We are still reviewing Harris’ defeat. Here are some points to keep in mind before the internal strife becomes too toxic.
A stunning victory for Donald Trump and the Republicans too capture of the House of Representatives and the Senatesparked fierce debate among Democrats even as votes were still being counted. Given the scale of the defeat and the attempt to deflect blame, the debate will be particularly heated. Here are some smart suggestions to consider before the heat distorts the light.
Throwing out homeless people: Trump’s victory saw him winning a higher percentage of the vote among various population groups than in 2020even as he remained personally unpopular.
Voters punished the incumbent party for the pain they endured during the pandemic, including the shutdown of the economy and the inflation that accompanied the recovery. The Biden administration handled the disruption better than most other governments, and Trump will inherit an economy that the conservative Economist greetings as “the envy of the world.” But large segments of the country continue to suffer as a result high costs of basic necessities—food, fuel, medicine, rent—as well higher interest rateswhich increased the value of everything that was purchased on credit: cars, houses, washing machines. Two-thirds of voters felt that the country was “on the wrong track.”
Dumping the homeless wasn’t limited to the United States; election after the pandemic saw voters punish ruling parties in every developed country. Trump is done with he got about the same number of votes in 2020for now Harris received several million fewer votes than Biden did it in 2020. Even when voters elected Trump, they held progressive referendums – defending the right to abortion, raising the minimum wage, taking paid leave for family matters and climate reforms. Exactly the same a recent survey showed that with politicians’ names removed, Harris’s economic agenda was far more popular than Trump’s. Democrats have no reason to delay Trump’s plans in the upcoming debates.
Not in our stars, but in ourselves: Given the anger against the sitting president and the deep sense that the country was on the wrong track, Harris was dealt a bad hand. Still, how she played — or didn’t play — gives rise to debate about the party’s future course.
While Harris was putting together a remarkably strong campaign on the fly, her team made two major strategic bets that failed. The first was the idea that abortion was the defining issue that would sway voters to the Harris case. The second was to focus on the threat from Trump and finish by forming a strange coalition against him hawkish Republicans, Managers and bankers, heads of national securityand generals.
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For now Harris won overwhelmingly among those who see abortion as the most important issueshe ended with a fewer voters than Biden in 2020 or Hillary Clinton in 2016. Exit polls showed the same number half of voters who thought abortion should be legal in most cases still voted for Trump.
In an election where the vast majority of voters expected changes, anti-Trump coalition has painted Harris as a champion of the bipartisan establishment that failed them. Voters did not approve of Trump personally, but wanted change badly enough to elect him.
Too awake or too embedded: Trump’s victory Republican support among the working class continued to consolidate (voters without higher education). To form a governing majority, Democrats must capture a much larger share of this group.
Conservative Democrats were quick to say that the problem is that Democrats “also woke up.” The Trump campaign ran the ad showing a 2016 clip in which Harris defends trans operations for prisoners. Some argue that the country has moved to the right and that Democrats are alienating voters with words like “Latinx” and calls for defunding the police or addressing climate change. “The only way to defeat right-wing populism is through the center” Matt Bennett urgesco-founder of the Third Way.
That argument, which is likely to gain traction in the coming months, misleads both the Harris campaign and the Democratic challenge. Harris presented herself against Trump as the prosecutor against the criminal; she claimed the center, supporting sur immigration measures covering frackingand climate change is rarely mentioned. And her defense of current US policy toward Ukraine and Israel allowed Trump to portray himself as an anti-war candidate. But its repositioning failed: the Democrats are the party of social liberalism. Retreating during the campaign season does more to demoralize progressive activists—especially among young people—than it does to attract social conservatives.
A much bigger problem for Democrats is that the party’s leaders have for decades been supporters of a neoliberal global order that has ultimately failed the majority of Americans. Instead of being too wide-awake on social issues, Democrats are too compromised on economic ones.
Of course Bernie Sanders summed it up best: “It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party that has abandoned working class people will find that the working class has abandoned them… While the Democratic Party leadership is defending the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they are right.”
Democrats will win back working people not by dressing up as social conservatives, but by standing up for their cause and fighting entrenched corruption, fighting big pharma and big oil, exposing backroom deals and insider trading, and standing up for basic economic rights. This will become especially important in the coming years under Trump as he turns the bureaucracy into an extractive system; reduces protections for consumers, workers and the environment; and the fat of the rich and anchored by subsidies and tax breaks. Big money is the problem, not the solution, for Democrats. Progressives need to find a way to shore up the populist voice — and harness the energy and money needed to compete against the rich and powerful. It will come not from the center or the right wing of the Democratic Party, but from progressive leaders and the organizing power of independent civil movements.
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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