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Five Reasons the Democrats Lost
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Donald Trump and the Republican Party pulled off a pretty remarkable win on Tuesday. Not only did Trump sweep almost every swing state and clinch a popular vote win, he made substantial gains or outright victories with almost every demographic group in the country.
How did Trump do it? Or to put it another way, how did Democrats fuck this up?
There are a lot of different explanations being bantered - so allow me to jump in with my take. I think it largely comes down to five key issues:
- The Economy
- Immigration
- Woke Bullshit
- Foreign Policy - Gaza and Ukraine
- The Messaging Sucked
Today we are joined by political analyst Jake Morgenstern to break it all down.
Twitter: @morgenstern2112
Original post: https://kevinmaley.substack.com/p/five-reasons-why-democrats-lost
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Analysis of Democratic Election Loss
Speaker 1five reasons democrats lost the election and they lost pretty badly . So I just had a post that I put up where I there's been a lot of takes on the election and my Democrats lost and I thought it came largely down to five key issues that I thought we could go through one by one . So the first was the economy , Number one , immigration . Number two , number three , woke bullshit . Number four , foreign policy . And number five , the messaging sucked . And I have a few honorable mentions and would be interested if you had any other thoughts as well .
Speaker 2Just to those points . So I think your list- .
Speaker 1Well , we're going to go through them one by one .
Speaker 2Well , hold on . But at the outset I'm saying your list is too inclusive of honorable mentions , is apt , because there is clearly no singular reason why the Democrats lost . No one can credibly point to a single reason . So I look forward to this discussion here , buddy .
Speaker 1Okay , well , so just a couple of things on the economy overall . So voters had said the economy was their number one issue . Most voters had said that and that was going into the election Voters across the board not every single person , but most people it was the , I don't know if it was a majority or plurality said the economy was their number one issue . And this was kind of perplexing to the Biden Harris people because they were pointing to numbers showing unemployment was low , inflation was going down , inter interest rates just started to come down , gdp was rising Biden would talk about that . The US economy was the envy of the world and it was , I think , among advanced industrialized economies , had the best post-COVID recovery . So there was a lot of confusion as to why voters would say the economy was not good . Most voters were saying they didn't feel the economy was good and they also trusted Trump more than Harris on the economy . And so I think it comes down to a couple issues to explain . If I could talk to the Harris campaign and the Biden campaign before that , one thing was the high . They never factored in how the high interest rates were impacting regular people , how unaffordable it was to buy a home , for example , a housing plank in her kind of small platform where she talked about a few policy issues , but that wasn't helping people who kind of already had homes and were struggling with high interest rates . You had you had the impact of inflation , where I don't think people cared that inflation was necessarily going down . I mean that's a good thing , but for most people they were feeling the impact of food prices being much higher than they were years ago . And then I think one thing that people kind of miss out in a lot of their analysis is there was a lot of temporary COVID aid that came out , first under the Trump administration at the end of his term , the CARES Act that gave a lot of temporary aid to people , and then Biden's I forget . I think it was called the American Recovery Act or something like that . Maybe that's it . Yeah Well , so there , I was just reading this headline before we got on . It's from February 2024 , and it's in the Washington Post . So one of the things that the COVID aid did was expand Medicaid to millions of people . And this headline from the Washington post , halfway through unwinding Medicaid enrollment is down about 10 million . So 10 million people , as of February 2024 , were thrown off their health insurance . And then just a few other stats . Then I want to get your thoughts . This is from Annie Lowry in the Atlantic .
Democrats' Economic Policies and Messaging
Speaker 1Going back to interest rates , the mortgage rate more than doubled during the Biden Harris years . Credit card balances were unaffordable . Car payments went up , homes generally were unaffordable . A family purchasing a $400,000 home with 20% down would pay $2,500 a month today versus $1,800 a month three years ago . And then other COVID aid that was expiring food aid , so SNAP benefits were expiring . There were the forbearance and student loans that were expiring and unemployment benefits were expiring and unemployment benefits were expiring . And then there was the child tax credit , which the Biden administration had doubled , and they had halved child poverty under a temporary program . That evaporated as well . And we saw child poverty double under the Biden administration and we saw poverty increase as well . So just again to recap food is more expensive , mortgages are more expensive , housing is more expensive in general , including for rent , millions of people being thrown off their health care , poverty increasing , and yet GDP was growing . So is it any wonder that Democrats were not looked at as doing well in the economy ?
