In 2016, we warned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not resonating with Americans. In 2024, we warned about Kamala Harris, and we were ignored again. Now, the worst has happened. So, what do we do? A leftist analysis can help us chart a path forward.
This cannot be the message.
The first, and foremost failure, is the Republican party. They are the ones who have chosen Donald Trump to lead. And secondly, they are the ones who built up an organization to turn him into the most powerful political force in America. I salute the Republicans who are still fighting the anti-Trump fight, but the cause is 100% lost. MAGA is now going to be a multi-decade ideology and there’s no way to pull Republicanism out of that trap in any short-term.
That means we need to truly, armor up and organize a fierce resistance. One that can overpower and overtake the MAGA movement. This means seeing MAGA for what it is: a cultural behemoth that commands over 75-million votes today, reliably. They have Elon Musk (Twitter/X). They likely have Zuckerberg (Facebook/Meta/Instagram). They have Washington Post (Jeff Bezos, who has recently replaces the heads with former Murdoch editors). They have LA Times. They have Gannett (and their 200+ regional / local papers). I dare say they own Reddit and likely were running social media interference at the lowest levels (with false stories of hopium. If you were on /r/politics you know what I’m talking about, focusing on shitty stories that Kamala was ahead)
Do you seriously think that all the major newspapers refusing to endorse Kamala Harris was some kind of freak accident? It was a preplanned move to specifically fuck us over. And it worked.
That is the nature of our opposition. They aren’t idiots. They are savvy. They are resourceful. They own the collective media space. And they use their power to get Donald Trump (a shitty man who is easily puppetted with praise), because they want a shadow puppet as their king.
And now that their king is elected, you can see Cryptobros pumping their cryptocoins, Stocks in various media companies flying high, etc. etc. They know they won and they’ll take the W today. But take a good look at America right now. In your depression, as you’re thinking about why Kamala won, you’re missing the real message.
Ask yourself: Why did Donald Trump win. And think about it. The answer is right before you and blazingly far more obvious than any particular action that was within Democrats or Kamala’s control.
Finally someone else is saying it. Feels like I’ve been taking crazy pills.
Notice how the politics subreddit is basically operated like the_donald. It’s controlled opposition. During the 45th administration they made a huge deal out of every single thing Trump did. No matter how big or small there was megathreads. What happened during Bidens administration? Fuck all of attention to anything. It was like 50/50 chance on any given week the mods would bother to create big posts for anything significant the administration accomplished. Net effect of making Biden seem more ineffectual. It’s basic a strategy of skewing what people are seeing by subtly editorializing the feed.
Throughout the Harris campaign there was scarcely any good discussion about actual policies. There was no shortage of comments saying it looks like she has not much policy. Followed by rare replies that never get any upvotes pointing out yes there’s actually an easily digestible 80 page document.
They let the subreddit flood with newsweek articles about how well Harris is polling. Seems to be one of the main diversionary tactics.
A lot of reddit users don’t seem to understand that reddit is not a democratic content driven platform. What they see can and is editorialized by the moderators. Hell people can’t even figure out the difference between admin (reddit employee) and mod (anonymous users with indeterminate biases/agendas). Some even seem to think reddit employees run subeddits. What a fucking disaster of ignorance but I digress.
All in all it appears reddit never recovered from the 2015-2016 the_donald coup. There was never an answer to that lrlourpresident account which was obviously astroturfing Democrat named subreddits.
I think much of the older userbase of anyone remotely left of center has gradually left by attrition over the years. Coincidentally between 2016 and today they’ve basically relaunched the platform bringing in whole new waves of unsuspecting users with the desktop redesign, phone app, and the IPO.
Something that hadn’t dawned on me until relatively recently with all the Musk Twitter bullshit. After reddit the company became independent from Conde Nast their chief source of funding is Thiel and Andreessen. Both we now know are hardcore MAGA supporting billionaires.
Steve Huffman calling those white supremacists on their platform “valuable discussion” is his “very fine people” moment.
ETA: The DOJ released documents from Russia stating they are to target “community of American gamers, users of reddit and image boards such as 4chan (the backbone of right-wing trends in the US segment of the internet)”. Emphasis mine. Comments linking to these documents were being inexplicable removed from the politics subreddit. This whole story got swept off the reddit news cycle real quick.
DNC as an organization is shit.
I’m talking to Democrats. I’m trying to tell you what your next move should be. The movement and overall organization of the Democrat Party goes above and beyond just its leadership.
I’m talking to you, specifically. First thing we must do is understand why we lost, and that means understanding how Trump won. And the first step there is to stop taking him as a buffoon (even if he is), because there’s a lot of people helping him succeed. We need to think about the whole enemy here, not just Trump but everyone who helped him this year.
And instead of complaining to DNC leadership (who obviously tried everything they could to stop Trump), start thinking about how to defeat MAGA Republicans. Donald Trump is absolutely a shittier candidate than Kamala in every way imaginable. Its not a policy loss here.
Emphasis mine! The last 48 hours have been wild to watch as a foreigner. American Liberals have got their heads stuck in a fantasy land, so far up their own asses, they might as well be MAGA-lite.
