President Biden spoke in the Rose Garden yesterday. I still haven’t watched his speech and I’m not going to. I saw someone say that he sounded fine and why did the party even make him drop out of the race. As I said previously, that will be one of the biggest political mysteries/what-ifs in modern American political history. What would have happened if Democrats had Biden’s back and they held strong with him, in the same way Republicans held strong and dumb for Trump for the past nine years? What if Democrats had a white man on top of the ticket, the same white man who is the only person to ever beat Trump? Well, there’s been a blizzard of postmortems from Democrats since Election Day, most of which are just idiotic, too idiotic to even amplify. But I did find this analysis interesting, from a former Biden staffer:
Barack Obama has been blamed for the Democrats’ election loss after “pushing” Joe Biden out of the white house. The outgoing president believes he was forced to step down from the race to challenge Donald Trump by Mr Obama, sources say.
“There is no singular reason why we lost, but a big reason is because the Obama advisers publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didn’t even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then signed up as the saviours of the campaign only to run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn’t Obama,” a former Biden staffer told the Politico news website.
There is a sense that Mr Obama, who once brokered a deal to install Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate to face Mr Trump in 2016, has contributed to their party’s last two defeats, Mr Biden’s aides also told CNN. Mr Obama started quietly manoeuvring to pressure Mr Biden to drop his bid for a second term in office earlier this year amid questions over the president’s mental fitness. Sources said Mr Biden’s aides feel this was the wrong decision, just as when Mr Obama pushed for Mrs Clinton to be given the Democratic nomination.
Inside the Biden camp, there is now a feeling the president would have had a better chance of winning over white, working class voters, who ultimately opted for Mr Trump over Ms Harris.
I covered this as it unfolded over the summer – Obama and Obama’s former staffers were a huge part of the intraparty coup and the move to push Biden out of the race. Once Biden did drop out, Obama refused to endorse Kamala Harris for days until Democrats publicly called him out for his lack of support for both Biden and Harris. In those awful weeks in July, Obama could have calmed a lot of nerves across the board as a party elder, but instead he let it be known that he thought Biden should drop out and that Democrats needed a mini-primary, rather than supporting Kamala Harris. In the midst of all of that, Obama centered himself and told everyone that he saw himself as the uniter of the party, just as VP Harris was literally uniting the party behind her.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Former US President Barack Obama exits the stage after delivering remarks at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, USA, at the United Center Featuring: Former US President Barack Obama Where: Chicago, Illinois, United States When: 20 Aug 2024 Credit: CNP/INSTARimages
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- Former President Barack Obama And Rapper Eminem Attend Kamala Harris Rally Featuring: Barack Obama Where: Detroit, Michigan, United States When: 22 Oct 2024 Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- US President Joe Biden walks out form the Oval Office to deliver remarks on the presidential election results in the Rose Garden of the White House Featuring: Joe Biden Where: Washington, District Of Columbia, United States When: 07 Nov 2024 Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- US President Joe Biden departs after delivering remarks on the presidential election results in the Rose Garden of the White House Featuring: Joe Biden Where: Washington, District Of Columbia, United States When: 07 Nov 2024 Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- United States President Joe Biden makes a statement on the 2024 election at the White House in Washington, DC, November 7, 2024. In his remarks the President noted “We accept the choice the country made. I’ve said many times: You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.” Featuring: Joe Biden Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 07 Nov 2024 Credit: Chris Kleponis/CNP/INSTARimages
I guess the blame game has started. I thought we agreed Kamala ran a very good campaign. Mind you, Trump did better with every demographic compared to 2020. I don’t see what Obama could have done about that. Majority of Americans wanted Trump and they voted for him.
Exactly. Never forget your beliefs and what you stand for, but we have to move on.
Kamala Harris did an excellent job in the time she was given. She’s intelligent, well read, experienced, doesn’t lie constantly, etc. No sharks, batteries, or Hannibal Lector. The Telegraph is not normally pro Democrat, so I don’t think that Obama or Biden could have won. So they canose me with salacious details of infighting.
Personally, Ronald Reagan has a direct impact on this election result if we’re going to go around blaming ex presidents. People keep saying that they voted for Trump because of the economy. Reagan destroyed unions, he lowered taxes for the very rich, he came up with this slogan about a trickle down economy (guess what: the economy does not trickle down). We didn’t feel thr immediate repercussions, but young people today do.
