Dem Post Mortem

[SLD]

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.

Thank you for voting for Harris. I disagree with you, but I do respect you. I’d bet if we were in the senate together we could reach across the aisle to get shit done.

If you make your way to Bham, let me know.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, at least my husband and I got out. Maybe Europe isn't far enough?

Good luck. Things will get bad.

I doubt Europe is far enough unless you're in one of the nuclear powers.

I looked at the possibility of getting out, nothing looked feasible for us.

 

[SLD]

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.

As others have pointed out name calling did work for Trump. They loved it when he called her low IQ. He called her fucked at one rally. They cheered. People think it makes you look strong. One of the speakers was going to call her a cunt. He didn’t. But he called her other names. They laughed. Why people admire suc talk is beyond me, but face it, they do.

Besides with Trump it’s the truth. The man can’t tie his shoes, much less articulate a coherent thought. She should have hammered that.

 

[Elixir]

The man can’t tie his shoes, much less articulate a coherent thought. She should have hammered that.

This race was lost when The Turtle denied a hearing for Garland’s nomination to SCOTUS.

 

[Emily Lake]

Why did she lose?

1) She’s a she, and an African American one at that.
2) Uninspiring leadership
3) Stuck to a script too much, not authentic
4) Biden stayed on too late - he never should have run to begin with
5). Bernie should have won 8 years ago. Stupid Dems nominate people who have no chance of winning.

Others?

Combination of things, of which I think her sex and skin color are the least.

Biden stayed on too late is definitely a component, in my opinion. It's made worse by the fact that Dems across the board as well as most news media were absolutely *insistent* that Biden was just fine, it was all just Republican lies... up until it couldn't be hidden anymore AND it was beyond the primaries. This created a situation where Harris got ushered in without every being selected by the citizens - she was forced onto Dems. It also resulted in a significant loss of faith in both Dems and media, because if they blatantly lied to us about something that important... what else have they been lying about for the past decade or so?

Added in with all of that are a host of issues that I think Dems really didn't handle well.

The economy is one of those, where there's been mixed and contradictory messages involved. On the one hand, you've got a lot of predominantly dem/prog media personalities and journalists who are insistent that the economy is just fine, it's improved so much that we can totally afford way even more than we did pre-pandemic! It's all just right-wing scaremongering! But then you've also got Harris insisting that she's going to improve the economy so that average people can afford groceries and rent. And then there's reality, where most people have not seen their wages increase by anything remotely like what our gas and groceries and utilities have done.

And there's immigration, which is a real issue that a lot of people see as a problem. And again, we get mixed messages on this. We get dem/prog media banging the drum that any discussion of *illegal* immigration is just a dog whistle for racism, and those evil reps just want to kill all the brown people, and immigration issues aren't really a problem, it's just more right-wing bigotry again. But you've also got Harris eventually addressing the issue with a complicated multi-step plan that will take more years than her administration would have. So what is it? Is it an actual problem or is it just right-wing bullshit racism? Realistically, there are a lot of people who live in states along the southern border who actually observe the issue first-hand and they're not inclined to be sanguine about being told that they're either imagining it or their racist nazis.

There are plenty of other issues that Dems and/or Harris haven't really handled well. And I think honestly that it's not even specifically about actual politicians. I think *supporters* have alienated so many people over the past several years that it's reflecting on the party itself.

More than anything else... I think Harris (and Dems and media and supporters across the board) have failed at some very fundamental strategies. It's like everyone forgot Sun Tzu: Know the enemy and know yourself in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.

They did not know their enemy. They made assumptions about their enemy, but never actually gained a true understanding of their opponent. More than that, I think they did not even truly know themselves. Dems/etc have been so hyper-focused on hating Trump since his first run against Clinton, that they never actually considered whether "hate Trump" was a good strategy or not.

 

[Emily Lake]

Not enough people cared about stopping trump.

Have you ever considered that maybe they cared a whole lot more about a whole lot of other things, and that the focus on "Stop Trump" completely missed the point?

