Why did Kamala Harris lose the Presidential election? How the Democrats miscalculated & misjudged the campaign trail & how they stopped serving the public who opted to once again vote Donald Trump back into office.
Yes by now it’s official, Donald Trump has won the US Presidential elections. But what went wrong for Kamala Harris and the Democrats?
Notwithstanding that the Democratic Party‘s challenges were obvious from the moment Kamala Harris became the nominee after a momentous fall from grace of Joe Biden, his ongoing gaffes, ongoing senility and what increasingly became apparent to the public that he could not even put a cogent thought in place along with him being the ‘man in charge’ post COVID as the public struggled to stay afloat with skyrocketing grocery items, rent and the pricing of housing.
Someone was going to pay dearly for the state of affairs and the perceived economic mismanagement, and sadly for Harris, she was joined to the hip of the incumbent government that had ‘mismanaged’ the economy and by default, an incumbent government almost always loses when an economy sours or fails to perform relative to public expectations.
It was going to be an insurmountable task for Harris beyond the ever increasing economic disparity of the haves and have nots struggling post COVID to stay afloat.
But there are other issues that preempted Kamala, from the perception that as a black/Asian women she was not up to the task, she had only inherited the mantle of the Democrat’s Presidential candidate by chance (after the DNC hurriedly threw Biden away and chose to replace him with the VP who was never meant to be a real contender but rather cynically pandering to the ‘feel good’ of progressive politics- a woman of color) and even then she did not have to prove to the public she actually qualified for her party’s nomination when the DNC shoed her in without fielding a stable of potential candidates.
Here below are a catapult of reasons why the Democratic party lost to Donald Trump’s MAGA platform and why Harris herself specifically went wrong and why she failed to motivate voters (especially traditional progressive liberal voters and the youth who chose to stay away, whilst Trump supporters came out to support their candidates en-masse despite ‘vague’ promises he would make their lives ‘great’ again).
Economic pain
There is a huge gap between how the US economy is going and how the public perceives it’s going.
Under the Biden administration, the economy has improved significantly on the key indicators of unemployment, inflation and growth. But Americans feel like they’re doing it tougher than they ever have, something that has been termed “the vibecession”.
It’s not all just perception either. Goods that people buy every week — groceries and petrol — are far more expensive than they were pre-COVID.
In recent decades, the gap between the haves and have-nots in America has widened. The middle class has shrunk. Formerly prosperous towns have struggled as jobs have moved offshore.
Politically, incumbent governments almost always pay the price when voters are feeling economic pain and that would have been the case whether Joe Biden or Kamala Harris was the nominee.
Harris was left with an impossible task: to attempt to share the credit for the economic achievements of the Biden administration without being seen to minimise the real financial hardship many Americans feel and are experiencing (with the lion’s share of the spoils going to the top 10% and the bottom 10% who have seen a bump in hourly wages while leaving out the majority).
Focusing on woke progressive causes rather that meat and potato issues affecting everyday Americans.
While mainstream voters have fretted about how to make ends meet and wondered why life is harder for their kids than it was for their parents, the noisiest wing of the Democratic Party has been preoccupied by what some call culture war issues, including gender affirmative health care, #defundthepolice and Gaza.
For Americans who baulk at those progressive causes, (for many it’s obvious there should be no racism, that gay rights should be heeded and respected and trans rights also matter) but to seemingly overwhelmingly concentrate on these cultural issues amid a patina of ‘wokism’ and political correctness (that caters to the politically elite and million dollar celebrity endorsements, it does not feed the everyday man’s concerns about his or her own wellbeing and survival) while ignoring (perhaps by design) average American’s legitimate concerns on how to pay for increasing grocery bills, cost of accommodation and affordable healthcare, were obvious targets- targets that the Democrat party chose to look over (whether because their lucrative donors don’t want them to actually enact policies that might aid the public at their expense or lost profits) whether by calculated design, smugness or indifference to the perceived and legitimate pains of the public – who got their revenge by voting out the Democrats.
Yes in politics one is ultimately held to account by the public who politicians and government officials are supposed to represent and fight for (as opposed to the special interest groups and incoming campaign donations that the Democrat party has obsequiously instead chosen to cater and focus on).
Voting for the woke and politically correct vote does not feed or get the public ahead
Worse, for many Americans, many feared when Democrats opted to run a liberal candidate from the progressive heartland of San Francisco, some swing voters, and Republicans who dislike Trump, were likely to be suspicious that Kamala Harris would be a Trojan horse for the implementation of the kind of ‘woke‘ agenda they hate and fear.
Woke agenda may to some degree alleviate to some degree bias and discrimination that certain sectors of the public get to experience, but once again in a post COVID environment where many continued to struggle with staying afloat, the displacement of once plentiful manufacturing jobs all exported overseas, these ‘politically correct’ mandates were never going to appeal to an economic challenged public who have greater concerns to tend with (their own economic success and social mobility) rather than the perceived marginalized groups who had it bad or who also were now going to prove that they could also be a man or drink beer in a bath-tub and appeal to the average everyday man.
