inspire people. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people who sit out elections? They are indeed fucked up people.

You really can't see what's wrong with accepting white bigotry as a given while screaming your hatred toward a refugee people who've been subjected to genocide?

What are you talking about? I’m talking about people who stayed home and did not vote. I thought that was your comment. If I misunderstood, my apologies. But people who stayed home and failed to vote . . Well there’s a special place in hell for those bastards.

I’ve been perusing the vote totals (not just percentages) on the CNN “magic wall” app and, with the caveat that not all results for 2024 are in yet, it appears that in many if not most blue areas Trump got same or similar number of votes as in 2020 and Harris got substantially fewer votes than Biden did in 2020. Turnout for Dems was down everywhere.

Don't like the black lady so lets let the crazy guy win.

 

[ZiprHead]

A great opinion piece over on NY Times. I do not think many will want to hear it though, as it offers some tough-to-swallow pills.

A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat

Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political competition — an insult to the democratic process that handed the nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to take Biden’s obvious mental decline seriously until June’s debate debacle (and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more), making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.
[...]
The dismissiveness with which liberals treated these concerns was part of something else: dismissiveness toward the moral objections many Americans have to various progressive causes. Concerned about gender transitions for children or about biological males playing on girls’ sports teams? You’re a transphobe. Dismayed by tedious, mandatory and frequently counterproductive D.E.I. seminars that treat white skin as almost inherently problematic? You’re racist. Irritated by new terminology that is supposed to be more inclusive but feels as if it’s borrowing a page from “1984”? That’s doubleplusungood.
The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today’s left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency.

He concludes with:

Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how’s that ever going to be a winning electoral look?
I voted reluctantly for Harris because of my fears for what a second Trump term might bring — in Ukraine, our trade policy, civic life, the moral health of the conservative movement writ large. Right now, my larger fear is that liberals lack the introspection to see where they went wrong, the discipline to do better next time and the humility to change.

Blaming this loss on "sexism" is exactly the wrong approach.

I always love taking campaign advice from conservatives. I'm sure they are just trying to be helpful, like when they do it on Morning Joe.

 

[ZiprHead]

Calling people names is not a good way to get them to vote for you.

It worked for Trump.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. What minority is small enough and despised anough to safely deflect guilt for the loss of a national election onto? Someone who stayed home is more guilty than someone who actively voted in a dictator, apparently.

Well, yeah as a matter of fact. Trump's vote turnout was less than his vote in 2020. Elections are always about turnout. Granted she didn't inspire people. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people who sit out elections? They are indeed fucked up people.

You really can't see what's wrong with accepting white bigotry as a given while screaming your hatred toward a refugee people who've been subjected to genocide?

What are you talking about? I’m talking about people who stayed home and did not vote. I thought that was your comment. If I misunderstood, my apologies. But people who stayed home and failed to vote . . Well there’s a special place in hell for those bastards.

I’ve been perusing the vote totals (not just percentages) on the CNN “magic wall” app and, with the caveat that not all results for 2024 are in yet, it appears that in many if not most blue areas Trump got same or similar number of votes as in 2020 and Harris got substantially fewer votes than Biden did in 2020. Turnout for Dems was down everywhere.

Don't like the black lady so lets let the crazy guy win.

Apparently so. Though I suspect a lot of it is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think a lot of Biden voters didn't expect or want him to run again when they voted for him in 2020, and by the time he dropped out there wasn't time for a proper (little d) democratic approach to his replacement. So, enthusiasm dropped substantially for Harris, after an initial spark of interest but then a lackluster performance.

Probably the better approach would have been for Biden to declare late last year that he wasn't going to run again and then throw Harris in with other options in a proper primary, though the Party would have looked bad not simply backing the VP.

I think that Biden (and others) didn't think Harris could beat Trump so they tried keeping Biden in the race, and it may have worked had he not crashed and burned in that first debate.