Summary
Gender bias played a significant role in Kamala Harris’s defeat, with many voters—often women—expressing doubts about whether “America is ready for a female president.”
Some said they “couldn’t see her in the chair,” or questioned if a woman could lead, with one even remarking, “you don’t see women building skyscrapers.” Though some voters were open to persuasion, this often became a red line.
Oliver Hall, a Harris campaign volunteer, found that economic concerns, particularly inflation, also drove voters to Donald Trump, despite low unemployment and wage growth touted by Democrats.
Harris was viewed in conflicting ways, seen as both too tough and too lenient on crime, as well as ineffective yet overly tied to Biden’s administration.
Ultimately, Hall believes that Trump’s unique appeal and influence overshadowed Harris’s campaign efforts.
Persuadable voters seemed really focused on prices. It’s hard not to be condescending here. Eggs are expensive because of bird flu. Rent is high because not enough housing is being built, mostly limited by local issues. Gas is high because of Putin’s war. Anyone who thinks electing Trump will bring those prices down because they were lower last time he was president is fucking clueless.
I’m interested to see how much of a factor unenthusiastic Democrats were. Trump got about the same number of votes he did in 2020, but Harris got far fewer than Biden. It looks like a bunch of people who voted last time didn’t vote this time. For them, the concerns the author dismisses might have been more important.
I’m fortunate to be well off, but I used to be below the poverty line in my city and qualified for social assistance (which I didn’t know about until a coworker told me). Having been in most of these voters shoes a little over a decade ago, I can tell you that don’t care about trumps rhetoric, he can stand there for an hour blathering non sense, but at the end of it he will say “I love you, I know you are hurting and I’m going to fix that”.
Then a long come the democrats telling these people who are living paycheck to paycheck or still in their parents house that they are privileged racist ass holes who could never understand what is like to struggle as a rich minority woman from California. Then the most unrelatable person in the world gets chosen to replace Joe Biden and rich democrats and dumb ass celebrities like Cardi “I brag about how I used to drug, rape, and Rob men” B start telling working class men that they are stupid and racist if they don’t vote for Kamala.
A lot of people couldn’t vote for a wannabe dictator, but they also couldn’t vote for someone who despises their very being.
That is a completely accurate depiction of what every member and supporter of the Democratic party has said, which has certainly been much more hurtful than Republicans’ repeated threats to rape and kill us /s
.
I don’t see how you could possibly see his attacks on migrants, trans kids, etc. as anything other than punching down.
Also, why are you holding the Democratic party accountable for down voters here or other randos online who say stuff about Trump supporters? They’re pretty distinct groups, and the fact is elected Dems bent over backwards to talk as nicely about Trump supporters as they could.
And I actually think that was a big part of what I think their real voter engagement problem was, which is that everything Dems say comes off like inauthentic over polished political bullshit to a lot of voters. I think simultaneously trying to say “Trump is an existential threat to democracy” and “Trump supporters are not garbage” sounds insane (like, if you’re supporting an existential threat to democracy you just inarguably are a garbage human being, sorry not sorry).
I don’t think we should make it a centerpiece of our message or waste a bunch of time on it, but if we get a direct question about Republican party supporters we have to respect our potential voters enough to say “Yes, they are garbage, roughly 35-40% of this country are bad people who are willing to hurt others to get what they want and that’s why it’s so important for the rest of us to put aside our difference and work together to stop them.”
.
It’s definitely true that white collar, urban liberals sometimes punch down at rural, blue collar white people. It does hurt them politically.
I’m having trouble seeing anything Trump says about anyone other than high-level elected officials as punching up though. Attacks on the sitting president are punching up by definition, but the challenger always does that.
It seems more to me that he’s telling people who don’t feel good about their position in society that there’s someone below them. That was the message of slavery, of apartheid, and of Hitler. I find it hard not to condemn those who were receptive to it.
.
I just want to say this to all the people who are making up the most hare-brained excuses for why Harris lost.
Kamala Harris cobbled together a campaign in days that took a campaign that was going R+5 and counting and turned it into a toss-up. She had 107 days. From day one, she was held to an infinitely higher standard than Trump. Trump held a debate where he famously said “They’re eating the dogs!” and “I have concepts of a plan!.”, and Americans were just fine with it. But Harris wasn’t perfectly articulate with details over some economic plan or another and apparently this makes her unfit for President. She put up a near-flawless campaign, especially given how stuck behind the 8-ball she was. It ultimately just didn’t matter.