The DNC, and entire Democrat party, do not represent D voters. They represent the AmeriCorp plutocracy, who’ve bought and paid for 90+% of both parties the entire god damn time.
Let me put it this way. The greatest achievement the Dems have made in the last 15 years is the ACA — a republican plan — and what it achieved is still the worst health care system in the entire developed world (dollar for dollar). Democrats (probably you) touted this as a major success. Do you understand how much of a failed state that makes America look to the rest of the world?
Maybe one day you’ll understand that neoliberalism created the conditions for MAGA to exploit; that MAGA is just as much a failure of the Democrats, and neoliberalism, as it is of the Republicans, and conservatism. Doesn’t look like that’s gonna be anytime soon though, so get ready to spend the rest of your life under fascism because Liberals are making it abundantly clear that they’re never gonna get it.
Maybe it’s time you stop directing your anger at the left or right, and start directing it at the corporate whores who line your own parties ranks.
This is literally why people say Blue MAGA. These people are so scared of trump they would rather lie to cover democrats mistakes then criticize the democrats, because they’re terrified criticizing dems leads to trump. Thats Blue MAGA, and it’s quite real.
Good analysis. You also should understand that Americans are HEAVILY propagandized, since most of our major media outlets are also captured by the same corporate interests that bribe our politicians. Critiques of capitalism are de facto not allowed, because that would be bad for business. (Not to mention the previous decades of cold war era “red scare” nonsense the older generations grew up with) As a result, many democrats don’t know how to receive criticism from the left, and can’t even conceive that there might be a different path besides “status quo” and “conservative hellscape”.
We aren’t getting rid of that in the next 4 years. And I’m a former Republican so I’m not exactly against corporate interests (indeed, corporate interests is where the money and support is).
I’m an anti Trump and as of now, former Republican. This was it for me, it’s clear that Republicans can never defeat MAGA so I’m switching to the Democrats side and gonna see what I can do here.
I get that Democrats are more liberal than me so I’ll accept my place as a minority view. But I’m not against corporate interests. I’m just against the disaster that’s about to happen here in America and now willing to join Democrats to stop it in 2026 and 2028.
This is perfect. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are the perfect example of why America just voted for fascist dictatorship — you still believe MAGA’s are the problem, completely ignorant of the fact that you, your beliefs, and your support for money-is-speech corporate-owned politics places you in the upper percentiles of most-to-blame voters; the older and better educated you are, the more you are to blame. If you’ve voted R your whole life and are 50+, you’re like top 5-10% responsible.
Now you’ll consider yourself a Democrat, and support your conservative-indoctrinated idea of “moderate” politics, shifting the already center-right Democrats and Overton window even farther right, while supporting the fallacy that non-profit healthcare, education etc are “radical leftist” beliefs, instead of “what the rest of our allies have had for 50-100 years”… you’ll solidify the fascist dictatorship over the next 10-20 years, and you’ll do it all, while blaming “the left” — the very people who have been warning that “this would lead to fascism and extremism” for decades.
If I were born in America, I’d probably have ended up less educated and be some tankie communist or MAGA fascist myself because of fellow cotizens just like you. I’ve never felt better to be Australian, and born under the umbrella of a far more stable, compassionate, governance; despite conservatism/neoliberalisms best efforts to the contrary.
Or maybe, being a naive fool is how the left loses elections.
The Republican right explicitly builds media to serve them and tries to use media as a tool for control. And it works.
You can fight against the laws that empower this money system. But if you naively ignore the power structure and reality of today’s media landscape, you WILL BE DOOMED TO LOSE.
If you want to fight against it that’s… Fine. I get it. But you need power first and the current level of power Democrats wield is too low.
And this approach to campaigning does. not. win. elections.
Every one of those MAGA people WANT the shit storm he will bring. It’s not even about politics for a lot of them. They want to own the libs. The problem with this two party system is that it literally splits us in two on a social level. To be blue, you have to want abortion and trans rights and be all “soft” and “liberal,” which for some reason makes people uncomfortable. And to be red, you have to want to take rights away from women and round up the immigrants.
The MAGA hate the “libs” more than the libs hate the MAGA… and that’s why they showed up in such great numbers.
Bwaaahahahaha. No.
To be Red doesn’t mean that. Republicans are just better at logrolling than you Democrats are.
If your allies are stinky racists, you roll up your sleeves and try to be a good Republican and make new arguments for your side that can drown out the racists. Why? Because allies are needed for power, and working with people you disagree with is more important for the cause than tearing down your allies.
Democrats need to become more RealPolitik. They need to be less ideal and more self serving if they hope to win elections in the future.
This MUST be the message.
AIPAC corruption and extremely right wing ideology in the Democrat party lead to more Trump.
Get your head out of your ass. Feel your failure. Change your mind. Rebuild the Democrat party to a Left wing platform that CAN WIN.
Trump won because more people voted for him, plain and simple.
For 9 years now I’ve listened to fellow progressives wring their hands and breathlessly say “I just don’t understand how anyone could vote for him!” The problem, the real problem is that for like 95% of us, this statement is the end of the conversation. If the democrats want to win, they need to sit down and really, really consider the “why” of the Trump voter.
