It is with some hesitation that I approach this post mortem of the 2024 election. I don’t believe in post mortems, period, and I think it is wrong to obsess on things that are now out of our hands and we have no control of. I remember in law school that there was always a post mortem after exams because people were upset with the outcome. And behind the upset with the outcome was the futile wish that somehow the grade would change and it never did. But the professors went through the routine with students and that’s what I feel is going on here. I guess it’s part of healing.
“The job of a president is reading where the country, where the politics is, and winning in it. And winning includes not having your party being defeated by the person you essentially promised to expunge from American politics,” Zelizer said. “President Biden and his supporters often yearn for a world that disappeared. You can’t actually govern the way you did in the 1970s in 2021.”
Substantively, few analysts deny Biden’s accomplishments. He mobilized the government to vaccinate Americans against covid-19, bringing the country out of a devastating pandemic. He avoided a recession that many economists had considered inevitable. He rebuilt the transatlantic alliance, rallying the world to help Ukraine battle Russia’s invasion.
On the morning after the election, Biden gathered his closest aides in the Oval Office to assemble a message to the broader staff. He wanted to communicate that progress happens on a long arc, he said; during his 50-year career, he’d seen that on every issue from climate to civil rights.
In the end, his comments to the staff sought to emphasize that their accomplishments would benefit America “for decades to come.”
But Biden’s critics fault him for failing to grasp that his record itself was not enough, that he needed to tell a story that would resonate in a tribal America. The president was so convinced that voters’ top priority was American democracy that he often made it his central campaign message.
And the problem with that is that people were focusing on inflation and the prices at the grocery store. And this is what Trump capitalized on, lying his ass off that he would immediately lower food, rent, mortgages, gasoline, you name it. Trump can’t do it and we’re going to see that demonstrated. But he did grasp that that was what people wanted to hear and those were the buzz words. That’s what Joe Biden needed to talk about.
“Coming in after Trump with a bad economy, he still pulled people together. He did all this on infrastructure, and all the stuff he did with a one-vote majority in the Senate. Joe Biden did it with one vote.”
Biden and some of his aides still believe he should have stayed in the race, despite the rocky debate performance and low poll numbers that prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out. Biden and these aides have told people in recent days that he could have defeated Trump, according to people familiar with their comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Aides say the president has been careful not to place blame on Harris or her campaign.
The debate performance was a disaster but in the long range of things, debate performances don’t amount to a hill of beans. And so that brings us back to the central problem, should Joe have stayed in the race? We will never know. In a perfect world it would have been best for him to make the decision earlier than he did and not be forced into the decision, basically. Nobody makes their best decisions under pressure.
Kamala cannot be faulted. She did the best she could under the circumstances and if anything, she overperformed. But two things we can see in retrospect should have been addressed: One, if Joe was going to drop out it should have been sooner and a Democratic primary held and two, whomever was in the race should have been talking about grocery store prices number one.
Trump caught the ears of many voters because he was talking about their main issues. The Democrats were obsessed — and rightfully so — with the existential threat that Trump posed. And that was what they talked about.
The lesson I got out of the 2024 election is the amazing collective amnesia of the American electorate. Trump caused the deaths of 1.1 million Americans his last year in office. He botched and bungled everything he touched. He incited a riot because he wasn’t man enough to admit his loss and go away graciously. He got people maimed, disabled, and killed at the Capitol that day. And all that was forgotten.
Game plan for 2028: whatever is the pressing, short term issue of the moment, play into that like there was nothing else in this world to talk about. I hope that we will do that. That said, running against Trump has always been a strange proposition because he is unique in American politics, the game show host from TV who knows nothing but talks a good game. If Trump hadn’t created his fantasy persona on The Apprentice he never would have gotten near the White House.
Hopefully we won’t have another one like him to deal with.
The Democrats were trying to remind everyone about how felon failed us, killed so many through mishandling of covid, caused one third of the deficit, was only running to stay out of prison, couldn’t and wouldn’t fulfill his promises since he didn’t the first time. So if people didn’t remember, it was because they didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want a WOMAN, especially a POC. And felon is giving them their white, male amerikkka, free of those pesky “brown people”. That’s what they voted for.
Being the common law husband for two decades of a dark skin lady from Tuskegee Alabama, you are pointing out how racists/misogynists NEVER face the fact they embody evil. They never have. My lady lost her job after someone kept calling her nigger over and over. When she finally had enough and called him a cracker…she was fired. That’s our country. Now we’re really getting ready to find out now that the POS has NO GUARDRAILS. Of course GUARDRAILS WAS A LIE IN THE FIRST PLACE. If not…please explain how the hell he will be taking the oath of president…an oath HE HAS ALREADY WIPED HIS ASS WITH?
