this is about the election

a brief plea to engage in a little analysis

I had a variety of conflicting thoughts about whether to post this essay, to be honest, but I found it disingenuous for me to avoid the subject or to treat it superficially. I abhor Trump and everything he stands for; still, I think it is necessary to actively engage with the failures and mistakes of our own party — because we certainly can’t control the GOP — so that, in future elections, we may hope to avoid yet another re-run of 2016 and 2024.

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This is, I guess, about the election (sorry, I’ll be done after this), but mostly about my fear that we've become unable to examine beyond our first instinctual response to an event. In this case, the election results, which for some reason shocked me even though I’d been fearing them for the better part of a year. 

Kamala Harris, a Black and South Asian woman, lost to Donald Trump, a white man. Misogyny and racism are rampant and systemic issues in America. Looking at just these two sets of facts, a lot of people's first reaction to Trump's victory has been: well, obviously this happened because America is racist and sexist. 

An understandable initial reaction, certainly, and not one without merit, but can we really end the analysis there, without digging a little bit deeper? I'm genuinely not trying to be flip when I say this, nor do I want to make light of the fundamentally racist underpinnings of the American electoral system, but I find it worrisome that people can close their universe of facts so quickly and so determinedly once arriving at what they consider to be an easy conclusion. Worrisome, because if the Democratic Party allows its final thesis to be that half of the population hates women and non-white people, then the ensuing result will be to put up white male candidates from now until the end of time. And I don’t particularly care for Gavin Newsom.

So no, I don't think that can be the full picture. I think it is a disservice to the future of this country and of the Democratic Party to consider racism and sexism the full, closed universe of reasons that led to Trump's victory. And I can’t believe it’s too soon to discuss this, because once conclusions solidify in public opinion it becomes difficult to challenge them.

I'm not even saying we have to hold space for the concerns of Trump voters, because honestly, I'm not there. I find that part of the equation difficult, even taking into account that he won only a couple million more votes than in 2020. But I do think we ought to hold space for the reasons that Harris may have lost, which is, in my mind, a different calculus. A productive calculus, even.

I know that context has become, for some reason, a four-letter word to some folks, but listen — we've gotta look at the context. It’s painful, but it’ll be good for us in the long run.

Yes, men — young men especially — are moving further to the right. Incels and their ilk are a growing threat to women. It terrifies me. But I know that sexism can't be the full story when in eight of the ten states that had abortion laws on the ballot, a majority of voters chose to expand or maintain abortion access.¹ Of these eight states, five (Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Florida) went to Trump. 

The Democratic Party continues to hold onto the Narnian belief that centrism will win elections, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Because people want progressive policies. And these policies don’t have to come from the mouths of white men to be successful at the polls. Among the Congressional Progressive Caucus, several women of color (among others: Delia Ramirez in IL-3; Jill Tokuda in HI-2; Nikema Williams in GA-5; Frederica Wilson in FL-24; Rashida Tlaib in MI-12; Ilhan Omar in MN-5; Teresa Leger Fernandez in NM-3; and Veronica Escobar in TX-16) outperformed Harris’ vote in the same districts.

Meanwhile, both Alaska and Missouri voted to (gradually) raise the minimum wage and to require employers to provide paid sick leave. By wide margins, both states also voted for Trump.

We can scream all we want about how seemingly contradictory these voting behaviors are, but there comes a point when the screaming has to find the right audience, and the right audience is not the void that is twitter dot com, but the DNC headquarters and whoever at Kamala HQ decided that Harris should spend more time campaigning with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban, two people who inspire no one but DC consultants, than with popular, progressive members of the party.   

Back in September, during the Great Chappell Roan Debate, I wrote that "[t]he run-up to the election is supposed to be a time of Big Ideas, and yeah, as voters we take into account the fact that some election promises aren't feasible. We know that. But we have to believe that there is the possibility of a brighter future. This election, there is little of that. Instead, there is an oppressive pragmatism at work that is drowning out any hint of a hope for a better world." I was angry then, as I am angry now.

Because I think this was the Harris campaign's major downfall — they kept saying "we're not going back" while putting forth (vague) policy positions that would've been approved by a Bush administration (either, both, I don't care). And if that's the sell, then why wouldn't people who are already leaning conservative vote for a Democrat when they could vote for an actual Republican? 

Frankly, if I had to compare this election to any other, it wouldn't be 2016 or even 2020, it would be 2012. Mitt Romney was, by all accounts, a very qualified candidate. He was the former governor of Massachusetts, for God's sake, and a son of Michigan. Handsome in that Republican way that personally makes me nervous, but I know reassures a lot of people. He spoke in a measured, almost mid-Atlantic accent. His family seemed nice, in a copy-paste sort of way.

