Turnout for what?

OTTAWA—Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. On Nov. 5, America chose Donald Trump, instead of Kamala Harris, as its president. Trump accrued 312 electoral college votes to Harris’ 226, and Harris also lost the popular vote with 48 per cent compared to Trump’s 50.3 per cent. It is the first time in 20 years that a Republican candidate for president won the popular vote. Trump flipped six of the seven swing states from the 2020 election: Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. The Republicans are currently on the path to win a majority in the House of Representatives, and have taken back control of the Senate. What a shellacking. So, what happened? White supremacy always plays its role—especially with the intersection of class and race—and the elevation of a Black woman to the highest office in America was always going to be contentious. However, there were some other issues plaguing the Harris campaign that the Democratic elites ignored, which could offer a few lessons for the Liberal government. Lesson 1: It’s not the economy—it’s economic well-being, stupid For months, party elites and their surrogates tried to convince the public that the economy was robust. They pointed to GDP gains and the reduced rate of inflation, the primary indicators of economic performance. But we have seen over the last decade or so that economic indicators and economic well-being are becoming less congruent with the experiences of the typical American. While not everyone is an economist, people know when their money doesn’t go as far as it once did—no matter how much the real wage increases. When the public repeatedly informed these elites that they can’t buy food, heat their homes, or drive to work without amassing debt, the response was to gaslight the entire country that their concerns were all in their heads. Harris failed to address these pocketbook issues, and instead gave the typical neoliberal spiel about tax breaks for small businesses, tax credits to purchase a house, and blah, blah, blah. Beware, Canadian Liberals—you’re doing the same thing. Lesson 2: Harris ran as a moderate Republican The election was a rebuke of President Joe Biden’s government and neoliberalism. As vice-president, Harris wears Biden’s policies. She did nothing to separate herself from Biden, famously claiming on The View that she would do nothing different from Biden except put a Republican in her cabinet. That’s when I knew she lost the election. Biden’s most recent approval rating puts him at 39 per cent, one of the lowest in presidential history. No one of sound mind wants neoliberalism; only the upper class still holds onto its mirage of economic progress. As I’ve written before in this paper, 50 years of neoliberal economic policies have widened the wealth gap, and eroded working-class jobs and their bargaining power. In 2016, two branches of populism emerged from the left and right of the U.S. political spectrum, offered by Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump, respectively. The Democratic Party “did its very best to institutionally elbow out of the 2016 race,” according to The Guardian, while Republicans embraced their flavour of populism. As a result, the Democrats had nothing to offer besides platitudes and vibes. Had they embraced the left of their party, they would’ve been able to address the concerns of the working class, whom they keep losing. In other words, voters don’t want a corporate shill as president in the time of an affordability crisis. Lesson 3: Shore up your base before looking for new voters Turnout was a major contributing factor to Harris’ loss since many Democratic voters stayed home. The Associated Press confirms: “Self-identified independents accounted for a larger share of voters in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election than Democrats and were tied with Republicans.” Harris also lost 1.4 million votes that went Biden’s way in 2020. The Guardian breaks down the numbers differently: “Another way of looking at the numbers is that for every 78 votes Donald Trump gained nationally compared to 2020, Kamala Harris lost 100.” Harris and the Democratic elite failed to read the room. Beyoncé doesn’t bring the voters to the yard, and neither do packed stadiums of people who are already going to vote for you. She presented herself as a rock star with little substance, and it was a turnoff. Perhaps you shouldn’t parade around the Cheneys: Dick, the architect of the Iraq war, and Liz, the pro-lifer. Not a good look when the opposition is calling you a war monger, and you’re campaigning on abortion rights. Lesson 4: Gaza I am flummoxed by the Harris campaign’s treatment of Arab-American voters. It is stunning, considering they live in swing states that Harris needed to win, including Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. Harris lost by fewer votes than those voters could’ve provided her. For example, she lost Michigan by 81,000 votes, whereas the Arab-American voting population backed the Uncommitted movement that garnered 100,000 votes in February’s presidential primary. Perhaps caping for a genocide doesn’t hit as well as it used to. While liberals can argue that it wasn’t an important enough issue to move the dial, nationally, they leave out the negative spinoff effects of Gaza, such as increased police brutality, increased surveillance, and voters criticizing the money being spent to prop up military action in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, while failing to address affordability. Liberal America failed hard because they all talk down to us like we’re seven years old, gaslight us into not believing our own reality, and want to push neoliberalism down our throats. Liberal Party of Canada: don’t make the same mistakes or else you’ll be crying into your foie gras. Erica Ifill is a co-host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast. The Hill Times

Turnout for what?

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Turnout for what?

Liberal America failed hard because they all talk down to us, gaslight us, and want to push neoliberalism down our throats.

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