I was wrong about this election. Maybe I erred largely on the side...
The Editorial Board@johnastoehr
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Nov 09, 2024
~4 min read
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1. I was wrong about this election. Maybe I erred largely on the side of hoping too much. I hoped that most people in America understood that Donald Trump was the worst candidate of our lifetimes.
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2. And as a consequence of understanding that, I hoped that most people would make the right decision for themselves, their children and their country. How wrong I was.
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3. I don’t blame Kamala Harris. I don’t think anyone should. The vice president ran pretty much the perfect campaign, according to people who have worked with presidential nominees.
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4. In terms of policy, messaging, get-out-the-vote – it was as good as anyone could expect from a candidate who started in July. Her campaign was “all gas, no brakes.” I think she did everything she could. So did all the pro-democracy people out there. It just wasn’t enough.
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5. While all of these complaints have merit in and of themselves, I think none of them explains what happened on their own.
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6. Bottom line: most people, which is to say, most white people in this still majority-white country, wanted what Trump was offering them, even though what he was actually offering was either little more than vengeance or policies that will hurt everyone if implemented.
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7. Trump is, as a shrewd observer put it, the whitest white man we have ever seen. That can erase a multitude of sins.
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8. “So am I to understand that leading a coup, promoting the Big Lie, being found liable for rape & guilt of fraud, growing more extreme, threatening to be a dictator and suffering dementia" strengthened Trump." David Rothkopf said. “It does not compute.”
But it kinda does.
But it kinda does.
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9. If it was hard for my liberal and Democratic brethren to hear before the election, it shouldn’t be now. Lots of Americans do not believe in democracy in any universal sense.
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10. They believe in democracy that is exclusive, indeed that is punitive. Trump has promised retribution against his enemies and lots of Americans liked the sound of that.
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11. My hope was that there were more people who wanted our democracy to be inclusive than there were those who wanted it to be exclusive.
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12. My hope was that the story of progress in America, with expanding rights and opportunities for all, would continue the way it seemed to after Joe Biden’s election.
It’s moments like this, in the aftermath of an election, when I find myself second-guessing such hopes.
It’s moments like this, in the aftermath of an election, when I find myself second-guessing such hopes.
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13. Some are already saying that the Democrat Party needs to soul-search. The election, said Connecticut’s Democratic Governor Ned Lamont,
ctmirror.org/2024/11/06/ct-…
ctmirror.org/2024/11/06/ct-…
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14. But I don’t think the Democrats need to change who they are and what they stand for to reach just enough white people in just enough swing states.
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15. The Biden presidency put the federal government on the side of the working and middle classes. The Harris campaign aimed to build on that by expanding Medicare, cutting taxes for families, helping small businesses grow, fighting for labor rights and so on.
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16. The Democratic Party as it stands is a multiracial party oriented economically toward everyone who works for a living.
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17. In other words, the Democratic Party is populist in that it stands for and advances policies that are popular. The Republicans know and fear that.
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18. Otherwise, they would not have taken credit for infrastructure projects that Biden and the Dems enacted & that nearly every Republican voted against. Moreover, when pollsters ask which they like best, majorities usually favor Dem policies over policies that the GOP offers.
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19. What the Democrats do not do, but that the Republicans do do, is single out to ridicule a subgroup or subculture for the purpose of making just enough white people in just enough swing states feel better about themselves.
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20. To be precise, the Democrats do not tear down immigrants or trans people or anyone to give the impression of justice being served to voters who believe that minorities are taking something from them.
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21. They do not dance around that gray area between bigotry and “the economy.” They don’t do that and never should. If they do, they will collapse, as a party, from the inside out.
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22. But what should the Democrats do?
Whatever they do, it had better be with the understanding that we are now living in a new age of fear, ignorance and superstition to such a staggering degree that we will go back if the Democratic Party doesn’t take it seriously.
Whatever they do, it had better be with the understanding that we are now living in a new age of fear, ignorance and superstition to such a staggering degree that we will go back if the Democratic Party doesn’t take it seriously.
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23. Lies, propaganda and disinformation are coming from all corners of the globe, including from places like Russia, China and Iran, but the clearinghouse here is the GOP and the rightwing media apparatus.
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24. Joe Biden and the Dems saved the economy and made it the envy of the world. They pulled us out of a pandemic that killed a million of us. They brought prosperity back to the “left behind” counties. They tamed inflation without triggering a ruinous recession.
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25. But none of that mattered to swing-state voters awash in lies. The Forward’s @JewishWonk put it this way:
Alex גדעון בן װעלװל@JewishWonk
If your media consumption is a Fox morning show, Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Jordan Peterson, Prager, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, right wing memes on reddit, Twitter, and Instagram, and your nightly consumption is Fox, you will have no way of knowing anything good Dems do.
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@JewishWonk 26. /end
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@JewishWonk 27. Here's the sub link. It's just $6 a month or $60 a year (save 17 percent!) pay.hype.co/27185c25-40d9-…
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