Speaker 2No , no , no , I completely agree , and I guess all I can add to that is that I mean you saw the voter or non-voter in the case of the millions who stayed home must have seen that the Democrats were , forgive me , small C , constitutionally incapable of advocating for any of this rollback that you're just describing there . They hardly even put up a fight for it .
Speaker 1Well , they tried with the Build Back .
Speaker 2Better bill .
Speaker 2I would the build back better bill ? I don't know . Yes , yes , yes , yes , that's true , but but , but you know they , they let the four , they let the , the forbearance for student loans , just that came right back . You know , as soon as the Chamber of Commerce raised a big enough stink , the Democrats acquiesced . So so you know , it's it's , it's it , it's the Democrats that people saw the Democrats playing in right into this week , and futile is not the word , but just ineffectual . And in a way it's emblematic of this tottering old senile crook who has been bumping into doors for the past two and a half years , if not , if not more . I mean , come on , yeah , so so you know , people said , you know , uh , I , I understand why . Well , when , when not just things that happened happened , but then the democrats didn't seem to , uh , didn't seem to put up a fight and tried to stave that off .
Speaker 1Well , another thing . So they tried . You know , the Biden's COVID recovery bill had all those temporary benefits that were expiring . I guess he should have timed it better so that they weren't going to expire right before he was going to be reelected . But they , they tried to make a lot of them .
Speaker 2But but then ? But then he he is supposed to be , or he is advertised . As you know , he's been in politics , you know , for 107 years and he knows all the ins and outs .
Speaker 1Yeah , Well , that that gets to a point that I was going to make was they tried to make a lot of them permanent under the original Build Back Better bill and Joe Manchin got a lot of shit for this . But I think this is actually a critique I would put back on the Biden administration . So , if people remember , the original Build Back Better bill was going to have universal pre-K and expanded health benefits and permanent expansion of the child tax credit and all of these things and the price tag was astronomical and Joe Manchin at the time he said I'll agree to 1.5 trillion . I think he said initially he would agree to something like that and he played around with the price tag , but what he said was the final bill . I don't want any budget gimmicks in that .
Speaker 1And what the Democrats , especially in the House , did , the Congressional Progressive Caucus was they put everything that instead of choosing a couple of things that they wanted , they put everything in , but they had random sunset provisions under the assumption that they would later become permanent . And Joe Manchin was flipping out saying these are budget gimmicks because it's not the true cost of the bill and he was fighting with the White House , I think , instead of Biden , if he . I think he was already sunsetted by this point . This is very early on in his administration .
Speaker 2Sunsetted or sundown .
Speaker 1Sundown , sundown . Yes , thank you . If he was really the kind of deft LBJ , I can run the Senate . Kind of guy .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1He would have been able to handle Manchin better and gone to the House and said look , we've got to pick and choose . We've got Manchin agreeing to a price tag , but you got to pick a couple of things . You have to choose , unfortunately , between child poverty and universal pre-K and expanded Medicaid benefits , and that's a hard choice to make because they're all I agree with everything they were doing , not tactically , but the goals , and they refused to choose and the whole bill fell apart . It later became the Inflation Reduction Act , which is mostly about climate spending , which I liked , but I would say a better president would have been able to have handled that and he was just kind of out to lunch .
Speaker 2I think whether or not the Democrats could have done better or could not have , I mean and this is I mean , this is just the bind the center left party in this country finds themselves in , you know , of their own making or choosing , or by circumstance , or just , you know , by the arc of history or however you want to characterize it .