Racism, sexism and xenophobia definitely contributed to Kamala Harris losing. As did huge amounts of misinformation that goes unchecked and the imbalance as to how Trump was sane washed and Harris nit picked.
However, so many people who voted for Trump cited the economy. As a PA loved one of mine stated, “They chose fascism, because of the price of eggs.” Those are similar reasons voters shifted rightwards in Europe. The rich have most of the wealth, young people can’t afford to move away from their parents and there’s a dearth of affordable housing, job security and benefits have nose dived, and the world is changing. This article explains the economic impact on this election: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/why-donald-trump-won-election-white-house/
Republican policies to help the rich have led to this moment.
Yeah, I’m tired of this. It’s time for us to accept that our neighbors and colleagues may not be the people we think they are. So glad that there are still Harris-Walz signs in our street and neighborhood because I would not want to even go outside otherwise but Trump represents America and the worst of us is unfortunately the majority.
That’s it…We’re less moral, less educated, less worldly, less civil, lesser.
The Republicans will do NOTHING about the economy to benefit the poor and middle class, but they’ll create an other so that these people can get their superiority fix even if they can’t increase their purchasing power. Please be safe.
It’s easier to blame the Black man than the actual racists.
It wasn’t that the majority of Americans wanted Trump. It was that the majority didn’t want a woman. Michelle Obama herself couldn’t get elected president in this country.
I was convinced racism had everything to do with it until I realized Barack Obama won twice, beating two white men decisively in the process. If he performed that well against white men, he would have wiped the floor with a white woman.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote against Trump but she won even less of the electoral vote in 2016 than Harris won this time.
In a nutshell. Americans simply do not want a woman president and they tell themselves all kinds of lies to excuse it. They don’t know enough about Harris, she’s not ready to be president, Democrats look down on Trump supporters and call them stupid and Nazis and maggots, Trump makes them feel good about themselves while Harris makes them feel bad about themselves, and it’s all bullshit. Black women voted for Harris in much higher numbers than black men. Latino women broke 70–30 for Harris but Latino men went 54-45 for Trump. Both these groups voted in enormous numbers for Obama. The bottom line is clear: they won’t give Harris their votes because she’s a woman.
Hell will freeze solid before a woman is elected president in America. And it’s not just the men who have this mindset, the women are as bad as the men. Sometimes we are out own worst enemies.
This. America truly hates women. I will say, Biden was never going to win re-election. It wasn’t Obama’s fault nor was it the fault of people pushing Biden to step down. I don’t buy that argument at all.
Yeah whatever. Biden was down in the polls and campaigned on his record which most people can’t feel, but they can feel inflation and prejudice. They should have pushed Biden out earlier and had a primary. We had no good ideas. Pelosi was right about his campaign, but yeah blame Obama. I hate Trump and the economy is strong isn’t a campaign. She started with nothing but money. Obama didn’t back Hilary until most of the party leaders did. This is ludicrous. Oh and The Telegraph.
This.
He was farther behind in every poll taken and I believe he would have lost by larger margins.
If we want to lay blame, Biden promised that he would be a place holder to defeat Trump — he should have kept to that promise instead of drinking the kool-aid that he was the “only one” that could win against Trump and allowed the Democrats to have a full primary and field a younger, more progressive candidate that was allowed time to present their own platform.
Harris was not given the opportunity to separate herself from being Biden-lite and people rejected that.
Biden represents a different time. He’s so out of touch. He spent most of this year talking about Israel, Ukraine, and NATO. MAGA voters aren’t the only people who were suffering financially, and he barely acknowledged that. I don’t know if anyone remembers the interview he gave where the reporter asked him about people having less money and Biden said, “They have money.” He’s yet another out of touch person who reads the job reports and thinks that the “cooling” inflation has translated into something that matters to the voters. We’re not feeling it. He’s no better than the economists who talked about how great the economy was doing and couldn’t understand why people were upset.
I’m a Democrat who had a lot of hopes for Harris/Walz, but Biden and his aides need to turn those fingers around. He should have only run for one term. He should have let his VP shine like Obama did for him. The old fossils in the Democratic Party should have been elevating their younger elected officials to take over the party, but they just couldn’t give up any power.
