This could be a very long list.
In this post, I will give my primary reasons why Kamala DID lose. I will try to truncate it.
The Entire Democratic Party Leadership
Fire them all. Every single person.
Bernie put the following better than I can: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
Or David Axelrod, Obama’s lead campaign strategist: “You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ [The Democratic Party] has increasingly become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party. Among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”
And it’s not just workers who feel ignored by Democratic elites: Suburban soccer moms. Socially liberal businesspeople. Practicing Christians. Jewish people. Latino people. White people. Independents. Men.
All this adds up.
My primary blame goes to today’s Democratic party elders. They all have skillfully blamed somebody else. Blame the Philadelphia Campaign Manager. Or some other mid-level schmuck. After decades of practice, the party seniority is very skilled at pointing fingers. And ending careers of anybody who criticizes them.
In early 2024, Dean Phillips was the only person who had the courage to stand up and speak the Truth about Joe Biden. Because of this, Dean Phillips’ political career was ended.
Democrats do not care about competency. Democrats do not care about who has the best interests of the people at heart. Democrats care about only one thing: seniority.
Exhibit A is Steny Hoyer. 85 years old, born in 1939, and did absolutely nothing as House Majority Leader for 14 years. Here is his take on Democratic Party leadership in December 2024: “I’m for seniority. So I think the burden of proof is on the person who’s saying that the senior person ought not to have it.”
This person right here is the problem.
But nobody will dare speak up against such a venerable figure such as Steny Hoyer. Just look at what happened to Dean Phillips.
Exhibit B is James Clyburn, who like Hoyer did nothing for 14 years in leadership, and still holds a Congressional leadership position today.
As a result, you have a Democratic Party run by weak leaders like Chuck Schumer, do-nothing hangers-on like Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren, and octogenarians who should relax and enjoy retirement already like Nancy Pelosi, Donna Brazille, Hoyer, Clyburn, Maxine Waters, Ben Cardin, Barbara Boxer, etc., etc., etc.
Republicans have term limits for committee chairmanships, to prevent this very thing from happening. Democrats do not.
I have been saying this on Medium for years: the leadership of today’s Democratic Party does not give two shits about the people they are supposed to represent. They have earned (or schemed) their way into tenured positions, and their ONLY concern is protecting their own status.
Meanwhile, there are some very well qualified Democrats who could truly usher in a new generation of leadership. Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, and Stephanie Murphy are some of my top picks. But each of them has learned it is far better to keep their mouths shut.
Left-leaning types claim the Republican Party is all about “falling in line.” To which I agree. So please acknowledge the Democratic Party is every bit the same.
DEMOCRATS wanted Trump
It wasn’t just MAGA fanatics who were salivating for Trump to run again. It was Democratic strategists.
Take the CNN Town Hall, in May 2023.
Packed the house with die-hard Trump supporters, and asked provocative questions designed to stoke the flames. Then, CNN’s own CEO justified the town hall, saying “I absolutely, unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night.”
I cannot think of a single event that could have done more to bring Trump’s name back into everyday discussion.
Then, again in 2023, four activist Democratic Attorneys General filed charges all within one week of each other. After years of sitting on these cases. These (arguably political) charges kept Trump’s name on the front page. This gave him all the publicity and attention he would need.
Finally, when Trump had a serious competitor named Nikki Haley, the Democratic establishment / mainstream media stopped attacking Trump, and pointed all their guns at Haley. They REALLY did not want her to win the nomination.
I do not like this trend toward doing everything possible to promote the very most radical extremist from the other side, in an attempt to make it easier for your own lousy candidate to win the election simply by being the lesser evil.
So if you want somebody to blame for Trump even existing today, point the finger at Democratic Party strategists.
Joe Biden’s Enablers
The blame here is NOT Joe Biden.
I don’t think Ol’ Joe was lucid or conscious enough to make decisions by this point.
No, blame goes to people who decided he should stay. Who were they? What was said behind closed doors? Open up the books, please. I want names, quotes, and meeting recordings.
Transparency. We have a right to know.
Also include every single person who went on talk shows and news shows to say Joe Biden was “Sharp,” “Focused,” “On Top of His Game,” and other Pants On Fire lies. (Jon Stewart, 12:19 start time)
Get them all removed and blacklisted from Washington D.C.
Forever.
Joe Biden should have announced he was not running again in late 2023. NOT mid-2024.
This would have allowed for an inclusive, democratic primary process where the will of the people could be heard.
Which is exactly what happened in 2020. And you know what? The Democrats won that year.
Donald Trump hasn’t changed since then. So had there been a full primary process, the result would have been another D victory.
Kamala Harris
Any way you slice it, Kamala was a bad candidate.
I’ve covered this extensively in my previous post, Why I Will Not Vote For Kamala.
I will not repeat what I said there. But here are additional reasons why I think Kamala was a bad candidate:
- She never answered a difficult question. All she did was pivot to Donald Trump
- She was a terrible public speaker. This is actually a common fault among leaders: George W. Bush, LBJ, King George during WWII, Mark Zuckerberg. But Kamala was next level bad
- She didn’t handle live situations well at all. She was a master of still pictures. But the Presidency requires more than posing for a picture
- She never defined her policies. Her website had a lot of fluff with few specifics. Her speeches, even moreso
- She was unrelatable. I suppose Black women could relate with her. And maybe Democrats who were advancing their careers. But the rest of the country…compare her vs Bill Clinton in 1992. Or Obama in 2008. Or even Reagan in 1980
- She did nothing to support her fellow Democrats. She worked hard only for herself. Evidence: what has she done since conceding? Released one drunk video, and done nothing to help the party in any way. I doubt she ever will
I thought Bill Whitaker’s 60 Minutes interview was beautiful. He did everything he should have. Best journalism of 2024, in my opinion. I would give him a Pulitzer Prize. Because it was this interview, that made us all aware of what was really going on.
Bret Baier was more conservative and partisan. It was Fox after all, and he bought up topics his network wanted to air. But he also had some good points and questions, whose legitimate analysis got drowned out by “Bret Baier kept cutting of Kamala Harris” chants when he wouldn’t let her speak for 7 minutes straight.
EVERYBODY on the Left, Liberal, and Progressive side should watch this video from Frank Lutz, and let it sink in. Granted, Frank Lutz leans Republican. But he is not speaking here as a partisan. I especially relate with this, as I am that middle-class man who voted for Clinton, voted for Biden, and could not vote for Harris.
The Harris Campaign
This was an absolutely awful campaign.
First, how do you blow through $1.5 Billion in three months, and lose all three branches of government? AND end up tens of millions in debt.
Think of all the good we could do with $1.5 Billion…
Why did the campaign hole her up in a bubble, for weeks after she secured the nomination? No press conferences, no interviews, nothing.
The entire campaign promoted only one positive: excitement. There was no substance in the messaging. There were no memorable lines. There were no issues to rally around (again to reference Bernie, everybody knew what his #1 issue was). It was just a chorus of enablers repeating how “exciting” things were. You can’t light a sustainable fire with just lighter fluid. You need actual, durable fuel. The Harris campaign provided no durable fuel.
Last, look at all of the Democratic infighting that took place for the first month since the election. Had this been a solid and unified campaign, they would have lost with grace. But not only are they still throwing stones at each other, but they are doing so deliberately as a strategy to survive. Culturally and operationally, this was a poorly-run campaign.
Conclusion
I was open to write a Part 3, why Trump Won. Because he did do things that helped him convince people who were on the fence. But folks here on Medium do not seem very interested in truth, or fixing fundamental problems at a grass roots level. So I think I will save my time.