Speaker 2So I guess , in a way , to me it doesn't . In a way it also doesn't matter whether or not they chose to be ineffectual because they're democrats , because they're ineffectual because they're democrats , or whether or not , you know , they really could not have done anything anyway , and I guess it almost doesn't . In a way , it doesn't make a difference and you'll probably see that sort of narrative , uh , bounce back and forth between the parties in the coming years like a hot potato or whatever , in terms of you know , they could have done this , could have done that . They're ineffectual this way . They should have done more that way . I think we're going to see just circumstances are going to be not what they once were . I guess I'll leave it at that .
Speaker 1Yeah , the other thing I wanted to add just on this topic , and it plays into reason number five I have on the messaging , but with people feeling like the economy was kind of screwed against them , trump had a narrative for that . He had , and other commentators have talked about this , but he had a message of these Washington insiders don't care about you , they care more about illegal immigrants who are coming in and taking your jobs and I'm going to fight for you . There is kind of an us versus them and it's been pointed out that the Democrats under the Bernie Sanders wing of the party had a narrative , had an explanation , because people need an explanation for what's happening to them . The Sanders explanation was it's the plutocrats , it's the millionaires and the billionaires in Washington and fighting against kind of corporate corruption and plutocracy , the 99% against the 1% . That was a message that worked really well for Sanders . It almost won him the nomination twice until , I would argue , the party kind of coalesced against him party insiders .
Speaker 2I would not argue against you .
Speaker 1Yeah , but Harris eschewed , as others say , that narrative . And there's an interesting thing from the New York Times talking about how initially Harris embraced that kind of Bernie Sanders critique of big business you know , that's when she was talking about price gouging and that sort of thing but then she apparently she , you know surrounded herself with big donors from Wall Street and Silicon Valley . Hold on , I'm getting a notification . My Uber is here . Yes , ok , going , going right on that . So her brother in law is the general counsel of Uber , tony West , and he was a close advisor to her , as was Mark .
Speaker 2Cuban .
Speaker 1And so the New York Times reports . I'm just quoting the New York Times here . Over the course of the campaign , it became clear that Ms Harris would de-emphasize Mr Biden's attacks on big companies in favor of a more conciliatory approach that she hoped would appeal to moderates . She wanted corporate leaders in her camp as she tried to outrun the progressive reputation she had gained from the 2020 presidential primary race and she tried to blunt Mr Trump's attacks that she was a communist . And a lot of that did come from . And it has been reported that Tony West of the world again her brother-in-law , who's the general counsel of Uber , who tries to exploit workers and break unions and pay substandard living wages .
Speaker 2Right , yeah , no , yeah , I mean I would say yes , except it's funny how this , this always happens always , that they all , they always go with the . Uh , you know they always uh , democrats will always break to to go after you know the 45 . Uh , never trump republicans in the room , all who work at msnbc . I mean , it's just just conveniently .
Speaker 1It's just convenient that not always though because if you think about the 2012 campaign , do you remember that secret recording they found of Mitt Romney where he was talking ? About 47% of the country . They're moochers , they're living , and so that campaign I feel like was the good album of the Democrats were running as were against private equity and the big rich and the corporations whereas they were positioning the Republican opponents as a tool of Wall Street and fucking over the American workers .
Speaker 2I would sever my analysis between 2012 and 2016 . And I would also add to the 2012 , your 2012 point . In 2012 , you know , democrats famously ran as Biden , I believe General . What was it ?
Speaker 1Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive .
Speaker 2Alive . Now the world is basically the opposite . Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive .
Speaker 1Talk a little bit more about that when we get to number five messaging . But moving on to number two , one of the big major issues in the campaign immigration . And so this , I thought , was kind of interesting and I'm interested your thoughts on this , because Harris was in a challenging place
Impact of Immigration Policies on Democrats
Speaker 1on this . So when Biden came into office , he loosened some of Trump's border restrictions . I don't know why they did not put them back on when millions of people started coming across the border . The low number is something like nine million people came across the border .