 

[Emily Lake]

Sexism. it's obvious to me, that it's sexism. 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.....Trump did a good job of bringing back hatred towards anyone who isn't a White Conservative Christian, which also played a part, and sadly I read the other day there were even large group of Black evangelicals who supported Trump. Poor little persecuted evangelicals. One cult rolled into another cult.

Disagree. I don't think it's sexism - and at this point I think it's patently obvious that I think sexism is a real thing with a lot of power out in the world.

I think your assumptions are shallow. That's not to say that you are shallow in any way, sohy, only that you haven't given this any real thought at all. You're taking the easy way out, the thoughtless "oh it's because they're evil" answer.

 

[Shadowy Man]

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

so, you’re saying it is not possible that the second sentence explains the first?

 

[thebeave]

Heard this being discussed on a local talk show a couple of days ago. I was pretty astounded upon hearing it. Its not something that affected the election outcome, but I think it does show that Kamala has questionable judgement and/or is not well read...or you decide:

Harris botched interview with Muslim influencer by celebrating ‘bacon’ as ‘a spice’

Vice President Kamala Harris is getting roasted for refusing to talk about the Mideast war with a Muslim influencer — and instead spending her time trying to convince him that bacon is “a spice.’’

The Democratic presidential candidate, 60, chewed the fat last summer with Kareem Rahma, host of the popular TikTok and Instagram show “Subway Takes,” although the interview never aired, the New York Times reported Monday.

The show routinely features guests, some of whom are celebrities, defending a light, uncommon viewpoint.

But Rahma — a firm opponent of the Harris-Biden administration’s support for Israel in its ongoing war in Gaza — told the outlet that he believed the topic of the conflict was important enough to break his usual protocol and discuss it with the veep.

“There’s something going on in the world that 100 percent of Muslims care about,” he said.

Rahma said he was then told the vice president was going to argue against taking off shoes on airplanes — and only learned when the two sat down that Harris was instead going to deliver the take that “bacon is a spice.”

“I don’t know,” Rahma — who is Muslim and doesn’t eat pork as part of his faith observance — responded to Harris in their video interview, according to the Times.

“Think about it, it’s pure flavor,” she prodded.

I mean, WTF? Does she not even know that pork is a big no-no in Islam? Or is she deliberately trying to antagonize him? What is going on here?

 

[Ford]

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.

As others have pointed out name calling did work for Trump. They loved it when he called her low IQ. He called her fucked at one rally. They cheered. People think it makes you look strong. One of the speakers was going to call her a cunt. He didn’t. But he called her other names. They laughed. Why people admire suc talk is beyond me, but face it, they do.

Besides with Trump it’s the truth. The man can’t tie his shoes, much less articulate a coherent thought. She should have hammered that.

A lot of the Super PAC ads and anti-Trump conservatives like The Lincoln Project did, but the Democratic Party and the Biden (and then Harris) campaigns tried to hard to stick to the Obama's "when they go low, we go high" script. Obama ran against yesterday's Republican Party. The party that had McCain do the thing where he stepped in and defended Obama at that town hall (while the PACs and allies played dirty). Romney was another "honorable" candidate who let surrogates play dirty, and no one seemed to notice when Trump swept in and swept out every single Republican contender for 2016. How? He got his hands dirty while they all still tried to pretend it was one big happy party. Hell, he got up to his elbows in muck, then turned his nastiness on Clinton after he'd smeared everyone on his side (and most of them bent the knee after smearing him).

It worked. GOP folks like Cruz and Graham figured out that their voters don't care about what you said about him beforehand, only that you kissed the ring. Boebert, Greene, and Gaetz figured out that they really couldn't go too low for the base. Then Biden came back and was a "return to normalcy" and while it appeared that approach worked, truth is that Trump 2020 had about as much chance as McCain in 2008. The GOP left the country in tatters after the housing crash/pandemic, and a potted plant could have won against the incumbent.