Obama was right to want a mini-primary, if that’s even true. A primary would have enabled and forced Harris to present a platform that allowed her to distinguish herself from Biden’s economic plan (I’m not knocking the plan, it was working). But in the end, I don’t think any of this mattered. There was way too much disinformation and outright hatred in this country. Men want to own women and want to see violence against anyone who doesn’t look like them. It is as simple as that.
We lost because this country is the same racist and misogynistic place it’s always been. Full stop.
Yup. And it’s one that’s been inundated with right wing media where so many people don’t get their news from anywhere else.
All of this internal finger pointing isn’t going to accomplish anything.
Katie yes, all I hear is our side being gaslit.
^^this
Why and for how long are people going to autopsy the results of the election?
Kamala Harris didn’t lose because she’s a woman of color. She lost because racist separatists voted for a racist candidate. She lost because scared migrants and complacent women voted for a fearmonger. She lost because a certain demographic felt she threatened their cozy post at the top of the totem pole.
I mean, we will never know, but I don’t think Biden would win. A lot of voters cited economy as a reason for voting for Trump and even though USA is in better shape than a lot of countries, people still see inflation when they go shopping and blame the current government. Trump won’t make it better, but he promised he is gonna and they believed him again. The main reason people believe Trump’s lies is the media. Remember how they went after Biden after the debate? All the sane washing of Trump’s bizarre behavior? The billionaire media owners wanted Trump back and they got it.
Also, the right wing media always report on the immigrants and blame them for everything going wrong in the country. So, it is no surprise people worried about their personal finances vote for the candidate who promised to deport all of them.
Well, “the economy” sounds a lot more respectable than the real reasons many people voted for a convicted felon for president.
I didnt think pushing put Biden was right. I think Kamala did an almost perfect score. She had everybody behind her. But we had the pandemic where the younger gen (gen Z) were confined, they were possibly the one suffering the most about confinement, vaccines, etc which I think possibly lead to young males voting trump for freedom… and the rise in costs after the pandemic. There the ones who arenot/less established in life at that stage in life. I don’t know…
I agree with you. Kamala had an excellent campaign, but sometimes it is not enough. Trump won in every demographic, hence Kamala unfortunately didn’t stand a chance.
I have started being selective on what news and headlines I clicked on to since before the elections. It’s only a small bit but this is my way of saying no to the felon and to starve the mainstream media of clicks and engagement. I remember they really loved it when dump ran the first time and during his term because of the outrageous and hate filled rhetoric that he spouted and they didn’t have that during the Biden/Harris term. So no more, I’m going to put my attention elsewhere. I may not be American and a foreigner living in the UK but the media is the same so I’m going to protect my mental health and focus on worthwhile issues like making sure my bi racial son continues to grow up with a strong sense of empathy, fairness and respect. He’s 8 years old and even he was astonished and dismayed that the majority of American people voted for that highly unqualified man.
He’s always been incredibly cautious sometimes to the point where it was more detrimental than helpful so I don’t why him holding back would have been surprising or odd. Also the fact that they were jockeying so hard for his endorsement and his input, would indicate that he was correct that he could unite the party otherwise they wouldn’t have been upset that he hadn’t provided it right away. The Biden staffers, and the Obama staffers always seem to have had beef though even back to the days of the first White House administration. And now those staffers, who have gone on record saying things like the Biden administration got more done than the Obama administration seem like they are just taking out their frustration everywhere that they can.
This is very reminiscent to me to all the Bernie would have won stuff. Could Biden have kept the mass defections of Latino men, possibly, but most people in their exit polls said that immigration, the economy, were their top issues. These were issues for all their accuracy or inaccuracy linked to this administration. And we have to be honest the enthusiasm to vote for Joe Biden was not there. And the youth vote that we did claw back probably would have been lesser. Kamala ran the best campaign that she possibly could have, and all of the factions supported her in the end including campaigning for her vigorously, sometimes you just don’t win.
People here attacked me for stating that Obama didn’t have good political instincts. Anyway, it is important for Bidenworld to remember that Obama was also the one who got Biden’s challengers to drop out of the 2020 race. So yes, Obama is partly to blame for the current situation but Bidenworld is also delusional. Biden was never going to beat Trump.
