How to lose by 4 million votes when it matters most

A post-mortem from the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN HISTORY™

I know we don’t like to get too political here . . . ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) . . . but I figure it’s only right to do a quick follow up to our last politics post (linked below) where we talked about the democrats’ strategy heading into the 2024 election.

[almost president] [though not as "almost" as longtime friend of the Jackuzzi, Al Gore] Hillary Clinton gives us some timely, thoughtful advice

This was all the way back in April, mind you, so this was still the Biden-era of the campaign. It had been prompted by a clip I saw of Hillary Clinton on some late-night show. When asked what she would say to any voters who had the gall to doubt whether the blue team actually gave a shit about them, she responded with something to the effect of: “Get over it [you whiny little shit-stains].”

But it struck me—and many others, I’m sure—as a questionable route to take, albeit a revealing one. Her bitterness is obvious—and I don’t blame her, after 2016. I’d be projecting blame, too. She’d been angling for the presidency her whole life, and had had all sorts of smoke blown up her ass along the way, only to get punked by some spray-tanned retired guy who didn’t even actually want to win. Demoralizing stuff. She’d probably have thought that her husband would be the last good ole’ boy to embarrass her on the global stage. Alas. (And somehow, Bill wasn’t even the worst.)

For her unconditionally loyal supporters, her disdain is/was probably quite cathartic. But it made me wonder. You can only play the “Why vote for us? Because the other team is worse!” card so many times before it’s a boy-who-cried-wolf scenario. And doesn’t it also conveniently absolve you of any responsibility to offer a platform that’s appealing in its own right? There is no actual interest in providing anything more than the bare minimum. You’ll vote for us because you have to. Why offer a carrot, when we can just use the stick? It’s basically spinning “Hey, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other guy” as some virtuous ideal; as if it’s anything close to a long-term plan.

The hubris and complacency (and denial) on show is staggering—as evidenced by their inexplicable attempt to run the 108-year old Biden up until the last possible second, despite his mental and physical faculties eroding by the day. In this regard, his victory in 2020 was a disaster. Even though it may only have happened with the help of a global pandemic, they took it as evidence that they could rest on their laurels, believing that their “Good guys vs. Fascism” ploy was/would be an effective one: The American people had come running back with their tail between their legs, and that was the end of the matter. The lumpen proles had learned their lesson (after 2016), and it was back to business as usual.

With this, the dems went with pretty much the exact same strategy as they had in 2016 and 2020: Don’t rock the boat too much; just give it a couple of months, and everyone’s going to realize how deserving we are. This election will win itself. All we’ve got to do is point out how crazy and evil the other side is. So, even though they would have known Biden was unpopular, they even try to distance themselves from him. They had Kamala toe the line, not taking any potentially inflammatory stances, e.g. on the Gazan genocide. All we’ve got to do is appeal to “moderates” (a demographic which, like the mythical “undecided voter,” is but a figment of some legacy media wet dream).

Spoiler: this wasn’t enough. After an initial spike in popularity following Joe’s stepping down, it was downhill from there, culminating with her getting spanked on election night. As usual, this elicited the same sort of scolding and finger-pointing from democrats that we saw in 2016, when Hillary got a spanking of her own. Whose fault was it this time? Poor blacks? Poor whites? Poor racists? Rich racists? Latinos? The left? All of the above?

One thing was for sure: it wasn’t the DNC’s fault [that they’d managed to lose 20 million votes in the Election for Democracy].

How about we figure out what lessons we’d learned from 2016, the last time we trotted out a female candidate to compete with this spray-tanned professional roast comic who had nothing to lose? There weren’t many, apparently. Their uninspired campaign strategy was proof that they’re still decades behind.

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The thing is, there’s a liberal (Sorkin-era) fantasy that a lot of affluent/otherwise insulated dems still have about what Washington should be. It’s their version of “MAGA”—a mythical, idealized bygone era that never existed. A world where politicians, no matter their differences, could share a deep respect for each other, knowing they both wanted what was best for the country. Here’s a really good article on this which has only gotten more accurate.

In practice, this manifests as a sort of performative affection/token gestures of “bipartisanship”. Here’s a perfect example of something that warms these folks’ hearts:

“My faith in humanity is restored!”

