Let’s Play the Blame Game - It Doesn’t Look Good for Democrats

Recent events have left Democrats around the US playing the all too familiar blame game - we see this with every election, grasping at straws to figure out how on earth they lost. With Donald Trump’s recent comeback victory, and a swing-state landslide at that, Kamala Harris supporters are left with one key question - what on earth just happened? This isn’t the same old story, with the Dems taking the popular vote and the Republicans carrying an electoral college majority - he won the popular vote and swept every contested state over the course of the night.

So who do we blame? Hard to tell at this stage. Harris? Biden and his legacy? Or must we accept the awful possibility that Trump is actually popular with the average American voter? Let's look at some options.

Politicians able to talk to the average voter are a rare breed. Time and time again Trump manages to produce a ‘common touch’ with rural, blue collar voters in key swing states - a trait seemingly alien to Harris. Yes, choosing Tim Walz as the VP pick attempted to rectify this, but there’s a simple fact of the matter: he’s not the top of the ticket. Harris projected a Californian confidence that simply doesn’t resonate with the average steel worker in Pennsylvania. Attempting to portray Trump as the out of touch businessman fails - he has an unprecedented ability to be both a billionaire businessman and a friend to the working class. He can pander to crypto whilst upholding American manufacturing jobs, helping the richest 1% whilst inspiring the poorest to vote for him.

What we once thought was mutually exclusive is now paradoxically the norm of the Republican party - a coalition of the nation’s richest and the nation’s poorest, with the Democrats holding the educated middle class. Not even the minority vote could be counted on for Harris - Trump increased his support with Hispanic voters by 10%. Young men, a demographic not typically motivated to vote, turned out in waves to propel Trump to the presidency once more. What we thought of as an apparition, cured by Biden’s victory in 2020, is clearly the new normal in American politics.

Would another candidate have fared better? Here we can play the blame game a bit - with Biden as our main target. His insistence on staying as the nominee until his position became untenable was undeniably a mistake - one that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic establishment clearly saw coming. Biden had the common touch, which combats Trump’s effectiveness in key ‘Blue Wall’ swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The Scranton native knew how to operate in these circles. His age, however, negated most, if not all, the positive qualities one could ascribe in 2020. If Biden had stepped down from the start, allowing an early Democratic Primary process to take place, and giving space for a new, dynamic candidate to come forward, this would have placed the Democratic nominee in a much better position come November.

Harris, despite her huge boost in the polls upon her arrival, was never the strongest candidate in the party. At the time of Biden dropping out of the race many news outlets tapped key Democratic Governors as potential nominees. Among the names we constantly saw, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Andy Beshear. Outside of the Governor’s Mansions, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar - both running for the nomination in 2020 - were also seen as favourites.

It’s easy at this stage, so close after Harris’ defeat, to say that any of these picks would have fared better on the national stage. Some suffer from similar problems faced by Harris - Newsom could easily be profiled as another San Francisco elite, and voters opposed to a female candidate would still have struggled to elect Whitmer or Klobuchar. We cannot deny, however, that a candidate from a swing state, or rural background, and an ability to bridge the divide between moderate Democrats and Republicans, would have had a much better shot at the presidency. A Shapiro or Buttigieg, who could motivate young male voters whilst speaking to the concerns of older republicans, may have had a better ride.

Ultimately, the blame game is never a fun one, and it might not be smart to play it at this stage. History will judge Biden, Harris, and the Democrats more broadly - whether that be positively or not. What we do know, bracing forfour more years of Trumpian politics, is that Senator Bernie Sanders might be right - the Democrats have to closely listen to the worries of the working class if they are to win in the future. Gone are the days when we said the Republicans would never win the popular vote again, or that Trump was a product of a historical moment in 2016. Populist, Right Wing politics are here to stay, and the Left must find a bold new way to shift this to their advantage.