Once Again, the Democratic Leadership Has Failed Us All
Once Again, the Democratic Leadership Has Failed Us All
In 2016, we warned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not resonating with Americans. In 2024, we warned about Kamala Harris, and we were ignored again. Now, the worst has happened. So, what do we do? A leftist analysis can help us chart a path forward.
Kamala Harris truly is Hillary Clinton 2.0.
Many of Harris’s mistakes were similar to those Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Like Clinton, Harris cozied up to billionaire donors. Mark Cuban, for instance, said he was delighted that Harris was abandoning Democrats’ commitments to progressive principles and letting the business community propose the policies it wanted. Like Clinton, Harris and Tim Walz made hubristic campaign stops in solidly red states like Texas and Kentucky rather than spending the final days laser-focused on crucial battlegrounds. Like Clinton, Harris emphasized celebrity endorsements while failing to successfully court unions. (Most notably, the Teamsters declined to endorse her after she refused to pledge that she wouldn’t break a national railway strike.) Like Clinton, Harris focused too much on the danger of Donald Trump (which is very real) and not enough on the reasons why she would be good at being president herself.
I’ll just say that all the policies she proposed seemed entirely uninteresting to me. Credits for first time home buyers and something about building new homes seemed like her main talking point. This is great for all the people that don’t currently own a home and want to but does nothing for most people that also need help.
after she refused to pledge that she wouldn't break a national railway strike
JUST LIE my god youll already be in office and can make up some nonsense why you had to break the strike (Im not antiunion, Im just saying)
JUST FUCKING LIE or were all the existential threats you wouldnt shut the fuck up about (instead of actually having a platform) not worth doing whatever you needed to get into power!?
... sigh
But that would be gud politik.
I really don't care, do you?
If people didn't vote for Harris it just means they are happy with fascists.
I care because I'm not happy with fascists, and yet, due to others' apathy, ignorance, malice, or a mix thereof I have to live in a land ruled by fascists.
Welcome to the club. In my country we have fascist in the government since '94. Lately an openly fascist head of government.
And that's because the majority of the people living in Italy simply don't go to to vote.
That's one interpretation of what it could mean but one I expect is overly simplistic.
There is a difference between being happy with fascism and not feeling motivated enough to resist it. If the tide has any chance of turning towards what would be more healthy it will have to come by creating a platform that really excites and motivates a large number of people to invest in it. It has to feel authentic to those who are feeling unmotivated today eg the millions of former Biden voters who did not turn out. It should activate people who are not reliable voters to genuinely support the cause.
I'm no leftist but I do agree that Democrats and others whose main goals are to leave unchallenged the status quo of growing wealth inequality cannot win going forward. The promise of a truly experienced greater tangible quality of life, enough food, affordable housing, access to affordable medical care, debt relief, high minimum wages and/or UBI, etc would move the needle better towards excitement and engagement than abstractions like defence of democracy. "A chicken in every pot". We need another FDR. We need a strong middle class and that has to mean powerful unions.
Edited for paragraphs.
Dems definitely lack a coherent, interesting economic message. Any new proposal - medicare for all, UBI - immediately gets sucked into a quagmire of details. Turning to Republicans for the votes they need to win in general elections has been such a consistently losing strategy that I have no idea why they keep doing it.
Meanwhile Republicans keep running on "You feel poor and it's Their fault," continues to resonate, for varying definitions of "Them," as long as GOP is out-of-power. It's simple. It feels good. It completely absolves them of needing any policy more complicated than "Get rid of Them." It's a winning strategy as much as the Dems have a losing strategy.
Dude those are promises completely devoid of validity or meaning.
"Vote for me and I'll fix everything".
Trump says it: "great!! Let's vote him"
Any democrat says it: "but how? Have you considered the plight of the fruitfly??? I cannot vote for you unless you explain everything in every detail"
I forgot that trump just needs "concepts of a plan"
Yeah at this moment I am not ready for recriminations and finger pointing. A bunch of people voted FOR that idiot criminal fascist and I'm reserving all my rage for them right now.
No man, those guys will always vote R no matter what. The problem is the Dems not showing up because the candidate is a woman.
88% of the dems didnt agree with assisting in the Israeli war crimes. And yet Biden/Harris (and trump) were going to do it anyway. But you want to preach about people who didnt vote for harris embracing fascism...