Arab-Americans were outraged over Harris’ support for Israel because of the genocide in Gaza. So to protest this, they voted for a man who has vowed even more support for israel and to genocide even harder, and also try to kick them out of the country in the process.
Latino men opted to vote for a man who made it a focal point of his campaign to round up and deport Latinos en-masse because the alternative was voting for a former prosecutor who also happens to be a woman.
White people decided that they want someone who’s going to fix the economy, so they decided to vote for a guy who campaigned on raising the cost of living by an average of about $400 a month while promising to appoint a budget czar who already said he actively plans on imposing “hardships” on poor people.
Well, it’s either that, or tens of millions of people in a country with a long-established history of racism and misogyny refused to vote for a black female president and just used these niche issues as excuses.
I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this, and I know what I’m about to say sounds racist as hell. But Obama was a fluke and America in general is just not willing to elect a minority again. That’s just all there is to it. The rise of Trump, the rise of far-right groups like the Proud Boys, and the 2024 election are proof of that. Democrat initiatives did relatively fine. The senate went GOP, but that was predicted with the loss of Manchin and Tester. Democrats in the House did fine. Kamala Harris did not.
And for those who believed that embracing centrist policies is what cost us the election, or we weren’t left enough, or we should have listened to people like Bernie and AOC: People like Bernie and AOC are wildly popular in their districts and with the far-left coalition of the voting base. But they are wildly unpopular outside of that. And keep in mind…I love both of them and would gladly vote for a future AOC as president. But given the current political makeup of the country, putting someone like Bernie or AOC on the ballot would have made the ass kicking Harris just got seem tame. Sure, they’d have won states like California and Massachusetts by gigantic margins. But they’d do little to nothing to flip red or purple states.
The fact of the matter is that the 2024 results prove that Americans like what the Democrats were selling. They just don’t want her to be the one selling it, as evidenced by the fact that only she underperformed so spectacularly. People were so unwilling to vote for a black, female President that over 10 million of them opted to stay home knowing full well that they were essentially voting for Trump.
A majority of this country is white. A majority of this country will not vote for a minority president again in this political climate. And if the Democrats put up another minority candidate in 2028 (assuming we even have elections), they will lose again. That’s just all there is to it. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. It’s not right, but it’s the truth. You know how black people across the south have been fighting gerrymandering so they can have majority-black districts and vote for black candidates? Or for that matter, how minority candidates do better in minority districts when championing minority initiatives? White people are doing the same thing. And there’s a lot more of them. And they just proved that they absolutely will vote against their best interests vs. voting for a black woman.
hard disagree, progressive policies up for vote were adopted even in deep red states unlike the fake progressive party.
this sort of holier than thou analysis same as dnc is why they never fix their smugness towards voters.
“held to an infinitely higher standards”, “genocide even harder”, “happens to be a woman”, “make the economy worse”, “obama was a fluke”, “bernie & aoc are wildly unpopular outside of that.”
outside the bubble of .world and reddit, the above statements are seen as nothing but dogshhit gaslighting. people understand that trump is stupid, incompetent and repulsive but they also correctly see that dnc are double dealing scammers who have no problem mass murdering kids for few million in campaign donations. for how many brown women murdered in gaza and now lebanon did harris opened her mouth full of aipac money. her career is full of oppressing poor and blacks and including single mothers, and at the same time sucking up to the rich including trump. she has shamelessly flip-flopped on issues wherever she had seen more votes. why the hell someone would vote for a smug power tripping hack like this in name of democracy and lesser evil. she would have absolutely nuked gaza, lebanon & iran to get funding from aipac and mic for a 2nd term, while inflation and corporate greed would have remained unckecked same as trump.
and if not for trump and dnc’s over the top fear mongering, she would have likely lost many deep blue state. she lost like hillary because they were planted by the megadonors to create a win-win situation for them for that they sabotaged sanders in 2016 and warren in 2020.
even the votes dnc got this time were mostly in despair, and many of them unlikely to do it again, those who sat out were disgusted enough to not care.
the same people wishing more genocide and mocking egg prices were dismissing any criticism of biden & harris as russian troll. and now they are surprised that many of them sat out for not wanting to do anything with this farce of an election where you loose against the oligarchy not matter who you vote.
imho i don’t see dnc winning again, it will be better if aoc and warren form a new party and destroy them for good.
hard disagree, progressive policies up for vote were adopted even in deep red states unlike the fake progressive party.
Which is why I said the policies weren’t the problem. She was. The voting base did not want to vote for a black woman. The rest of the election went pretty much as predicted.
