Here in the USA, there's still a lot of chaos surrounding Election Day fallout. Trump apparently won, and Harris made a concession speech even though some states haven't finished counting and reporting their votes. It looks like both a popular vote and Electoral College win for the GOP.
How did this happen? I have a few ideas which may point to lessons the Democrats need to learn. Admittedly, I am no more the target demographic of the DNC than I am the GOP, but that also might make me a better advisor than someone steeped in one party or the other.
WAR! What is it good for?
Harris was endorsed by Barack Obama, the man who escalated George W Bush's bloody, pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2008-2016, and the Cheneys, Republican party war hawks from at least 2000-present. She has also served as Vice President while Joe Biden funneled arms and money into Ukraine and supported Israeli reprisals against Gazan civilians for Hamas terrorism.
Trump gained the support of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two former Democrats known for less-belligerent positions. He has also actively courted more libertarian-leaning anti-war conservatives. For those who see peace as a deciding issue, he had a significant advantage.
Just as the Republicans spent decades talking small government while ballooning debts and deficits, the Democrats talked peace while expanding the military-industrial complex and finding excuses to wage new wars or expand existing conflicts. Harris didn't even try to talk peace, though. Obama, Biden, and Harris have stripped away the opportunity for playing that position in the slightest. Polls suggest foreign policy was a relatively minor issue, but when margins are razor-thin, giving up the anti-war vote was a major loss.
COVID
Trump still celebrates launching "Operation Warp Speed" and oversaw initial lockdown policies for almost a year before Biden was inaugurated.
The Biden/Harris team ramped up the rhetoric of fear, and oversaw draconian restrictions on commerce and discourse. Remember the 2021 warnings of "a winter of severe illness and death"? Long after the general public realized the social distancing rules and mask mandates were more theater than science, restrictions and social engineering rhetoric continued. Dissent was condemned as "misinformation" at best, regardless of reasoning and evidence.
I also can't help but be perplexed by the flip from criticizing the pharmaceutical corporations to celebrating them as saviors. I remember a bizarre shift from rejecting Trump and Big Pharma to embracing Biden and vaccine mandates as the fear machine went into overdrive. Harris could have admitted policies were misguided and apologized, but she would prefer to ignore that. Depsite his initial catastrophic missteps from the position of liberty, Trump managed to make himself look like less of a bully on this because of how badly the Biden/Harris team botched the topic. Choosing Walz as VP was a terrible misstep, too, considering his track record on draconian COVID policies at the state level.
Media Bias and Censorship
COVID was just one policy of many resulting in a deeply disturbing collusion between government and corporate interests. Social media companies not only jumped on the bandwagon to stifle web searches and content creation which rightly or wrongly opposed the official COVID policies. They also colluded to squelch the Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinformation."
More recently, throughout the 2024 campaign cycle, much of the corporate media machine has transparently operated in lockstep to promote Biden and Harris through the use of similar language across many channels. remember how everyone seemed to simultaneously decide J.D. Vance was "weird"? And just like with the Hunter Biden laptop four years ago, there was obvious bias in ignoring dubious claims by the Democrats while leaping on every possible flaw or questionable argument from Trump and Vance in 2024.
The Democrats condemned talk radio in the 1990s and early 2000s. Now they condemn podcasters like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson today as having a disproportionate effect on the populace from "the right" while ignoring the Democrat-friendly views on healthcare and wealth redistribution positions those two hosts tend to favor. It's a Manichaean dualistic view of "if you're not with us, you're against us."
The corporate media have spent the last 8+ years now displaying open bias against Trump while masquerading as serious balanced journalists. "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA FELONY FELONY FELONY SECRET DOCUMENTS AND HUSH MONEY," they shouted, not because they had real stories, but because they had an agenda. In some cases, there was a real story behind the headlines, but facts were abandoned for narrative. Just look at the recent Madison Square Garden rally where reporters acted like the only thing that had ever happened there beforehand was a literal Nazi rally 85 years ago, 7 years before Trump was even born, in a different building at another address. This was blatant yellow journalism, and everyone with any inkling of curiosity could see it. I'm not saying there's nothing to criticize about Trump, I'm saying those real issues are invariably set aside for sensationalist nonsense.
And then there's the denial that Biden was a senile old coot until it was time to stage a coup. More on that later.
Instead of demonizing disagreement and dissent, the Democrats could demonstrate delicacy and discernment in debates. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the alliterative opportunities) Harris and Walz have both made statements on the record suggesting top-down censorship of "misinformation" even after so many honest questions about COVID policies, the laptop, foreign entanglements, and more have proven true after pressure to suppress them.