But the game had already been changed at that point. The "be nice and let surrogates do the dirty work" model had been smashed, and this time around both Biden and Harris simply refused to play dirty. Even if they had, I doubt they'd be able to do it as well as Trump. There are a few Democrats who can fight back when they get hit (Moskowitz, Swawlell, and Raskin come to mind) but they're not exactly on track to be the nominee for 2028. I'd be surprised if Trump lives long enough to run again, but if he gets Project 2025 enacted, keels over and leaves Vance in the big chair, we'll have another flaming dumpster fire of a country in 4 years, and the Democrats need to start finding someone to point the finger (and a middle one) at MAGA and don't pull punches.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I mean, WTF? Does she not even know that pork is a big no-no in Islam? Or is she deliberately trying to antagonize him? What is going on here?

I can’t even imagine what would happen if Trump said something nearly as silly as this. Surely he would have lost the election.

 

[Emily Lake]

AP has some visualisations showing how people voted:

AP VoteCast: A visual explainer of how key groups voted in 2024 | AP News

AP VoteCast interviewed more than 100,000 voters across the U.S. from October 28 to November 5, continuing until poll close.

apnews.com

A couple of things that stood out to me:

• Young voters were more evenly-divided between Trump and Harris than I expected.
• Voters considered immigration to be very important. It didn't seem that big to me from my distant perspective.

It's also becoming quite clear to me that I've been frequenting some left wing echo chambers, including this forum and Reddit.

• A lot of Americans don't care about Trump's lack of decency and honesty. They might even like it.
• Americans mostly don't care that Harris made a fool out of Trump at one debate. Her weak popular vote tally suggests they were not inspired by what Harris presented to them.
• I agree that "not enough people cared about stopping trump" and I'm guessing this is because a lot of Americans were never convinced that his second term would be an authoritarian, Christian Nationalist rampage.
• It's hard to get people to turn out to vote against the other candidate when a lot of media is providing cover for that candidate. Depending on one's media diet, you could either be saturated by Trump's misdeeds or completely sheltered from them.

You've got some good observations, that I'd like to add to.

Re: Trump's lack of decency and honesty. I don't know that it's that they don't care or that they like it, I think it's that it's a known factor. He's a used car salesman, and we all know how they operate. We all know they're skeezy. Nobody ever had any illusion that Trump is some icon of character, he never has been - he's a bombastic blowhard that will say anything if he thinks it will get attention, because he's the kind of guy that operates in a world where there's no such thing as bad advertising. If he'd been up against a craftier opponent, and if the messaging from the other side hadn't been so exaggerated, I don't think he would have won.

This segues into your third bullet, in that most people do not think he's going to turn the country into a fascist theocracy that hunts down brown people. For those of us who can remember back prior to 2015, Trump has never ever been a religious nut. Again - he's a slimy salesman. His only religion has always been money and attention. He's not the lawful evil character that the media has been insisting that he is, he's at best chaotic neutral. And as I said in a prior post... "OMG TRUMP" isn't the highest priority or most important thing to most people. Because Trump isn't that important to most people, and the rhetoric isn't convincing to anyone who isn't already a true-blue-democrat.

 

[thebeave]

I mean, WTF? Does she not even know that pork is a big no-no in Islam? Or is she deliberately trying to antagonize him? What is going on here?

I can’t even imagine what would happen if Trump said something nearly as silly as this. Surely he would have lost the election.

Whataboutism is whining.

 

[Emily Lake]

Good luck putting their trust in the GOP then.

Strategic failure here. Everyone KNOWS that the scorpion is a scorpion.

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

We just need to learn to hate more and better, that's what will win elections. Find someone everyone despises and fears.

See - despite our bickering, you and I are not so very far apart.

 

[Emily Lake]

TomC - job opportunity!

Ewww!

Someone ban SLD for that.
Tom

Yeah. I can see why you wouldn't want to do that. My bad!!!

But someone should fuck him in the ass. He needs it.

Why on earth do you think that advocating rape as punishment is a good and righteous thing to do?

