A seeming political realignment, shattering the Democrats’ longtime coalition. So now the reckoning, soul-searching, backbiting, finger-pointing.
If only President Biden had not tried to run again. Or quit right after the June debate. Or even resigned. Or if there’d somehow been an open selection process. And Journalist Tim Alberta (author of an inside look at evangelical Trumpism) has said Democrats destroyed their credibility by insisting on Biden’s capability, that the border is under control, that inflation is no big deal.
But while Democrats did try to spin those matters, they weren’t fundamentally dishonest. Unlike Trump and Republicans, who were — spinning a whole alternate reality. And while launching Harris’s candidacy sooner, or more democratically, would have helped, that wouldn’t have made much difference.
It would also have helped if Harris had white skin and a penis. Though America did elect a non-white president before, and a majority voted for a woman. But this was actually a better country then. Racism was ebbing — until a Black president freaked out a lot of whites, suddenly more race-conscious. Similarly, women’s advancement was okay until we got this “masculinity crisis,” with many males feeling disempowered. No vaginal president for them.
We’re also told Democrats went wild with wokeism, losing their connection to working class voters. Many folks do gag at all the identity politics, the DEI stuff, and intolerance for different viewpoints. Yet that was ascendant, if at all, only for a fleeting interval, and never among most Democrats. Indeed, in 2020, the year of peak woke, they went strongly for the most down-to-earth moderate candidate emphasizing issues of broad concern. Harris too was like that.
Yet working class voters have fallen for a giant Republican con. Talking a good game, pandering to them, but it’s all bullshit. In fact, far from losing connection with middle America, the Democratic party’s actual policies (what the Biden administration did) are right in line with their interests and what they say they want. Whereas Republican policies are inimical to them.
The issues voters cared about were supposedly the economy, inflation, immigration. Yet they didn’t care enough to make reasoned judgments. Large majorities tell pollsters the country is on the “wrong track,” but with no clue for correcting it. So they lash out, bloody-minded, nihilistically, heedless how they’re actually making it worse. And actually the economy is excellent — at least surely not awful enough to explain electing a criminal. Distortedly sour views of the economy reflect something else going on. Something more primal than issues. The election turned on psychology, not policy.
Jonathan Haidt’s elephant of the unconscious responds to cues we’re not really even aware of. One word: “strength.” With badness actually being a kind of strength. It’s said voters chose Trump in spite of his repellent personality, character, and behavior. But many did because of it. At a deep level, not repellent, but attractive. Embodying a transgressiveness people wish they could dare emulate. Trump is their vicarious outlet for what Freud fingered as the discontents of a civilization that represses such impulses. The more atrociously he behaved, the more support he gained.
And for all the talk of Democrats’ identity politics, it was actually the Republican campaign that was totally identity politics. Hating the establishment, the educated elites. Us against them. His voters see Trump as authentic — and see something of themselves in him. He was holding up a mirror to Americans. Take a good hard look.
Despite all the carping, Harris actually ran a terrific campaign. The idea that she failed to reassure voters about who she is, to lay out a clear policy vision, is just nonsense. As Mario Cuomo said, you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Harris did make clear what she’s all about and the direction she’d take us. But too many Americans just wouldn’t hear it.
Positive messaging has forever been a touchstone of campaigns, playing to a national character of can-do optimism. Hence Harris’s “politics of joy,” starkly contrasting with the other side’s downright ugly darkness. Yet Harris did not shirk from also calling that out. Her Trump-bashing was necessary, not mistaken. Too bad, though, we’re no longer the “Morning in America” country of Reagan’s day. So voters rejected the politics of joy and embraced instead the nasty ugliness.
So what should Democrats do now? Stand for what’s right and true. Not because it will prevail, but because it is right. Honorable defeat is better than dishonorable victory. And if America never does come to its senses, so be it.