And honestly in 2020 if it wasn’t for the pandemic I don’t think he would have beat him then either, and none of the people running in the primary would have either including Kamala who is the person that I initially supported. I think we can be pretty honest that they would not have supported Elizabeth Warren, or Amy Klobuchar and let’s not even lie to ourselves about Pete Buttigieg. There’s a ton of small factors and what ifs that goes into everything but the most obvious ones ( racism, nativism, and misogyny) is the one people keep running away from for some reason.
Harris was on every primary ballot the democrats had. American voters decided a misogynistic and racist fraudster was better than a black woman.
OMFG just shut up. Kamala lost, and Biden would’ve lost, because a slight majority of Americans are fucking masochistic idiots and misogynistic racists. It really IS that simple.
Yep, I feel the same rage. We keep trying to make excuses instead of just accepting this reality. People still want to believe that those who voted from Trump for a second term were just misguided or turned off by the Democratic Party’s message…Nah. They know exactly who Trump and Vance are and they voted for them. A majority of this country is leaning into being deplorable, nasty, misogynistic, racist and homophobic because that’s what they want! They are OK with it.
My fervent hope and pipe dream is that on December 7th (45 days before the inauguration of 45 to 47) that Bidens resigns and makes Harris the 47th president for the remainder of the term. That would F everybody up and make history by making her the first woman president anyway. LOL! Do it Joe!!!
Look, Biden wouldn’t have won. We gotta face it. Part of what dragged Kamala down is that she was associated with his admin. The “you’ve had four years and didn’t fix things so why should we think you’ll fix things now?” argument worked against her and would’ve been worse with Biden. The media only helped Trump as well.
It’s time to admit that Americans are just selfish idiots willing to give up freedoms if it means lower gas prices. Americqns are just intolerant, bigoted assholes who will suffer anything if means not having to consider the needs of people we don’t understand. We suck. Period. We’re too racist, sexist, heartless, uninformed, and intellectually incurious.
Kamala lost because she was Bidens vice president, she became the democratic candidate basically by default. Misinformation was a big factor. And because she’s a woman.
Sevenbluenu agree with you. It was widely acknowledged by depressed to the point of suicide democrats that Biden was in his way to losing big. People vote against an unpopular incumbent if they aren’t feeling good about the status quo. They did against Donald in 2020 and they did against Biden in 2024. We’ve had two presidencies affected by the pandemic and its fallout now. I remember the brief period when Biden was being pushed before he endorsed Harris and everyone coalesced around her. A lot of people took it as a given a black female wouldn’t get enough support. And were thinking of others like dem governors (who then endorsed kamala). The enthusiasm she generated made me think maybe that wasn’t true. Alas people thought of her as the incumbent.
She lost because over half the electorate voted for someone who is not fit to serve for the numerous reasons we all know. They said we do not care what he’s done or how much damage he and his boot lickers and other disreputable people have done to this country. In my book these ppl are full of shit. The analysis by the talking heads can kick rooks.
Agreed. Evangelicals (note, I’m not calling them Christians) voted in droves for a convicted felon rapist. This election was lost a long time ago.
I just find it infuriating that the main criticisms of Biden in 2024 from voters seemed to be about his age and mental fitness, but when they get a younger, sharp candidate, they end up not voting for her.
I stand by my belief that Harris’s loss ultimately boiled down to racism and sexism.
And how can you criticize his age and mental fitness and then vote for Donald Trump?!?!?!
Additionally, I’d like to broach what I think is an underappreciated factor: nostalgia. Those interested, please read Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia. She discusses the concept of restorative nostalgia, where a restoration of the past is sought and promised. This type of nostalgia “knows two main plots-the return to origins and the conspiracy.” This, to me, perfectly encapsulates MAGA.
The thing about nostalgia is, as Boym notes, “Nostalgia (from nostos-return home, and algia-longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy. Nostalgic love can only survive in a long-distance relationship.”
Nostalgia is why folks voted for Trump legitimately believing he’s going to make their lives better, and they can’t see what a load of crap they have been sold. He won’t take us back. It’s not possible. He cannot make America great, because America cannot be what it was before. We cannot go back no matter how much we might want to. What we want to go back never even really existed, not in the way we think it did. And we have, with this election, ignored these facts. And we have ignored them to our peril.
