How to lose 20 million voters when it matters most
We continue our search for answers following the Death of Democracy ( 🕊️R.I.P.🕊️ ~ 🪦 1776-2016, 2020-2024 🪦 )
Last time, linked below, we were talking about the democrats’ humiliating defeat at the hands of The Donald (round 2).
Specifically, we were scratching our heads at some of their strategic decisions given that this was apparently the Most Important Election of All Time™. For the fate of the world being on the line, the DNC sure didn’t put up much of a fight. (Kamala did worse than Biden in every single state!) It’s almost as if they . . . knew that their survival would be assured either way? But wait—if the Destroyers of Democracy were as fundamentally opposed to you as you claimed, wouldn’t that be impossible? (Hmm. . . We’ll put a pin in that for now.)
So, what happened? Was it hubris? Denial? Ignorance? Complacency? Why would you not only let Joe Biden totter around for 18 months, losing his mental and physical faculties in front of the entire world as inflation (and his unpopularity) spiked, but also insist on running him against a revenge-mission-Trump until the last possible second?Bad enough—but then, despite knowing how unpopular Biden was, and knowing that incumbents face an uphill battle at the best of times, you replaced him with someone who was basically his surrogate, policy-wise. And not just anyone, but a black woman. Oh, and you threw her in at the eleventh hour, and without conducting a primary—talk about leading a lamb to slaughter. You did this despite what happened in 2016, when the electorate rejected a white woman (and a far more “qualified” one) in favor of The Donald. You were shocked and outraged by this at the time, with half the country having outed themselves as “deplorables,” “bigots,” etc. But that was eight years ago. Why would anything have changed? Fool me once, right?
If you were being cynical, you might wonder if the selection of these specific candidates was a strategic decision by the DNC to insulate themselves from criticism. Even if these women were openly center-right compared to someone like Bernie, dissent could be waved away as sexism—and, in Kamala’s case, racism. So, maybe poor Kamala was just an extension of the “woke capitalism” thing. To be clear, this isn’t to say they ran a campaign on “wokeness,” or anything, just that she was a focus-grouped attempt by the (corporate-captured) DNC to connect with their consumers (who, in fairness, do tend to lap this shit up). Hillary only checked one “box,” Harris checked two; the DNC gambled on a double-or-nothing-guilt-trip.
I get their thinking: people (outside of MAGA circles) are given the impression that any black person or a woman in power must inherently be more progressive/inspiring than a white man (hence why we saw the bizarre championing of Harris by her supporters as some sort of women’s rights icon; “Brat summer,” etc.). People desperately want to believe that there’s inherent solidarity within these various identity groups.
To be clear, this wish is often well-meaning; it’s a response to the blatant disregard for women/minorities exhibited on the right. Because of liberals’ blind spot when it comes to their conception of being the good guys (and the smartest guys in the room), it’s inconceivable that they might be being taken advantage of—especially by their own “team.” Sadly, we see it happen all the time. All a brand has to do to earn our affection is change its logo to the rainbow theme during pride month. It’s the same sort of thing as when Disney or Marvel give people a black or asian superhero and watch millions of people seal clap about “representation” and how they finally feel seen and loved. It falls under the same umbrella as this shit:
(The umbrella being: “How Do You Do, Fellow [Humans/Wokes]?”)
At any rate, it all reeks of the DNC’s decision-makers being chronically online/echo-chambered, and it meant they made some pretty head-scratching oversights: by refusing to break with the establishment on Israel, they let the republicans position themselves as the party of peace(!). By alienating your progressive base over the past decade, and letting yourselves get completely overrun by PACs and lobbyists, you became the establishment/elitist/status quo party, the party of smug Ivy Leaguers. Even if you aren’t, perception is reality. This was a massive missed opportunity, it turns out: guess which of these two groups’ members all have Ivy League degrees.
Group A: Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Tim Walz.
Group B: (professed billionaire) Trump, JD Vance, Meatball Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, RFK Jr., (billionaire) Elon Musk.
(You get three guesses.)
