Following shock and tears, Democrats have struggled to understand how they could have lost so decisively to Donald Trump.
The New York Post reports that many Democrats are rushing to psychiatrists offices. MSNBC, a deeply pro-Democrat network states that “Many find themselves stunned, wondering how this could have happened.”
Some key Democratic supporters and advisors have suggested that their party examine their rather contemptuous attitude towards those who aren’t party loyalists. TV personality Bill Maher, who had repeatedly predicted a Harris victory, suggested that Democrats “look in the mirror.” He suggests that ultra-progressive positions that many perceived to be contemptuous of the working class turned off many were part of the problem.
Indeed, a long history of contempt for those not deeply tied to the Democrat Party built to a crescendo under both the Biden-Harris Administration and the Harris campaign. It follows a history of party disdain. In an unguarded moment, Obama described them as “”They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.” Hillary Clinton described them as “deplorables.” Harris displayed a rejection of basic American Constitutional institutions or traditional practices such the Supreme Court, the Senate filibuster, and the electoral college. Perhaps most devasting, President Biden, after spending his term in office essentially labelling MAGA supporters as evil, capped off his record of hatred by labelling Trump voters as “garbage.”
Waleed Shahid, writing in The Nation, stresses that “one thing is clear: Democrats need to fundamentally rethink their he party’s cloistered internal governance is also in drastic need of an overhaul… Joe Biden’s decision to remain at the helm instead of opening up a primary and passing the torch to a new generation is probably the defining piece of this election. approach to both politics and policy, and they need to do it now… And for many voters, the transition from Biden to Harris only heightened a sense that the Democratic Party operates as a closed loop, more attuned to the concerns of elite insiders than those of ordinary Americans.”
Undiscussed in Democrat circles, as far as can be determined, is the Party’s addiction to egregious campaign tactics. From ballot harvesting to refusal to a refusal to clean up faulty registration rolls to basically supporting tactics that allow aliens to vote and opposing common sense measures such as voter ID, Democrats turned off those independents who just seek honest balloting.
One possible reason Democrats have so far failed to acknowledge for the widespread GOP victory has to do with its focus on stopping questionable Democrat campaign tactics. The Washington Examiner noted that Republicans “unleashed tens of thousands of poll watchers for the election, an operation that comes after months of recruitment efforts and some controversy and legal disputes.” The move was in conjunction with preparations for legal challenges to objectionable tactics they believed the Harris campaign may have been prepared to engage in.
The GOP was frightened by Joseph Stalin’s adage, “It’s not who votes, but who counts the votes that matters”
Breitbart ‘s Hannah Knudson noted that “The Republican National Committee (RNC) was on top of ‘hundreds’ of issues on election night, working quickly with a team of lawyers to solve any possible instances of election malfeasance, and RNC Chairman Michael Whatley provided several examples of what their team did as Americans anxiously awaited the final election results.”
Democratic failure to listen to kitchen table concerns was a key challenge that some are beginning to comprehend. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, in a Politico article, warns that “they should adopt one central mission: improving Americans’ standard of living. They should abandon policing cultural behaviors, especially since many of their stances aren’t even popular with Democrats in real life. They should also create solutions for men and boys — who are struggling — instead of engaging in identity politics that excludes at least half of the country. In many ways, these all boil down to one thing: The Democratic Party should act more democratically.”
Illustration: Pixabay