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November 7, 2024 - 8:15pm
Kamala Harris’s defeat this week presents a fork in the road for Democrats, who must now choose whether to embrace economic populism and moderate on social issues, or double down on their neoliberal strategy.
The Democratic elite, including Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, seemed inclined to stay on the current course in the immediate aftermath of the election. The Obama and Clinton statements praised the Harris campaign and made no acknowledgement of the party’s failure to win over working-class Americans. The Obamas called Harris and running mate Tim Walz “extraordinary public servants who ran a remarkable campaign”, and suggested they lost due to factors outside their control — namely, the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation. “Those conditions have created headwinds for democratic incumbents around the world, and last night showed that America is not immune,” their statement read.
Harris suggested the party should double down in her concession speech. “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign — the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people,” she said, along with references to abortion and democracy, two issues the campaign hammered which ultimately failed to persuade voters.
Those responses suggest a commitment to the current state of affairs on the Left, where Democrats have chosen to focus on social justice issues rather than economics. Democratic strategist David Axelrod, for instance, praised the Haris campaign and blamed racism and sexism for her loss — issues the candidate herself previously denied played a role in the election.
White women in particular have become a favourite target for blame from this camp of Democrats, much like in 2016. North Carolina state Sen. Sydney Batch called for white women to “dig deep and figure out why they, to this day, given all Donald Trump’s sexism, all of his racism, is still the person they voted for over Harris”, calling this demographic’s support for the former president “dumbfounding.” Joy Reid of MSNBC also blamed white women for Harris’ loss, and complained that this group missed their second opportunity to “change the way that they interact with the patriarchy” by voting for a woman president.
The argument is reminiscent of the response to the Democratic defeat in 2016. Then, Hillary Clinton blamed sexism for the result, while mainstream media outlets widely cast Trump’s supporters as both racist and sexist.
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SubscribeIt seems extraordinary. When a party is so unpopular that the electorate chose someone like Trump ahead of them surely the thought must cross their minds that they’ve been doing something wrong?
I have the impression that the Tories in the UK know they have to face up to a tough re-evaluation of their policies and it’s possible they’ll offer us something better in a few year. I don’t see that the left is capable of that
Sorry, but you are being too lenient with both sides here. This is not about the Democrats ‘doing something wrong’. The one thing that might have made a difference would have been for Biden not to run and to have an open primary. But it is even less about the US just voting for Trump because he was not Harris (the way the Brits voted Labour because they were not the Tories). The People of the United States of America voted for Trump because they like Trump. They want to be governed by someone like Trump, and they want to live in the kind of society that Trump will build. They are not children; they know what they are doing. They may end up disappointed when they find that kicking the elites does not make their lives much better (as the Brexiteers found on this side of the ocean). But they have made an informed choice. The US is a Trumpist country. No point in pretending otherwise.
Can’t argue with the Obama and Clinton Statements. Harris and Walz were Extraordinary, and their campaign was definitely Remarkable. Perhaps the way I interpret those words within the context of the statements differs slightly though.
“Democrats in general need …listening to the American people” – The most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard!
This was a bizarre election. The Democrats almost skated by with Joe Biden as the nominee, but luckily for them he soiled himself (figuratively, I think) on national television. That gave them a chance to dump a losing nominee and replace him with someone who had a fighting chance. She fought, but lost anyway.
This race was not fought on policy grounds. Neither campaign put out policy, but ran on personality instead. Donald Trump offered his usual “truthful hyperbole” and meandering stand-up comedy. Kamala Harris offered “joy” and a mouthful of teeth shown at every opportunity.
So why should the postmortem focus on policy? This was a popularity contest, and popularity has little to do with policy. It’s like deciding who to vote for in a beauty contest by how the contestants answered the question, “if you won, how would you promote world peace?”
I think this is basically correct.
There were “issues” that were simply fig leaves to cover the fact that it was a popularity contest. No “serious” American wants to say that they voted for A over B because they *liked* A better and that they found B repellent, so these fig leaf issues let them claim that they voted for Trump because of immigration or the economy (BTW, within my lifetime of >75 years, this was NOT an economy that itself will lose an election for you), or for Harris because of abortion or social fairness.
Because there’s a lot of blame-assigning now–Biden should have gotten out sooner, the economy was the cause–I think that many Demo spokespersons really do not get that people *preferred* Trump, the person, over Harris, the person. Trump was genuine, Harris was not.
There was a TV spot that ironically told me how far off the Demo strategy was. Harris faced the camera and said “If my opponent is elected, he’ll wake up every morning and look at his list of enemies and that’ll occupy his time.”
Right there, at that spot, I suspect that very many Americans thought “Yes. And they have it coming, too. Good for him.”
I couldn’t get myself to vote for either candidate, but I can understand that the demos have run two female candidates who each lost a popularity contest with Donald Trump, as improbable as that sounds.