None of it makes any sense. Let’s try to reverse engineer it. One possibility is that the DNC let Hillary Clinton pull the strings for the last 6 months. (Not the craziest theory, actually; she’s the happiest person in the world right now.)
Alternatively, it’s as if they asked AI for help, and it asked them to punch in their main priorities. Let’s assume (for our experiment’s sake), that these were:
#1: We don’t want things to change too much, systemically/structurally; this would threaten our own material conditions, and risk angering corporate donors.
(By “we,” they’re referring to the the affluent/educated DNC loyalists, the professional managerial class, the liberal media/political classes, and so on.)
#2: Nevertheless, We have observed (online, which is where we spend most of our time) that many young/progressive people seem to dislike Trump and his blatant misogyny, xenophobia, etc. As such, it seems like it would be good PR to distance ourselves from that.
#3: Lastly, we would like to win. But only if the first two conditions are met.
If you look at it through this lens, everything begins to make more sense.
It all ties back into the SNL/West Wing fantasy, as discussed last time: losing, but getting to say “I told you so” is arguably more delicious a prospect than winning. Winning means you have to shut up and actually do something. . . Eek!
Their condition only really allows for being the noble loser; the prospect of actually being in power is completely paralyzing. Just look at how ineffective Biden was. Or, a few years further back, another prime example: Why didn’t they codify Roe v. Wade when they had the chance? (Answers that involve any respect for the GOP, or reverence for norms/traditions etc., only prove the point: the DNC’s ineffectiveness is not only voluntary, but self-inflicted.)
The cocktail of martyr complex, self-loathing, and self-congratulation is too potent; they are doomed to be the cuckold. Doomed is the wrong word, though, since that implies that they don’t derive a great deal of perverse satisfaction from all this. Four more years of scolding and moralizing, and SNL impressions of Trump, and Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow being on the verge of tears every night? Sign them up. That stuff is their catnip.
Case-in-point for any visual learners: they would rather be Pelosi (subordinate, BUT girl-boss/clever/sassy/brave) in this image, than Trump (president, BUT white/male/dumb/bad).
The Biden situation will be looked back on in much the same way as that of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. If these geriatrics actually gave a shit about their constituents—indeed, about anything other than their careers—they would have stepped down before they died (to varying degrees) on the job, putting millions of lives/generations of damage at stake. But they just can’t help themselves, and we apparently can’t help but keep lionizing them:
Alright, fine. But let’s say the third priority (winning) had to be bumped up; someone was holding a gun to their head and demanding that they win an election. This would mean one of the other two priorities would need to be rejigged/reconsidered.
How about the first one? Well, on paper, this would be easy; the blueprint already exists. I’m stealing the image below from Michael Moore’s page. Let’s take a look.
This stuff is all low-hanging fruit, or so you’d think. So how many of these policies did Officer Harris run on?
Yikes. Yeah—this is not the “people’s” party. This is a risk-averse, ipso-fatso-conservative party.
Do you know how much you have to like the status quo to refuse to meaningfully engage with that list, knowing that you have millions of willing voters sitting right-fucking-there, should you make even the slightest effort to reach them? Especially with the knowledge that you’re going to lose the election if you don’t? Spoiler: you have to like it an awful lot.
It cannot be overstated that the corollary to the third “priority” above (and to the first one, too) is that the DNC would happily gift their “opposition” (i.e., the Fascist Devils) the victory if it meant stopping their shared nemesis (the dreaded “left”) from winning. We already learned this way back in 2016, when the DNC fucked over Bernie despite his mass appeal (and higher likelihood of beating Trump than Hillary).
Okay, fine. Priority #1 is a no-go-zone. So, my advice to them would be: stop pretending; save your breath. Just own it. People can smell the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing thing, and it’s a turn-off. This means that the only remaining option is Priority #2, the one about being “the adults in the room.” The one where we fetishize things like “civility” and “decorum.”
But we’ll get to that next time. (Off the record, though, I have to say the forecast ain’t lookin good for “Priority #2” . . . )