We are caught in the same restorative nostalgia trap that fueled Nazi Germany and I see only horror ahead unless a miracle happens.
Personally, as a California resident, I’m hoping we eventually secede. I am so pissed we had the chance to get rid of this crap and move forward, but chose to go back. But nostalgia is a helluva drug, especially when you factor in that what most are nostalgic for is a time when racism, sexism, and bigotry were acceptable.
I saw the speech and Biden didn’t sound fine to me. I mean, what he said was fine, but he sounded like an old man who tires easily.
I don’t know what to say about Obama. To me, he always seemed to care more about being president of the country than leader of the party. I remember him being criticized for it when the party was smacked around in the midterms. And he’s been pretty hands off in retirement, not being vigorously political, at least in public. So, it seems odd to me to hear that he was playing kingmaker behind the scenes. I just don’t know.
Well if America didn’t blame a black person for their problems, it wouldn’t be Friday. The gall, to blame a two-term President that restored America’s moral standing and left the White House without a scandal and the country with an economic surplus. The gall. Kamala Harris was a brilliant Democratic candidate – but America is no longer a democracy. If you are fighting to uphold democratic norms and the electorate doesn’t want it, what can you do? Welcome to the hellscape.
It’s easier to blame Black people than to see that this country is steeped in racism.
I don’t think Obama is to blame. Ppl that like trump will ride or die for him. I don’t understand it and I never will aside from the misogyny and racism, because I’ve gotten in fights with trump supporters who are so mad when you call them out on their racism🙄Put aside the 30 year reputational hit job Hillary Clinton endured – I’d heard practical Klan members voting in the 2008 primary to vote for Obama over Hillary “because anything is better than Hillary.” Misogyny defeats racism every time. Kamala was both black and a woman. This country isn’t as smart and sophisticated as it should be. the chickens have come home to roost. Let’s hope we survive this and those who fought the good fight let’s stay on top of things and take back the house and senate in 2026.
At this point, I’m “protect those who are innocent of supporting this and let the others get what they voted for.” I do not think there’s anything that will fight the stranglehold Trump has on his cult except full on disaster. And even that might not be enough.
No one here knows if Biden would have won or not. Maybe he would have done better in some of the rust belt states, maybe he would have done better in PA. But none of us know.
Someone on my FB (who is a Dem) posted a screed this morning about how Democrats lost because they dont care about women, POC or the LGBTQ+ community as much as they say because if they did, they wouldn’t have run Biden, wouldn’t have covered Biden’s cognitive decline, wouldn’t have put in Harris without a proper primary. and someone responded with a whole thing about how arrogant and elitist the Dems are and thats why there were so many celebs.
I just didn’t really have a response. I don’t agree with it because at the end of the day, the other candidate is also in obviously cognitive decline (and worse decline than being a little slow to respond or mixing up a name). At the end of the day, the other party didn’t use as many celebs as the Dems because celebrities didn’t want to be associated with Trump. At the end of the day the other party is going to be way worse than the Dems for marginalized communities.
That’s why I’m not really here for the blame game at this point. Almost 20 million voters stayed home. 71 million voters heard what Trump was saying, heard Kamala Harris, and thought yes I want the flaming pile of poo. how can you argue with that? How can you argue with someone who says “yes I think the person who wants tariffs as soon as he’s in office is going to lower my grocery prices?”
We lost due to propaganda, misinformation, racism and sexism.
I will go to my grave convinced something is fishy about there being so many fewer voters. I loathe conspiracy theories, but the GOP loves projection and they were screaming “theft” up until he won.
So I saw a graphic with voter numbers for the last few elections, and Kamala’s results are in line with what Hillary got and even Obama in 2012. It was 2020 that was the aberration with 81 million.
that said….I agree with you. I think its fishy too. He couldn’t get people to attend his rallies but millions more voted for him than Harris? There was an insistence that the election results would not be valid and all of a sudden they’re completely valid?
I’m trying not to wallow in it too much bc I dont want to sound like a crazy Republican circa January 2021, but its in my head.
Beck- yep, I agree. I won’t wallow because conspiracy is crazy making, but at the same time, if proof came out there were shenanigans, I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s all.