Sex, Race, and Identity
The Democrats have long been vocal about feminist and minority concerns, but until fairly recently they were cool toward the gay rights movement. In the past few campaign cycles, they wholeheartedly embraced intersectionality and identitarianism. In the process, they have openly condemned any disagreement as evidence of hatred. Again, "if you're not with us, you're against us." Mostly rural, mostly WASPish people are portrayed as being racially guilty of every atrocity in American history.
Progressive activists have long insisted white men share a genetic responsibility for rape and slavery, gun owners should all be collectively punished for violent crime, and traditionalists should embrace every single aspect of the LGBTQIA+ activist platform. Online, there has long been loud dismissal and mockery of men who point out their own perceptions of injustice and systemic abuse, because they are part of "the patriarchy." However, in this tight race, that rhetoric suddenly needed to change. This was made most painfully obvious by the ham-fisted pandering ads suggesting that voting for Harris was masculine. They have a caricature of the right in their minds and they put it on full display in the most off-putting way possible as a last-gasp effort to build momentum.
Democrats need to stop asserting anyone who disagrees with their "social justice" policies only want to promote injustice, and stop treating Caucasians, Christians, heterosexuals, and men in general as inherently problematic groups. The working class still has a lingering bias toward faith and tradition, so pushing "woke" agendas and demonizing critics so aggressively pushed a lot of people away from the party.
It's the economy, stupid!
There has been a severe mismatch between the rhetoric from the Biden/Harris administration and the media compared to the experiences of the average Joe. We have been told for years we had a soft landing, no, I mean, transitory, uh... controlled inflation? Whatever it is, don't worry about it! This is the best economic recovery ever! Bidenomics is bringing prosperity and progress. Only doom-and-gloom naysayers who can't be pleased with anything would ever disagree!
But the fact remains we have had unprecedented money supply inflation and supply chain restrictions for years now. It started under Trump, but accelerated under Biden. Reduced rates of inflation do not mean a reversal of price trends any more than reduced weight gain rates count as losing weight.
That pesky inverted yield curve still looms, meaning there is little incentive for long-term investment and savings which are necessary building blocks for economic progress. This is yet another consequence of federal reserve manipulation of interest rates and money supply.
Trump also tapped into nationalism and memory of historic American productivity to call for tariffs. Instead of explaining absolute advantage, comparative advantage, and the benefits of trade for peace and prosperity, Biden advocated subsidies and regulatory overreach. However, he couldn't muster the same bluster as Trump, and just looked like he was trying to imitate his predecessor in the Oval Office at best.
For better or worse, Trump has the image of someone who will promote economic growth. People need good jobs and good pay, and he had the better sales pitch. I don't think he can really deliver, but the Harris campaign didn't even try to sell a real economic plan.
Harris Herself
Harris has made a lot of noise about being a prosecutor. She prosecuted California's war on drugs, among other things. This disproportionately harmed urban minority communities. In turn, this created a lot of hostility. She was the police state. That is some heavy baggage.
In 2020, Harris didn't even make it to the Iowa Caucuses. There was no grassroots support for her. More baggage. Biden appointed her as VP primarily because she ticked gender and ethnicity boxes while failing to upstage a doddering old man, not because she had special qualifications and experience related to being VP.
Then, after a major media PR campaign insisting he was "sharp as a tack," Biden flopped on the debate stage, flubbed some interviews, and had to be put out to pasture because it was clear the emperor had no clothes. Harris avoided the primaries and skipped to the head of the line based on nothing but being the heir apparent as VP.
Harris was a poor interview guest, too. She seemed to avoid the limelight, something everyone has known for years to be Trump's favorite place to be. Trump talked to everyone he could, and even survived the Joe Rogan Experience. Harris bowed out of anything that wasn't a puff piece. That showed weakness in a campaign where Trump could look comparatively garrulous.
My conclusion
The Democrats handed themselves this loss. Trump is a divisive figure in his own right with a track record they could have used to extraordinary effect had they resisted the urge for hyperbolic accusations. Harris could have differentiated herself from Biden and made an appeal to rural America, but instead she chose the same old tired tropes people have heard for years, disregarding the concerns of vast swathes of the population in the process.
I'm not happy Trump won, but I'm glad Harris lost. I just wish we had good people in both parties, but good people don't generally want political power. Salvation doesn't come from democracy, and progress does not flow from the pen of the legislator alongside the ink they use to sign new laws.
In one sense, it doesn't really matter who wins. The President is in large part a figurehead, and the bureaucratic leviathan will continue regardless. Our best option is still to govern ourselves and pursue voluntary communities where we can achieve success in spite of the political class. They do not represent us, do not serve us, and cannot really help us. We will manage in spite of them, not because of them. Instead of mourning Harris' loss or celebrating Trump's win, look to your sphere of control and do what you can for yourself and your neighbors to weather the coming storm. I just hope my forecast is as wrong as a meteorologist's.