Biden would not have won full stop.
No he wouldn’t have. The Democrats have a self delusion problem. Nice people wanting equality always believe you can win with a moral argument. Really? When you are dealing with HEARTLESS SOULLESS EVIL, you will never win hoping to shame them into the truth. We didn’t send 140,000 BOYS to face death on the beaches of Normandy with good moral arguments. WE SENT THEM WITH GUNS!!!! The failure to realize what it takes to win against people who choose evil, and are willing to do any despicable thing to get what they want, is why we are where we are. When I was railroaded into the PENITENTIARY,(not baby jail), and the people threatening me were around…I didn’t sit wondering how I could talk them out of their intentions. NO PHUCKING WAY THAT WOULD HAVE WORKED. The only thing the wolves would have heard is the timid bleating of a lamb begging to avoid the slaughterhouse. No. Just like Danzel in the Equalizer, I had my eyes on various potential weapons and intended to USE THEM. I bristled with malevolence. I knew i could be killed…but, by God, someone was going down with me. They moved on to the nice folks cowering beneath their good arguments. I will spare you the ugly details of what happens to sheep in the pen locked up with wolves. These fascists have NO INTENTIONS OF STOPPING THEIR EVIL UNLESS WE STOP THEM. If we dont…well…get ready to have your collective asses sheared and turned into lamb chops. I offer thoughts and prayers. As Led Zeppelin sang in When The Levee Breaks: crying won’t help you…praying won’t do you no good…when the levee breaks. Better know how to swim.Hey magats…come for me…well you just read I’m willing to arrange the meeting between you and God to sort out your evil fate.
“The lesson I got out of the 2024 election is the amazing collective amnesia of the American electorate. Trump caused the deaths of 1.1 million Americans his last year in office. He botched and bungled everything he touched. He incited a riot because he wasn’t man enough to admit his loss and go away graciously. He got people maimed, disabled, and killed at the Capitol that day. And all that was forgotten.”
Well, it wasn’t so much “forgotten” as IGNORED by a media that was bound and determined to get their vaunted “horse race” election. When sanity is restored to this country in 2029, every single media operation–whether print or televised, whether traditional or “new media”–that helped the felon and his moronic enablers in Congress to go UNCHECKED with every lie needs to be held fully accountable. If it means breaking up the whole media infrastructure once more, so be it–no more of this corporate media mentality where newspapers and TV stations and podcasts are owned by a few players who aren’t motivated by anything more than mere money and building their own wealth at the expense of their readers and viewers and listeners (and more than frequently skirting the current laws regulating media ownership within a single market). Just like that IMMIGRANT owner of the “L A Times” who’s decided that for every “anti-Trump” PIECE OF NEWS, there must be a “pro-Trump” article (i.e., propaganda piece of fluff) in the name of “balance.” No. NEWS need not be “balanced”; OPINION, however, does. (You think the “L A Times” is going to offer both sides on their op/ed pages with the same degree of mandate for actual news stories? I don’t.)
You are correct they manipulated the masses. That being said…there was PLENTY of opportunity for people to know what was going on. Even his former administration members warned us. When sanity gets restored? I wonder WHO will do that when NINE years of evil was on full display and they still pulled it off. I also wonder WHO will rectify what has happened to our country? I didn’t realize what an optimist you are. I hope your optimism is rewarded. I don’t expect the ultra rich to have a change of heart. They would need one first. Their accountants have told them their profits would go down if they started caring about the human cost of their actions. As Joe Pesci said in Casino…it’s always about the dollars.
The best discussion I have read was very clear: Trump won because he hates the same people MAGATs do.: anyone hot white, b not cis,,not male. They see women and minorities as The Other , their rivals for power,, and anything that harms these groups is good.
The Republicans and some Dems scream about identity politics, but the GOP is the biggest offender. You have to be a straight white man to be part of their club. They are rebelling against the Elites which means anyone with a college degree despite carrying more debt they can’t pay off for decades. Trump won because he openly embraces racism, sexism, religious bigotry, and lack of education.
The mask of America, which has been mythologized as the ‘shining light on the hill’, has been ripped off once again. No worry. The oligarchs are busy designing a new one to cover the crimes they are about to commit.