Ultimately whether one likes it or not, there are reasons why perceived gender roles, social biases exist and are deep rooted and focusing on alleviating or normalizing such biases was never going to appeal to the wider public – and why should it?
Democrat campaign misjudgements & Genocide
While Trump was tossing fries at McDonald’s and wearing his ‘garbage’ can uniform (the reality is he lives in a very select and privileged world, but illusion and marketing are another thing), Kamala Harris was too busy being enamored by Hollywood celebrity (who frankly live in their own ivory multi-million dollar tower and are divorced from what is really going on the ground).
Much was made of the value of the Beyonce endorsement of Harris at a rally last month. The music megastar’s gleaming, lustrous hair screamed: ‘I spent more on this colour, cut and blow-dry than you earn in a month.’
Talking about women, and representing the interests of women (beyond female celebrities) was the fact that last month’s Democrat rally failed to feature not one Arabic woman and their legitimate gripes in the aftermath of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the ongoing genocide inflicted on Palestinian civilians (and now moving to southern Lebanon) abetted by the Biden administration (yes I said it, disagree with this author if you will).
At least offer a cease-fire? In fact the Green’s Jill Stein did just that, winning 22% of votes in Dearborn, Michigan compared to 28% to Democrats.
But by tacit ignorance that was never going to be in play but a celebrity and Taylor Swift’s endorsement was on the other hand ‘perceived’ as too valuable. Once again who are the real people on the ground and what are their legitimate concerns and was Harris and her campaign ever going to offer respite? War is ugly and any rational person wants it to all stop.
Of course, despite Donald Trump’s vague assurances he will put an end to all the world conflict, including Ukraine and Gaza, he has yet to script a plan and one is wanton to believe he will only further engender the misery being felt by local Palestinian civilians given his past ‘enamored’ relationship with Israel and that nation’s controversial apartheid policies (at some point one can’t keep pointing their finger at Hamas and blame them for civilians’ misfortune, death and dislocation).
Human crises are in front of us at the pulse of a switch on our cellphones and sadly they continue and the public continues to demand these issues be resolved and that other humans also get to live a life in pride, safety and ‘fair go.’ Sadly no real attempt was made to address these issues, in fact only engender them, give or take a few feeble promises to ratchet down arms shipments to Israel only to ramp them back when the media headline moved on to the next headline tomorrow morning.
Voter motivation and turnout
We know that American voters are more polarised than ever. Where voters once voted for the party they liked the best, the one whose values best aligned with their own and that offered the policies with which they most agreed that has all changed.
American voters are now more motivated by negative partisanship: they vote for a party because they really hate the opposing party. You don’t have to particularly trust, understand, agree with, or even know what your party is offering; you simply have to find it less offensive than the values and beliefs of the other side. Vote for the lesser evil has become a real emblem in American discourse.
Turnout figures and demographic breakdowns in coming days will give better insights into this, but it would appear Trump voters were more motivated than Harris voters.
This is unsurprising because there has never been a more effective or extreme negative campaigner than Trump in American history. He was able to mobilise his base in 2021 to attack the very seat of American democracy, the US Capitol. Of course he can motivate them to tick a box by whipping up their hatred of Democrats.
Young voters who are increasingly vexed by their ‘dismal’ opportunities and their fierce (some would argue ‘idealistic’ opposition to the war in Gaza) chose to sit the election out. Independents and progressives too who once may have voted for the Democrats (to keep the ‘greater evil’ out of office) decided this time they could not bring themselves to do it.
Kamala Harris the candidate herself – not particularly likeable and no one knew what she stood for
While Trump once again appealed to the battler (as he did when he took on Hillary Clinton in 2016) Kamala Harris appealed to the elites and neoliberal quotient and for a society grappling with economic woes and a sense that they are generally no longer living the promised American Dream, Harris’s giggles and maniacal laughs did little to assuage voters she would fight their cause and whether she is at all credible and not full of sh*t.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Kamala just pretended to call a voter but then accidentally showed her screen
She was on the camera app pic.twitter.com/pfvNaq1VdB
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 5, 2024
She fell into the role of Democrat nominee by accident, not necessarily because of merit, skills or talent or the undefinable quotient, which Trump and other political greats have- is the charisma and perceived leadership and chops to get things done and serve the nation and the public.
Of course whether Trump will actually deliver on his pledge to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN remains to be seen and yet the public would rather give an arguably chauvinist, misogynist and yes convicted felon another chance probably says more about Kamala Harris’ lack of general appeal than America’s unwavering belief in Trump the man.
Was Trump ever beatable? It’s hard to know. But it’s very clear that Americans, more than ever, are buying what he’s selling.
Given the United States still has the world’s biggest military, the world’s biggest economy and the world’s most influential culture, the rest of us around the globe are strapped into a second spin of the Trump rollercoaster as well. It will be fun to watch. Hopefully the public gets a leg up this time…