Yes, there’s racism and yes there’s sexism and yes there’s xenophobia and christian nationalism that all influence the far right, but there are also plenty of people voting R that don’t give a damn about that stuff. As the dust settles, it’s becoming increasingly clear that lots of voters voted split-ticket in this cycle, so blaming it all on dogma and party loyalty isn’t going to cut it — in fact, the data is suggesting that Americans are less loyal than ever to any particular political party, so what is it specifically about Trump that resonated with so many this time around?
I don’t have any exact answers to that question (which is honestly pretty embarrassing since we’ve all had 9 years to contemplate this), but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s something to do with the fact Trump actively acknowledges that things suck right now. “Make America Great Again” is a slogan that inherently implies we’re living in an empire in decline. Regardless of which side of the isle they sit on, I think most Americans can agree with the sentiment that things are getting worse, and have been for a while.
Of course, the two sides have wildly different ideas about why things suck — with the right largely blaming the decline on immigration or abortion or LGBT proliferation or some nebulous “eroding of traditional American values”, and with the left blaming things on regulatory capture, military adventurism, and the general corporate cannibalization of all our institutions and infrastructure. But both sides lately agree we’re heading in the wrong direction, so why is Trump’s message more resonant?
Maybe it’s because Trump presents them with more tangible “boogiemen” while the Democrats play ineffective defense by pointing at rising GDP or the surging stock market or low unemployment numbers — stats that do nothing to speak to the lived experiences of individual voters. Maybe Democrats need to focus their attention less on policy proposals and “hope and change” and more on “boogiemen” like the right. Stop campaigning against Trump, stop campaigning for incremental change, stop campaigning for culture wars, and start campaigning against people like Elon Musk. Start campaigning against union-busting Howard Shultz. Campaign against Amazon. Campaign against Mark fucking Cuban who hoards $6 billion for himself and then turns around and acts like he gives a damn about the working class while simultaneously padding the pockets of Democrats so that if they ever do actually win, he can be sure his tidy fortune won’t be at risk.
Is rent too high? Is the price of groceries becoming a burden? Have wages been stagnant for two decades? Fucking acknowledge it— no, don’t just acknowledge it, tell people they’re right to feel that way and that they should be fucking angry about it. Then spend every last campaign dollar and stump speech and political add attacking the people who made it that way. Rally people against an actual enemy, the real enemy, and maybe we’ll finally start voting for you without having to hold our noses. Of course, the DNC probably has too much vested interest in keeping their corporate donors happy to ever make this the message. After all, the Harris campaign raised nearly a billion dollars this cycle. Then again, what good is a billion bucks if it loses your the house, Senate and presidency?
Anyway, that’s just the two cents of a frustrated liberal who isn’t terribly surprised by the situation we’re now facing once again. Take it with a grain of salt — I’m just as dumb as everyone else.
You’re going to get downvoted because you’re making some big swings here. I’d say you’ll end up being 50% correct when the numbers come out and everything is drilled into.
The singular fact that nobody seems to want to say is that you apparently can now just win by lying to voters, cheating the law, propagandizing everything, and bragging non-stop about doing so. He will not do anything for people in this country or the world, nor will Vance. It’s a bait and switch, plain and simple, and people are dumb enough to vote for it. This happened in Italy twice almost 100 years ago, and it took them 15 years to finally get mad enough to just revolt, and hang those people for display.
The unfortunate truth right now is there seems to not be the pushback for this in the US. People are willing to vote against themselves and their neighbors because Trump/Vance say they’re going to get you money while they are pillaging you at the same time.
They are not a failure. They are exactly what they want to be, they are exactly who they said they are, and they won the election. Sounds like the GOP is doing alright to me, from a GOP perspective.
I think they meant the moral failure rather than the election failure fwiw
Fair point.
Alas I do want a 2nd option aside from Trump. I do have morals after all.
The utter lack of RealPolitik in the Democrats mindset is a sickening level of nativity to me.
What do you personally think the reason was?
Right wing taking over all of traditional media, newspaper media, social media and the left being utterly blind to the media blitz behind the scenes.
No Democrat or leftist was ready to counter message the loss of Washington Post’s endorsement, even though it happened after LA Times loss of endorsement.
The right wing pretty much always had control of the media. That’s why I put “liberal media” in scare quotes…what liberal media have we ever really had?
Air America? It was a lefty talk radio network about 20 years ago that was an attempt to build a parallel media infrastructure that could compete with the monsters on AM radio. Obviously the money ran out so it didn’t last.
Yeah, I remember it. Still, even if it still existed? The portion of the media that is legit “liberal” is vanishingly small and their influence is just about nil.
Yes, I can of course seek out podcasts and things like Democracy Now, etc…but if CNN and MSNBC and New York Times and the Washington Post are what the right thinks are liberal, I just give a good laugh at that. This type of thinking is ingrained in our culture, it just passes as something that is just the truth.
I honestly cannot help but wonder if the thing with Hollywood/gaming industry/corporate rainbow-washing is done by the same bunch to give something for the unhinged right to point at, and get even angrier about, even if none of those things uphold any rights…