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Yes, yes, the election isn’t over yet. But let’s really start asking the hard question here: why, after four years of chaos, and a year of horribly mishandling a pandemic costing hundreds of thousands of lives, did Trump still do this well?
Obviously for a group of people racism and white supremacy are the answer. They were always going to vote Trump, but what about the other voters? Where did Democrats go wrong?
For starters, the lesson that Dems did not learn in 2016 that replayed last night is that you cannot win by running against Trumpism. You will not win on a platform of not being Trump. People want to hear policies and how they will help them. This is why Bernie has been popular.
Another thing: Despite how bad the past four years have felt and been to many of us, a good number of Americans were not directly negatively impacted by policies enacted by Trump. They may have even disagreed with those policies, but they didn’t have skin in the game, so to speak
But for the past four years, one thing has definitely happened: the stock market went up. Now, the stock market and the economy are not the same, but what it does indicate is the willingness of wealthy people to plug their money in and invest. When the COVID lockdown happened...
stocks temporarily tanked, investors were skittish. Businesses shuttered, people lost their jobs, and the workers struggled. That struggle is a recent memory. The thought of another shutdown, something Trump swears not to do, is terrifying to them.
Biden was also not a well-liked candidate. I recently drove most of the way across the country through many swing states, and you know what I didn’t see? ANY BIDEN SIGNS. Seriously. It was Trump sign after Trump sign throughout PA, OH, IL, IN. Back when the Dem field was packed,
Biden was NOT performing well. The field inexplicably voluntarily self-destructed and fell behind him to stop the more progressive candidate (with policies that were extremely popular with workers) from winning. This was a huge mistake that many called out at the time.
But Democrats and Liberals didn’t want to hear it. Which brings me to another point: Dems and Liberals need to stop telling others how they feel, and start LISTENING to people. The arrogance and paternalistic attitude of “we know best” has now cost potentially two presidential
elections, at least three Supreme Court seats, and countless judicial appointments across the country. Y’all don’t want to hear it. You immediately shut down and get defensive anytime it’s brought up. You live in a bubble, you don’t actually see or listen or hear those who are
struggling across this country. You talk to like-minded people, and you shut out anyone who challenges or disagrees. You will continue to perform poorly as long as this keeps happening. So maybe it’s time to change that approach and drop the charade.
This is by no means a complete list of problems. I’d be interested to hear more things people believe caused this. But for now I’ll leave it at this: Nothing in this country is going to fundamentally change as the result of an election. The two party system is a failure, and
election cycle after election cycle, candidates are being pulled further right. There is no meaningful progressive change coming from these politicians because they all serve the same masters.
Whatever happens with this election, only real change will come from us organizing.
Whatever happens with this election, only real change will come from us organizing.