Biden was pushing Netanyahu to stop the genocide. Trump said he'll let him finish the job.
Democrats are not leftists, they're center right. I'm so sick of people thinking Democrats are going to fix this, protect that, and make things better. Democrats serve their corporate masters, and they'll make vague promises that they know they won't keep.
This cannot be the message.
The first, and foremost failure, is the Republican party. They are the ones who have chosen Donald Trump to lead. And secondly, they are the ones who built up an organization to turn him into the most powerful political force in America. I salute the Republicans who are still fighting the anti-Trump fight, but the cause is 100% lost. MAGA is now going to be a multi-decade ideology and there's no way to pull Republicanism out of that trap in any short-term.
That means we need to truly, armor up and organize a fierce resistance. One that can overpower and overtake the MAGA movement. This means seeing MAGA for what it is: a cultural behemoth that commands over 75-million votes today, reliably. They have Elon Musk (Twitter/X). They likely have Zuckerberg (Facebook/Meta/Instagram). They have Washington Post (Jeff Bezos, who has recently replaces the heads with former Murdoch editors). They have LA Times. They have Gannett (and their 200+ regional / local papers). I dare say they own Reddit and likely were running social media interference at the lowest levels (with false stories of hopium. If you were on /r/politics you know what I'm talking about, focusing on shitty stories that Kamala was ahead)
Do you seriously think that all the major newspapers refusing to endorse Kamala Harris was some kind of freak accident? It was a preplanned move to specifically fuck us over. And it worked.
That is the nature of our opposition. They aren't idiots. They are savvy. They are resourceful. They own the collective media space. And they use their power to get Donald Trump (a shitty man who is easily puppetted with praise), because they want a shadow puppet as their king.
And now that their king is elected, you can see Cryptobros pumping their cryptocoins, Stocks in various media companies flying high, etc. etc. They know they won and they'll take the W today. But take a good look at America right now. In your depression, as you're thinking about why Kamala won, you're missing the real message.
Ask yourself: Why did Donald Trump win. And think about it. The answer is right before you and blazingly far more obvious than any particular action that was within Democrats or Kamala's control.
DNC as an organization is shit.
I'm talking to Democrats. I'm trying to tell you what your next move should be. The movement and overall organization of the Democrat Party goes above and beyond just its leadership.
I'm talking to you, specifically. First thing we must do is understand why we lost, and that means understanding how Trump won. And the first step there is to stop taking him as a buffoon (even if he is), because there's a lot of people helping him succeed. We need to think about the whole enemy here, not just Trump but everyone who helped him this year.
And instead of complaining to DNC leadership (who obviously tried everything they could to stop Trump), start thinking about how to defeat MAGA Republicans. Donald Trump is absolutely a shittier candidate than Kamala in every way imaginable. Its not a policy loss here.
This MUST be the message.
AIPAC corruption and extremely right wing ideology in the Democrat party lead to more Trump.
Get your head out of your ass. Feel your failure. Change your mind. Rebuild the Democrat party to a Left wing platform that CAN WIN.
You're going to get downvoted because you're making some big swings here. I'd say you'll end up being 50% correct when the numbers come out and everything is drilled into.
The singular fact that nobody seems to want to say is that you apparently can now just win by lying to voters, cheating the law, propagandizing everything, and bragging non-stop about doing so. He will not do anything for people in this country or the world, nor will Vance. It's a bait and switch, plain and simple, and people are dumb enough to vote for it. This happened in Italy twice almost 100 years ago, and it took them 15 years to finally get mad enough to just revolt, and hang those people for display.
The unfortunate truth right now is there seems to not be the pushback for this in the US. People are willing to vote against themselves and their neighbors because Trump/Vance say they're going to get you money while they are pillaging you at the same time.
Ask yourself: Why did Donald Trump win. And think about it. The answer is right before you and blazingly far more obvious than any particular action that was within Democrats or Kamala's control.
Trump won because more people voted for him, plain and simple.
For 9 years now I've listened to fellow progressives wring their hands and breathlessly say "I just don't understand how anyone could vote for him!" The problem, the real problem is that for like 95% of us, this statement is the end of the conversation. If the democrats want to win, they need to sit down and really, really consider the "why" of the Trump voter.