Unfortunately for the 2012 GOP, as appealing as he appeared on paper, Romney was as inspiring as a wet blanket, especially compared to a sorta-still-in-his-political-prime Barack Obama. His beliefs didn't seem particularly firm one way or the other, and he didn't seem to hold the electorate, or indeed his own party, in much esteem. He manifested much like a weathervane, his positions not based on any sort of set party values but really, up to the whims of an amorphous coalition of internal pollsters and consultants.

But, as Romney and now Harris found out, it turns out that people like knowing who they're voting for, and they are partial to candidates who make specific policy promises that they can later hold them to. Usually, that is done via a primary election: an exhausting time, yes, but one that generates consensus and (ideally) enthusiasm within the party. I know that many people were happy to have a shortened election season this year, but there is value in a primary, in forcing candidates to define themselves in a methodical and competitive fashion (debates, town halls, slews of interviews). Bernie Sanders' success in 2016 and 2020, for instance, helped push Hillary Clinton (who, lest we forget, won the popular vote) and even more so, Joe Biden, towards more progressive policies. 

At best, a primary shows the democratic process at work. People like that.

The blame for this year's lack of Democratic primaries does not, of course, lie with Harris, but with Biden and his team choosing hubris over reality. In taking months to make a decision that should've been made last year at the latest, he deprived the party — the members, not its leaders — of the chance to shape and elect a more viable nominee. 

So no, not Harris's fault that there was no Democratic primary. But there was a moment, when Biden first dropped out, when the enthusiasm was there from all corners of the party, when it seemed like she would distance herself from Biden's record on Gaza, that by choosing a progressive like Tim Walz as her running mate she'd embrace similar policy positions, that she would move us forward instead of sticking to the status quo.

Instead, within weeks we were treated to: the shutting out of the Uncommitted Movement at the DNC convention; repeated support of fracking; seeking out the Cheney endorsements; a vow to ensure that America would remain the "strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world;" the removal of the death penalty's abolition from the party platform; bragging about having drafted "the strongest border bill in decades;" a promise to include Republicans in her cabinet despite this once again being "the most important election in our lifetime" to defeat said Republicans; Ritchie Torres, insultingly, being sent to appeal to Michigan voters; and a bafflingly meek, states' rights response to trans issues. Abortion was the only issue on which the candidate stood firm, and even that ended up being tied almost exclusively to pregnancy complications or pregnancies from rape or incest. 

Nothing significant about universal health care, an increase to the minimum wage, criminal justice reform (other than a last-minute pledge to legalize recreational marijuana), doing something — anything — about super PACs, student loan forgiveness, rebuilding the public health ecosystem, or meaningful climate policies. 

Puzzlingly, the Biden administration’s strong labor and anti-trust record was barely touted by the Harris campaign, despite the working class being the voting bloc the party was supposedly going after.

We were told this had to happen so that the party could win over moderate Republicans. Well, this is how Republicans and Democrats voted, as compared to 2020:

Screenshot from NBC News.

It is a candidate and a party's job to gain voters' support, either by meeting them at least halfway (à la Biden in 2020) or helping them to envision a future they didn't even think was possible (à la Obama in 2008). This election, the Democratic Party did neither.

So yes, misogyny and racism most likely cost Harris more than a few votes. I'm not arguing otherwise. But pretending that she was the perfect candidate who ran a perfect campaign will not help us. Not when she lost over the same reasons progressives had been warning Biden would lose. Much like John Kerry’s, Romney’s, and Clinton’s in 2004, 2012, and 2016 respectively, this year's losing campaign was run under the mysteriously reached assumption that the base was automatically secured as the candidate scrambled to the center to appeal to moderates. 

I guess I find it difficult to believe that Harris, the same candidate who couldn't think of a single thing that would differentiate her agenda from that of Biden, the president who did nothing as college students across the nation were arrested and assaulted for protesting the United States' funding of Palestinian deaths, only lost because she was a Black woman. It's a little insulting to our very recent collective memory, not to mention counterproductive, to distill the results to identity alone. 

To be honest, I find this more heartening than anything else. It means there are actionable steps the party can take. Because there is a solution, should the DNC ever decide to listen to anyone outside of the four corners of a political consultant's office, and the solution is to put forth candidates and platforms that are responsive to the base, as opposed to defensive and contemptuous towards it. We have to create a future where our party leaders do not water down our ideologies to seek a voting bloc that does not exist.

In the absence of Trumpism as an oppositional force, what does the party stand for? It's hard to tell these days. 

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1. Even though it didn't meet the (insane) 60% threshold by three percentage points, I'm choosing to include Florida in this count.