I keep thinking about Trump saying we have a secret, and the unlimited wealth in the form of billionnaire support. I don’t doubt the racisim, misogyny, stupidity, but this just wrapped up so neatly for him. Neat, quiet, calm. Not like January 6th at all. Dunno, maybe I’m grasping at straws. Something just feels off, like people played their cards really close to the vest…
Also, I just want to say that I am already so tired of these think pieces. I don’t remember constant analysis of why Trump lost in 2020 and what Rs needed to do to “reach” Dem voters. Maybe that was because Rs knew what they needed to do – lie, spread misinformation, spread propaganda – and they did it. but I’ve never seen a piece about the republican party trying to convince me that I should cross the aisle.
And you’ll never see it in the million years. Democrats are supposed to somehow come up with the perfect message that will appeal to someone that would vote for everything that Trump stands for, and also appeal to voters like us without offending either one.
Democrats are always ordered to reach out to right wing voters after a losing election. The Republicans are never expected to do any outreach when they lose. It’s part of the institutionalized double standard the mainstream media has for the two parties. This assymetry is part of the very large problem we have with media political coverage.
It’s not the right wing voters you want. It’s the people who can go either way. I volunteer for my local progressive political party and we are talking about how we simplify our message next time. Last time we had complicated plans + the other guys are so scary! It didn’t work. We need to figure out how to message better and inspire people. I also agree with Bernie Sanders that the left needs to focus more on working people. Trump appeals to their base instincts and lies all the time. But there has to be a way around that for the undecided.
@SarahMcK that’s kind of my point though. In 2020 there wasn’t a concerted effort by Republicans to figure out where they went wrong and how they needed to get the votes of those who could go either way and why did some trump voters in 2016 switch to Biden in 2020 etc. Fox News wasn’t running constant post mortems on what the Trump campaign did wrong. They just leaned into their playbook of lies and propaganda even more and it worked for them.
This wasn’t about “the message” although people like to make it sound like it was. Because if you could listen to Trump and Vance, and then listen to Harris, and not like Harris because her plan was “too complicated” while Trump had “concepts of a plan” – I mean, what do you do with that?
My guess is that for a lot of people, the debate was where she lost because they didn’t like seeing a Black woman go up against a white man like that. She was supposed to know her place and she did not.
Kamala Harris was failed by Obama era-losers like Jen O’Malley Dixon, Julie Chávez Rodriguez and Jaime Harrison, people who don’t have the first clue how to win elections and were still elevated to positions of power within the democratic party. If the democrats want to win the first step is purging leadership of all these losers. You need a winning team to win.
The blame falls on the American citizens and the fact that we are so easily manipulated. The majority of the populace is so blinded by ———(fear, greed, racism, jeezus, take your pick) that they refuse to see the bullshit for what it is. The Democrats tried their best. I suppose one could say that the USA gets what we deserve, but the rest of the world does not deserve what we have just unleashed.
That’s the thing people want to point fingers and blame everyone but the people that kept their asses on the couch. There no ” messaging” that will appeal to people that just don’t care. We have 200 million eligible voters in this country and they never all show up, that’s the problem. They couldn’t even be bothered when literally Democracy was on the line, they don’t get to whine and complain that it was one person’s fault now.
Biden aides. That says it all. These people are trying to distract everyone from their own responsibility in this debacle. They are the ones who kept Joe Biden under wraps and apparently advised him to run for reelection when most people saw him as a transitional figure for one term. He got a great deal done in that one term but by early 2923, he had lost the ability to communicate his achievements or his plans for another term. So President Biden running again was a lost cause from the start. Every incumbent in the world who has run for reelection post pandemic has gone down to defeat when attempting reelection. Joe Biden was never going to defy this gravity.
Kamala Harris stopped the bleeding and even brought us back somewhat but she was doomed by her association with the incumbent president. She was able, against all odds, to articulate the administration’s accomplishments but knew that separating herself completely from her boss (whom I believe she loves dearly) would only be hypocritical and opportunistic. And voters would see it that way. In all these autopsies, the one bright spot is that no one is blaming her and many are praising her grit and guts. She threw herself on a grenade for her country. But with hindsight, many see how this was a futile fight for the incumbent party given the post pandemic angst gripping the world right now.