“held to an infinitely higher standards”, “genocide even harder”, “happens to be a woman”, “make the economy worse”, “obama was a fluke”, “bernie & aoc are wildly unpopular outside of that.”
Tell me which one of these is wrong.
Is it the one where Trump got no criticism for “They’re eating the dogs!”, while Kamala Harris was criticized for not being perfectly articulate?
Is it the one where people criticized Harris for supporting Israel, then voted for someone who was going to … give even more weapons and support to Israel?
Or it is the one where the only two women were both beat by Trump after a smear campaign from the mainstream media?
Or the one where Trump has vowed to increase prices on goods by slapping tarrifs on everything? Or the one where Musk already said he was gong to impose hardships on people?
Or the fact that the country as a whole has been leaning hard into the racism since Obama was in office?
And as for bernie, the entire Democrat base had been saying that they didn’t want Biden because he was “too old”. And here you are offering someone older. Which means his age was never really the problem, was it? Because half the country just voted for a dementia patient , and the other half are now saying we should’ve put up someone older.
And try getting AOC over in independent or right-leaning areas she’d need to pick up a win. Good luck with that.
outside the bubble of .world and reddit, the above statements are seen as nothing but dogshhit gaslighting.
Prove me wrong.
people understand that trump is stupid, incompetent and repulsive but they also correctly see that dnc are double dealing scammers who have no problem mass murdering kids for few million in campaign donations.
So the answer is to vote for someone who’s going to mass murder even more people? Remember, last time Trump interfered in the middle east, he moved the embassy to Jerusalem which pissed off just about everybody and sent Jared Kushner over there, who did exactly nothing outside of collecting $2 billion from the Saudis which they still refuse to explain.
But sure, the dnc are the scammers…
for how many brown women murdered in gaza and now lebanon did harris opened her mouth full of aipac money. her career is full of oppressing poor and blacks and including single mothers, and at the same time sucking up to the rich including trump. she has shamelessly flip-flopped on issues wherever she had seen more votes. why the hell someone would vote for a smug power tripping hack like this in name of democracy and lesser evil. she would have absolutely nuked gaza, lebanon & iran to get funding from aipac and min for a 2nd term, while inflation and corporate greed would have remained unckecked same as trump.
And tell me how voting for Trump was somehow better in any possible way. And if you abstained from voting knowing all of that full well, you essentially voted for Trump.
and if not for trump and dnc’s over the top fear mongering, she would have likely lost many deep blue state. she lost like hillary because they were planted by the megadonors to create a win-win situation for them for that they sabotaged sanders in 2016 and warren in 2020.
Ah yes, it was all a Democrat conspiracy to…hand the Presidency to Trump. Oooooooookay…
the same people wishing more genocide
voted for Trump.
and mocking egg prices
Which is the result of bird flu.
were dismissing any criticism of biden & harris as russian troll. and now they are surprised that many of them sat out for not wanting to do anything with this farce of an election where you loose against the oligarchy not matter who you vote.
So voting to lose harder was your solution?
still stuck on “trump is worse” instead of dnc has become so bad that trump didn’t matter.
say that the mayor election is between two criminal, one of them has scammed you of your life savings and killed your family & neighbours in front of your eyes and the other candidate is said to be even worse. are you going to vote for first candidate or plan of shooting him ?
“held to an infinitely higher standards”, “genocide even harder”, “happens to be a woman”, “make the economy worse”, “obama was a fluke”, “bernie & aoc are wildly unpopular outside of that.”
Tell me which one of these is wrong.
all of them
-
she has no standards, she was a corrupt cop who rose in dnc for her sucking upto megadonors.
-
asking to ignore a genocide is enough to loose all credibility. it only infuriates people when they ask to reward them for burning kids alive in hospitals. what’s trump gonna do reincarnate the gaza population and kill them again ?
-
“happens to be a woman” : who had happily jailed single moms and supports israel killing women for aipac money. its the same excuse as pedophile asking for respect because he is a priest.
she is a entitled hypocrite who has never struggled as black or woman and lived among the elite enabling their corruption same as the white woman hillary. biden would have been the same but he likely got the pass because of being part of obama admin, his son dying and covid mismanagement by trump.
those still stuck on defending dnc needs to understand in two party system we need to have opposite options else we are basically begging to continue to get trodden by the oligarchs. “the trump is worse”, “harder genocide” just make people loose faith in the system and sit it out.
i honestly wont be surprised if dnc puts token candidates so they can divert any criticism and reforms by blaming their loss on racism and sexism just like israel uses antisemitism.
-