Basically, it’s a fantasy for a lot of liberals (especially educated/affluent/insulated ones) that the machinations of high level politics are not completely cynical, and are not conducted almost exclusively by unelected bodies. There therefore remains a reverence—if not a fetishization—of due process, of our hallowed institutions, of rigorous, yet respectful debate, of presenting an image of decency and good faith. Pomp and circumstance, “decorum,” and “civility” are the things that really matter. You’ve got to shake your opponent’s hand, and look him in the eye. You’ve got to hear him out, understand him, and compromise—no matter how wide the ideological gap. This is how we reach the truth: through cooperation and rigorous—but unfailingly civil—discourse. All we (as the good guys need to do) is to deliver witty one-liners and rousing monologues. If we provide enough of these, people will see how much smarter and educated and qualified we are than our well-meaning, but ultimately smooth-brained competition (hard-workin’ blue collar folks who just need some enlightenment).

The democrats continue to cream themselves over this sort of thing, chasing the GOP as they’ve lurched rightward, and despite their efforts being completely unrequited in any meaningful way for at least two decades.

Case in point in the 2024 campaign: Kamala saying the only thing she’d do differently to Biden would be to. . . appoint a Republican to her cabinet. And then playing footsie with Liz Cheney, daughter of noted war criminal Dick Cheney, in an attempt to appeal to “moderate republicans.” Obviously, this won over absolutely zero republicans, who’ve realized there is absolutely no need to even pretend that they give a shit. Indeed, their voters do not want this; it’s a sign of weakness. (If I wanted right wing policies, why would I not just vote right wing?) Even after getting her ass kicked by what is supposedly a party/candidate that intends to destroy democracy—a pretty big deal!—they can’t help but genuflect: they send Kamala up to give a concession speech that talks about how gracious the Dems will be in defeat and how it will absolutely be a peaceful transfer of power.

In any case, this is why it was such a shock (to people who get their news from SNL and MSNBC and who put “Refugees Welcome” signs in front of their houses) that Hillary lost: her being more deserving was supposed to be self-evident. She had the perfect “resumé”—including, most notably, her being a woman. Based on all the movies and TV shows these people had ever watched, along with all the pundits (who watched the same movies and TV shows), Hillary was the good guy, and the good guys always win in the end. This was supposed to be their fairytale ending. It wasn’t, obviously. But we know all this. As she and the DNC will tell you, the electorate let her down.

So what lessons did they learn from this for 2024? (2020 was an aberration; too many confounding variables—COVID-19, Biden being a white guy, etc.) Why isn’t it a case of “fool me once?” If the country was as incurably bigoted/misogynistic as you discovered it to be in 2016, whose fault is it if you try the same thing 8 years later—except that your new candidate is black, too? Maybe they assumed it would be another Obama/identity politics thing, i.e., that the mere sight of a black candidate would win them the POC vote; platform didn’t really matter. But that’d only worked because Obama was a unicorn, as far as oration/charisma went. Plus, he’d been up against the most milquetoast, humorless white dudes of all time: pastor-like John McCain, and youth pastor-like Mitt Romney. (It was sort of the same with Trump in 2016, who ate his gormless Republican competition alive on his way to becoming the tzar of the party—as satirized here.) If it really was the Most Important Election Ever™, why the fuck would you take the risk of sending an under-qualified, uncharismatic black woman into the gladiator ring with only a few months’ notice, knowing how the jury would react? This was not the time to try and shift the overton window. What were you trying to prove? None of it makes sense.

. . . unless you had some sort of sadomasochistic martyr complex, where you’d rather have America/global democracy collapse just to be able to say “See? We knew you were all stupid, racist, misogynists. So there!”

At any rate, it tells us a lot about the DNC’s insulation/disconnect from the real world (and from their supposed constituents). In the main, the fallout from a Trump victory won’t really affect them—certainly not enough to outweigh the temptation of the massive “I told you so”/“Gotcha!” his victory offers. They relish in being right; in exposing how backwards so much of the population is. For them, then, it’s a win-win; either outcome allows them four years of self-congratulation.

If they’d really wanted to win, all they had to do was shoot me a message. But we’ll get into that next time. For now . . .