One thing is also clear. There is still no excuse, even in a moody, unhappy, misinformed electorate, for millions of Americans to have voted for a despicable human being and traitor like Donald Trump. I will always believe that the ultimate responsibility for this catastrophe lies with the voters who did the unthinkable and voted for a fascist and a racist rapist. No excuse at all.
Agreed.
In hindsight, holding off the red wave in 2022 might have been the worst thing to happen to the Democrats. Everyone was predicting a red wave in the 2022 midterms and it never materialized and I think that gave false confidence to Biden – and the Democrats – that they would be able to hold off Trump in 2024.
Biden was never winning this election if he had stayed in and might have even done worse than Harris did. He was seen – and portrayed by many – as old and feeble and not totally with it. If the midterms had been a slaughter for the Democrats then I think he might have been persuaded to step down, there would have been a primary and a fresh face unconnected to the Biden administration would have had a shot at the Presidency.
Harris was too connected to Biden and when asked if she would do anything different from him she said no. That helped sink her even further, people were pissed off at Biden and his administration and the beneficiary was a gross fascist rapist who is going to utterly obliterate this country.
I saw/read that 70% of voters said the country was “headed in the wrong direction.” That’s the ballgame right there. It’s inflation. There is racism and sexism baked into everything, but I think the economy is the true reason she underperformed. Prices are sky-high and climbing and AI is getting ready to take over white-collar jobs, and everything is going to get a lot worse.
The economy is actually pretty strong right now 🤷♀️ The grocery prices that everyone cites to are primarily because of corporate greed.
But if people are worried about inflation and sky high prices, voting for a Republican has never been the answer, especially trump, since they usually crash the economy and then the next Dem president has to pick up the pieces.
Well here there won’t be a next Dem president if trump has his way so good luck everyone!
Also I hear “heading in the wrong direction” as code for “too many brown and black people.”
We’re really doing this? We’re really gonna point to THEE most popular Democratic POTUS of my lifetime and not THEE most UNpopular Democratic POTUS of my lifetime as the reason why Kamala lost?
And I’m sorry–I know Biden is beloved here–but he is VASTLY unpopular outside of this tiny circle. His baggage hurt Kamala greatly. She was put in the unenviable position of having to distance herself from the issues that made JB so unpopular (Gaza, the economy) while also being PART of the administration that enacted these policies. It’s an impossible position to be in and she tried her best. Did she do everything perfectly? No, but at the end of the day I’m not sure it would have mattered.
I do think the Dem party has to do some self-reflection because leftists felt unheard when complaining about the economy and outsourcing our foreign policy to Netanyahu, an abject monster of a man. But at the end of the day, our country chose a convicted felon over a qualified black woman and that says FAR more about Americans than it does about Kamala or the Dem party. Black women understood the assignment and pulled the lever for Kamala. I doubt they thought Kamala was a perfect candidate, but they pragmatically focused on moving the ball forward. White people bitched and moaned about how the party doesn’t do enough for them and spite voted based on whatever fucking grievance they felt at that moment like the privileged assholes we are. Rinse, repeat.
There are many lessons to learn, but in the end, the wind was blowing too hard for the economy and the left was never going to be able to make up that ground with a candidate tied to Biden. If he had opted out in 2022 and there was a primary, and it was a fresh face not tied to him – maybe there would’ve been a chance. On the flip side, if Republicans had literally anyone less polarizing, I think this could’ve been even worse with them winning places like NJ and NH as well.
After the disastrous debate performance, the Democrats didn’t stand a real chance of winning the presidency. In the currert politcal climate a woman or poc has no chance of being elected president in this country. The media has been compromised and refused to really broadcast the mango menace’s decline and antics while blasting every gaffe Biden made. The current economy, though booming for some, has left many behind. The magat message of hate appealed more than the support everybody message of the Democrats. People scraping for survival care about is themselves and many apparently need to direct hate at people they consider beneath them. Trickle down economics destroyed the country, but poor people have fully aligned themselves with people who will destroy what little they have. The biggest magat supports I know are either closeted LBGTQ or directly dependent on ssi, ss, medicare/medicaid, and/or the Affordable Care themselves or through their jobs. A disproportionate percentage of people recieve these benefits in poor, rural areas and a lot of these people are going to have a rude awaking in January. Part of me feels sorry for these people, but they FA and will FO that poor whites are as loathed as minorites/women by the ultra rich.