Yes, there's racism and yes there's sexism and yes there's xenophobia and christian nationalism that all influence the far right, but there are also plenty of people voting R that don't give a damn about that stuff. As the dust settles, it's becoming increasingly clear that lots of voters voted split-ticket in this cycle, so blaming it all on dogma and party loyalty isn't going to cut it — in fact, the data is suggesting that Americans are less loyal than ever to any particular political party, so what is it specifically about Trump that resonated with so many this time around?
I don't have any exact answers to that question (which is honestly pretty embarrassing since we've all had 9 years to contemplate this), but if I had to guess, I'd say it's something to do with the fact Trump actively acknowledges that things suck right now. "Make America Great Again" is a slogan that inherently implies we're living in an empire in decline. Regardless of which side of the isle they sit on, I think most Americans can agree with the sentiment that things are getting worse, and have been for a while.
Of course, the two sides have wildly different ideas about why things suck — with the right largely blaming the decline on immigration or abortion or LGBT proliferation or some nebulous "eroding of traditional American values", and with the left blaming things on regulatory capture, military adventurism, and the general corporate cannibalization of all our institutions and infrastructure. But both sides lately agree we're heading in the wrong direction, so why is Trump's message more resonant?
Maybe it's because Trump presents them with more tangible "boogiemen" while the Democrats play ineffective defense by pointing at rising GDP or the surging stock market or low unemployment numbers — stats that do nothing to speak to the lived experiences of individual voters. Maybe Democrats need to focus their attention less on policy proposals and "hope and change" and more on "boogiemen" like the right. Stop campaigning against Trump, stop campaigning for incremental change, stop campaigning for culture wars, and start campaigning against people like Elon Musk. Start campaigning against union-busting Howard Shultz. Campaign against Amazon. Campaign against Mark fucking Cuban who hoards $6 billion for himself and then turns around and acts like he gives a damn about the working class while simultaneously padding the pockets of Democrats so that if they ever do actually win, he can be sure his tidy fortune won't be at risk.
Is rent too high? Is the price of groceries becoming a burden? Have wages been stagnant for two decades? Fucking acknowledge it— no, don't just acknowledge it, tell people they're right to feel that way and that they should be fucking angry about it. Then spend every last campaign dollar and stump speech and political add attacking the people who made it that way. Rally people against an actual enemy, the real enemy, and maybe we'll finally start voting for you without having to hold our noses. Of course, the DNC probably has too much vested interest in keeping their corporate donors happy to ever make this the message. After all, the Harris campaign raised nearly a billion dollars this cycle. Then again, what good is a billion bucks if it loses your the house, Senate and presidency?
Anyway, that's just the two cents of a frustrated liberal who isn't terribly surprised by the situation we're now facing once again. Take it with a grain of salt — I'm just as dumb as everyone else.
The first, and foremost failure, is the Republican party.
They are not a failure. They are exactly what they want to be, they are exactly who they said they are, and they won the election. Sounds like the GOP is doing alright to me, from a GOP perspective.
I think they meant the moral failure rather than the election failure fwiw
Fair point.
Alas I do want a 2nd option aside from Trump. I do have morals after all.
The utter lack of RealPolitik in the Democrats mindset is a sickening level of nativity to me.
I dare say they own Reddit and likely were running social media interference at the lowest levels (with false stories of hopium. If you were on /r/politics you know what I’m talking about, focusing on shitty stories that Kamala was ahead)
Finally someone else is saying it. Feels like I've been taking crazy pills.
Notice how the politics subreddit is basically operated like the_donald. It's controlled opposition. During the 45th administration they made a huge deal out of every single thing Trump did. No matter how big or small there was megathreads. What happened during Bidens administration? Fuck all of attention to anything. It was like 50/50 chance on any given week the mods would bother to create big posts for anything significant the administration accomplished. Net effect of making Biden seem more ineffectual. It's basic a strategy of skewing what people are seeing by subtly editorializing the feed.
Throughout the Harris campaign there was scarcely any good discussion about actual policies. There was no shortage of comments saying it looks like she has not much policy. Followed by rare replies that never get any upvotes pointing out yes there's actually an easily digestible 80 page document.
