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.
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.
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 is what happens when anyone that warns someone is sick gets burnt at the stake as a witch.
When your own party is criticizing the candidate, you need to realize that 17 million more aren't going to put the effort into complaining, they're not going to hold their nose and vote.
They're just gonna stay home.
So when the politically active tries to warn the party, it would behoove the party to listen to it's base.
Instead of saying that Harris or the dnc dropped the ball, consider that over half the voting population in the US chose a senile, white, male, racist, felon who increased your taxes unless you were rich and stole classified documents, that is chums with Putin.
Maybe instead of "the dnc dropped the ball" it could be considered that the slight majority of Americans are just racist, sexist, uneducated, short sighted idiots?
No one needed to know much beyond seeing how bad trump has been. There shouldn't have needed to be a "make Harris better" plan. America seen that trump shitbox and still chose him.
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.
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.
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.