OPINION: Democrats are in disarray with no easy fix

Vice President Kamala Harris led a coalition that stretched from lefty Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former Rep. Liz Cheney and her arch-conservative father, Dick Cheney. She campaigned on a vision of a lawful, morally decent, multiracial society where hard work could still secure the American Dream, where clean energy would drive a dynamic economy, and where there would be enough to go around for everyone. That broad coalition and optimistic vision raised unprecedented funds. It activated tens of thousands of volunteers who walked precincts, made phone calls and staffed events. And then it crashed and burned.

Every losing campaign is run by dunces, just as every winning campaign is the product of genius. Monday-morning quarterbacks who have never worked in a campaign — especially in the fog of right-wing propaganda and disinformation that now permeates and distorts U.S. politics — are rarely convincing. Donald Trump’s campaign was an objective dumpster fire of malice and stupidity. Even if Trump had lost, the MAGA ascendency, powered by QAnon and other delusional endeavors, is evidence that much of the U.S. has entered a post-rational, post-civic political sphere where propaganda — often very stupid propaganda — reigns.

One highlight of election night was how the millions of instances of voter fraud committed by Democrats and undocumented immigrants magically disappeared as soon as Trump’s vote tally turned positive. One minute, Trump was squealing about fraud in Philadelphia. The next, everything was hunky dory. Yet the next time Trump barks about fantasy voter fraud, conservatives are sure to believe with all their hearts, if not their heads. A Republican Party that’s contemptuous of virtue and devoted to lies is a very big problem. But it’s probably not a problem that Harris or any other Democrat can fix.

The rough consensus among campaign professionals is that Harris ran a good or better campaign under difficult circumstances. Incumbent parties across the world have struggled and mostly failed to win reelection amid voter anger over the long tail of COVID-19 and inflation. All incumbent parties lost vote share. The notion that another Democrat would have succeeded where Harris failed or that a different message or coalitional emphasis would have swayed voters attracted to Trump seems spurious at best.

The country moved in lockstep to the right. The shift from blue to red was generally less pronounced in the seven swing states that once again commanded the vast majority of campaign resources and attention. Harris fared worse in places like New York City, which shifted 17 points to the right, and some California counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican.

Ultimately, voters had a clear choice. The race was a hard contest between hope and fear, with the fear conveyed via Trump’s signature demagoguery.

Harris failed to convince voters of something fundamental: that there is enough to go around. Her vision of a positive future for all crashed against Trump’s claims that the pie is shrinking and you’d best get yours before an immigrant or a trans kid steals it. Democrats often struggle to win against that argument. Historically, they operate on a theory that all deserve some, and that American society is rich enough to provide it. Fear of resource scarcity, by contrast, is a bulwark of conservative politics the world over.

How should Democrats respond? Should they never nominate a woman again? Would they still be Democrats if they chose that route? Women are the party workhorses, much of its talent, and the foundation of its electoral strength. They are also, and this point seems somewhat important, more than half of American citizens.

Exit polls, which are inexact, can only tell us so much about the motivations of Hispanic men, a majority of whom appear to have voted for Trump. Perhaps Harris could have better appealed to their sense of economic insecurity or status threat. Or perhaps those men figured that in a racially polarized society, in which Brown and Black immigrants were being scapegoated daily, it was better to latch onto the white guy than the Black woman.

The party of Happy Days Are Here Again will soon adopt a darker message of its own. Social Security, Medicare and Obamacare are all at high risk in a Trump administration. The politics of fear will likely mutate in the months ahead.

How Democrats organize and broadcast that message remains to be seen. Presuming Republicans claim a House majority to go with the White House, Senate and Supreme Court, there will no longer be a Democratic power base in Washington, D.C. New York, long a liberal bastion, is in political tatters with a hapless governor and a buffoonish, indicted mayor of its preeminent city. That leaves California Gov. Gavin Newsom as the probable leader of the party in exile. Newsom will likely be testing new messages to suit a new role.

Given the success of the GOP’s vast propaganda infrastructure, which now includes Elon Musk’s X, and the failure of legacy news media to manage an information environment degraded by propaganda and partisan lies, there will be renewed calls for Democrats to establish competing propaganda networks — perhaps this time they will. The 2024 election might be the beginning of the end for elite legacy media. Often unwilling to act as information police, arresting lies or privileging facts, their mission and utility are increasingly cloudy. With Trump headed to the White House, the volume of lies is about to increase at the same time that legacy reporters clamor for access to the liars. It’s a recipe for more failure.

Realistically, Democrats may have to wait for another catastrophe under a GOP president. Yet Trump’s mismanagement of COVID, in which he flooded the public sphere with lies and misinformation, did not foreclose his comeback any more than his open criminality did. (A post-rational environment is well-suited to demagogues with personality cults.) In any case, we will soon be living not under a new presidency so much as a new system of government. It’s unclear what exactly it will be. But much is evident. Malice and stupidity will be its twin pillars. The rule of law and democracy will not.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for The Week and a writer for Rolling Stone. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

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