 

[ZiprHead]

AP has some visualisations showing how people voted:

AP VoteCast: A visual explainer of how key groups voted in 2024 | AP News

AP VoteCast interviewed more than 100,000 voters across the U.S. from October 28 to November 5, continuing until poll close.

apnews.com

A couple of things that stood out to me:

• Young voters were more evenly-divided between Trump and Harris than I expected.
• Voters considered immigration to be very important. It didn't seem that big to me from my distant perspective.

It's also becoming quite clear to me that I've been frequenting some left wing echo chambers, including this forum and Reddit.

• A lot of Americans don't care about Trump's lack of decency and honesty. They might even like it.
• Americans mostly don't care that Harris made a fool out of Trump at one debate. Her weak popular vote tally suggests they were not inspired by what Harris presented to them.
• I agree that "not enough people cared about stopping trump" and I'm guessing this is because a lot of Americans were never convinced that his second term would be an authoritarian, Christian Nationalist rampage.
• It's hard to get people to turn out to vote against the other candidate when a lot of media is providing cover for that candidate. Depending on one's media diet, you could either be saturated by Trump's misdeeds or completely sheltered from them.

You've got some good observations, that I'd like to add to.

Re: Trump's lack of decency and honesty. I don't know that it's that they don't care or that they like it, I think it's that it's a known factor. He's a used car salesman, and we all know how they operate. We all know they're skeezy. Nobody ever had any illusion that Trump is some icon of character, he never has been - he's a bombastic blowhard that will say anything if he thinks it will get attention, because he's the kind of guy that operates in a world where there's no such thing as bad advertising. If he'd been up against a craftier opponent, and if the messaging from the other side hadn't been so exaggerated, I don't think he would have won.

This segues into your third bullet, in that most people do not think he's going to turn the country into a fascist theocracy that hunts down brown people. For those of us who can remember back prior to 2015, Trump has never ever been a religious nut. Again - he's a slimy salesman. His only religion has always been money and attention. He's not the lawful evil character that the media has been insisting that he is, he's at best chaotic neutral. And as I said in a prior post... "OMG TRUMP" isn't the highest priority or most important thing to most people. Because Trump isn't that important to most people, and the rhetoric isn't convincing to anyone who isn't already a true-blue-democrat.

Conservative reporter Salena Zito said about Trump “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” I think that was very astute.

 

[Ford]

This segues into your third bullet, in that most people do not think he's going to turn the country into a fascist theocracy that hunts down brown people. For those of us who can remember back prior to 2015, Trump has never ever been a religious nut. Again - he's a slimy salesman. His only religion has always been money and attention. He's not the lawful evil character that the media has been insisting that he is, he's at best chaotic neutral. And as I said in a prior post... "OMG TRUMP" isn't the highest priority or most important thing to most people. Because Trump isn't that important to most people, and the rhetoric isn't convincing to anyone who isn't already a true-blue-democrat.

Conservative reporter Salena Zito said about Trump “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” I think that was very astute.

Of course, the counter to "well he didn't do that stuff the first time around" is obvious. He had people around him who told him "no." Diplomats, Generals, and at the end even a Vice President. His new VP is a perfect example of the sort of folks he will bring into his next administration. Fawning sycophants who will not only not tell him no, but defend him no matter what he does. If he enacts the broader agenda (if not the specifics) of Project 2025, he will remove every career civil servant who won't sign a loyalty pledge. He'll probably try to get everyone to sign an NDA so they can never speak out against him without risking a lawsuit. The military will be a harder nut to crack as I don't think there's enough generals or admirals who will follow illegal orders no matter what, but the rest of the Executive Branch/administrative state will be either gutted (like the Department of Education) or turned into an arm serving his personal needs (DOJ) and what follows will make the ham-fisted response to the pandemic look like a smashing success.

I honestly don't think his followers know what they're getting. His financial backers are gonna love the deregulation, but when uncle Bob who proudly sports his MAGA hat gets E-Coli from a bad batch of lettuce (that he paid way too much for because all the farm workers were deported) and finds the doors of his local VA hospital shuttered, will he realize that he's at the "FO" part of "FAFO?"