They let the subreddit flood with newsweek articles about how well Harris is polling. Seems to be one of the main diversionary tactics.
A lot of reddit users don't seem to understand that reddit is not a democratic content driven platform. What they see can and is editorialized by the moderators. Hell people can't even figure out the difference between admin (reddit employee) and mod (anonymous users with indeterminate biases/agendas). Some even seem to think reddit employees run subeddits. What a fucking disaster of ignorance but I digress.
All in all it appears reddit never recovered from the 2015-2016 the_donald coup. There was never an answer to that lrlourpresident account which was obviously astroturfing Democrat named subreddits.
I think much of the older userbase of anyone remotely left of center has gradually left by attrition over the years. Coincidentally between 2016 and today they've basically relaunched the platform bringing in whole new waves of unsuspecting users with the desktop redesign, phone app, and the IPO.
Something that hadn't dawned on me until relatively recently with all the Musk Twitter bullshit. After reddit the company became independent from Conde Nast their chief source of funding is Thiel and Andreessen. Both we now know are hardcore MAGA supporting billionaires.
Steve Huffman calling those white supremacists on their platform "valuable discussion" is his "very fine people" moment.
ETA: The DOJ released documents from Russia stating they are to target "community of American gamers, users of reddit and image boards such as 4chan (the backbone of right-wing trends in the US segment of the internet)". Emphasis mine. Comments linking to these documents were being inexplicable removed from the politics subreddit. This whole story got swept off the reddit news cycle real quick.
Ask yourself: Why did Donald Trump win. And think about it. The answer is right before you and blazingly far more obvious than any particular action that was within Democrats or Kamala's control.
What do you personally think the reason was?
Right wing taking over all of traditional media, newspaper media, social media and the left being utterly blind to the media blitz behind the scenes.
No Democrat or leftist was ready to counter message the loss of Washington Post's endorsement, even though it happened after LA Times loss of endorsement.
Anyone who didn't bother to choose Harris deserves Trump. Enjoy!
Keep telling yourself institutions are going to save democracy.
The ultimate responsibility of keeping a functioning democracy lies with the people. Complaining about failing institutions or parties is no more productive than armchair political activity.
Confront people about their choices and how they let this happen. Hold people accountable for all the election promises and obvious outcomes the new administration implements.
But America really has remarkably weak and poorly designed institutions that only work as long people don't abuse it... Which is to neglect human nature and not prepare for it. America's flaunted "checks and balances" never worked
“Andrew Jackson entered the chat…”
I'm not a US citizen, but considering the current global trend, isn't it also possible that the West is slowly but surely turning to fascism again?
I couldn't care less about the democratic party, so not trying to find excuses but everything I read about the US election reminds me of everything I read about... well.. most European elections in the past 10 years.
Mexico recently elected a socialist woman. Europe and American political parties have collectively decided on the strategy of trying to win the neo nazi vote.
Yeah, I'm from Germany and it's happening here too.
The established parties (mainly die Grünen SPD, CDU/CSU and FDP) have been unable for decades to solve problems like decaying infrastructures, pensions, bureaucracy and taxes. They're so disconnected from reality that they probably don't even know what the normal citizen bothers and then with the big immigration waves starting in 2015 and the complete and utter failure in handling it gave rise to parties, mainly the AfD, who promised solutions for everything.
Also, we can not forget the influence Russia and China have on our politics. They want nothing more than Western powers in disarray and it gets widely ignored or dismissed.
Also, we can not forget the influence Russia and China have on our politics. They want nothing more than Western powers in disarray, and it gets widely ignored or dismissed.
This was a huge factor, and one our ruling party will ignore. Youtube and tiktok algorithms radicalized Americans into voting for a Nazi. They told them he wouldn't do the ahit he says he'll do and that the Democrats and brown people are the cause of all of their problems. It's pure propaganda paid for by Russia, China, and probably many other of our enemies.
they are also fascists with billionaire friends. they just aint loud and brazen about it.
always being content with the lesser evil just brings us back to evil anyway.
It is not the failure of a single parties' leadership if a majority votes for fashism.
It is if that leadership consistently refuses to learn from their mistakes and fails to mount any meaningful opposition to fascism as it creeps into more and more control over decades.