While I certainly recognize the need for Democrats to be introspective about the election loss, and I recognize the need for there to be significant change in leadership in the party moving forward, I don't think that Dems should spend too much time pointing fingers, either at one another or at Republicans. I think the election results are pretty easy to explain and it doesn't require too much of a deep dive analysis to figure out the what, how, and why it happened the way that it did.
They can parse all kinds of electoral data and polling and demographic shifts and swing state shifts and things like that, but I think Democrats lost for a few key reasons, almost all of which (not *all* of which, but most of which, IMO) were outside of their control.
1. The Trump/MAGA movement is a freight train and has been for going on a decade now. I'm not nearly intelligent enough to understand, much less articulate, why it is so invincible electorally, but it is. It took a perfect storm of a unicorn-type once-in-a-hundred years global pandemic to temporarily derail it. I believe that if COVID doesn't happen, or hell, if Trump had managed to even display a modicum of leadership early on when it did happen, he'd have cruised to a relatively easy re-election in 2020. Once we were no longer in a pandemic environment, and Trump was able to successfully run *again* as an outsider, he picked up right where he left off.
2. There was a worldwide rejection of incumbent administrations all across the globe in the wake of the pandemic. Not a thing any of those administrations could have reasonably done, IMO, when people were so disenfranchised with the status quo. Had the United States been the lone, or one of the very few, incumbent administrations that lost, I'd be alarmed. But it was a worldwide phenomenon. Trump was at the right place, at the right time with the exact kind of. movement with the exact kind of following needed to take advantage.
3. The vast majority of people don't pay close attention to politics, don't care about policy implications at an elementary level much less at a granular and nuanced level, don't spend their time wading through the depths of the day to day minutiae of politics, and IMO vote predominantly based upon theirs and their immediate family's own economic self-interests (and I'm certainly not chiding them for it or saying any of the above is wrong or bad). There are plenty of Trump voters, or Democratic non-voters (as in, literally didn't show up at all) who, for one reason or another (or many) do not have the access or the desire to access- or both- to the nuanced information that political geeks like us have. They showed up (or didn't show up) to the voting booth in November and knew a handful of key things: 1. America seemed to be flourishing economically during the pre-COVID years under Trump; 2. America was no longer flourishing economically in their minds because of the higher prices caused by myriad of inflationary issues affecting us post-pandemic; 3. the incumbent administration must be punished for #2.
Those are the three primary reasons why I think that the Democrats lost, and I don't believe that they could have done anything to mitigate it. I think that these three reasons above, alone, would have delivered a Trump victory.
I also believe that there were some secondary reasons that the Dems lost, reasons that *were* in their control, but reasons that I personally do not believe were necessarily the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back (though I suppose it could be easily argued that losing any votes on the margins for any of the reasons below were critically decisive).
1. I think that the Dems got punished because Joe Biden got exposed in as publicly humiliating of a way as is possible as being physically (and perhaps mentally) unable to continue to perform the most important, most high stress job in the world. I truly believe that the Dems lost the election on around 9:10 PM ET on Thursday, June 27, 2024.
2. I think that Democrats enabled themselves to be suckered into far too many culture war battles that they simply cannot win. To be very clear, I believe wholeheartedly that being willing to fight to the mat on behalf of the marginalized is one of the most noble things any politician or political party can do. I truly believe that the Dems were well-intentioned, and morally and ethically correct, to try to stand up for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. I also believe that, lately, the Dems bring a Nerf gun to a bazooka fight every time that they try to square off with Republicans over culture war issues. It's not all their fault- the GOP has an immense, almost invincible advantage in 1. having an enormously effective media ecosystem, and 2. an American voting populace that is still largely rural, largely non-college-educated, and largely socially conservative. But fighting the GOP on culture war issues right now is about as effective as fighting a pit full of vipers in an underground enclosure with both arms tied behind your back. Dems need to focus on learning how to speak to more Americans in more places, and they need to do so without sounding like they just came from tea time in the faculty lounge. Nobody in rural America or blue collar America or middle class America cares much about "Latin*x*" or "unhoused persons" or pronouns or things of that nature when a pack of eggs at Food Lion is $10.
All of the above to say, I think that the Dems should spend more time figuring out to listen to and learn from the swing voters, rural voters, non-college-educated voters, young voters, etc. who swung the election to Trump. I don't mean that Dems need to waste any time trying to reach the Proud Boy, Oathkeeper, QAnon, Trump-flags-stickers-and-banners-on-literally-everything-they-own types. Those people aren't going to change their minds and it's a complete waste of time to expend energy or resources to attempt to do so. And those people aren't the ones who win or lose elections, anyway.
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