Speaker 1They were going all over the country , sometimes shipped by the governor of Texas , but this was being felt in the streets of Chicago and the streets of New York In blue , so-called blue areas of Texas , but this was being felt in the streets of Chicago and the streets of New York In blue , so-called blue areas , and not just Martha's Vineyard but in Massachusetts , the shelters are all full with migrants and they were not stopping it long after it became an issue and you would . I was reading this interview with on the South side of Chicago , which is predominantly black , where the city of Chicago is putting up tents and parking lots and kind of displacing or inconveniencing a lot of black working class voters on the south side of Chicago , seeing that their tax money is and hotels with migrants . And this is not me arguing against migrants although I do think you shouldn't have uncontrolled border entry but I'm arguing the political impact of not just how Democrats think you're just xenophobic and racist if you're against uncontrolled migration but we're seeing the working class being impacted by that , seeing , you know , the working class struggling economically and they're seeing resources going to house and feed people from other countries and that has an impact and whether you think that's right or not , that does have an impact . And so just to set up why Harris's problem and how I think she could have gotten out of it , was they had finally , in I think it's February of this year , they got an immigration bill that she touts a lot . Interestingly enough , the only reason they put that immigration bill is they wanted more aid for Ukraine , and they didn't think that Republicans would support it unless they tied it to immigration . So this bill was actually immigration Israel aid , which always passes , obviously and then immigration enforcement .
Speaker 1It was not to the House Republicans liking . The Senate . Republicans didn't care . It was blamed on Trump . He may have spiked it , but I think there were some justified reasons for that and the whole thing fell apart . But , interestingly enough , after the bill fell apart , the Biden administration issued executive orders putting in more stringent border controls . That would have been in the border bill , and it effectively shut down immigration flows . So yada , yada , yada , and just a few more points on this the position Harris was in , so she was labeled by the media as border czar . Whether that was right or not , that was the nomenclature . That's what she got , and I think she should have found a way to address that . We're really strong in the border . We tried to get a border bill passed , but Trump blocked it and she couldn't account for when the majority of the administration . Why did they wait until the last minute ? And so I want to get your thoughts , but I'm just going to read a quick exchange she had with Anderson Cooper where she had the clip . So she's talking at the CNN town hall .
Speaker 2What did she say to and what did she say to anderson cooper was was this recorded ? That's something eyes wide shut to function in uh in the hamptons or is that a ditty part ?
Speaker 1so ?
Speaker 2so I thought you said , I thought they're at an anderson cooper town hall and um town hall .
Speaker 1Yes . And she says how immigration was shut down and you know the border is now closed . So Cooper says well , why didn't you do that in twenty two and twenty , twenty , twenty two and twenty twenty three . She says well , we , you know , we thought we could work with Congress and we thought we could go for a long term fix . He says couldn't you have done it at the same time ? And she said well , here's the thing . And then he said do you wish you did the executive orders in 2022 and 2023 ? And she said I think we did the right thing . And that's where I want to get your thoughts . I mean , she could have said a lot there . She could have said you know what we tried , but we made a mistake and now we need to be really tough on immigration . But she thought she could run to the right of Donald Trump on immigration , which I'm sorry , no one was buying .
Speaker 2Okay , I'll slip to the larger point first , which is that you know , on a number of key issues , uh , uh , uh , you know , harris , flip-flops . Uh , uh , uh , you know , harris , flip-flops , you know , in a major way . And then , and then , if and then she's flip-flopping on certain issues in a major way , then like , then , like .
Speaker 2How can the average observer not think that every time you know , basically every time you know , she either flip-flops or or or or changes position , or whatever ? How can they not , just , just how can the average observer not conclude that she is that she says they just got caught what they're doing , or she just got caught what she , she just got caught , and and actually , oh , and actually , uh , no , no , no , I didn't , I didn't do that , like so , in other words , I it's not that , it's not that you know she flips on , uh , fracking or immigration , but then , but then , but then , but then , every time she gets called out for those , she flip-flops . But what about these other positions ? So might the rational observer , might they not be reasonable in thinking that all these other criticisms of her , what if they are also true ? What if she's also trafficking kids at ping pong , or you know ? Or what if she ?
Speaker 1didn't have a good explanation for anything right , right .
Speaker 2Exactly so right , right , right , and this is right . It came out of the ether one .
Speaker 1Someone could like I could have written one on one , something like it's uh , any kind of explanation , but she refused to address right anything that yeah , flip-flop , yes , I think , if she , I think it would have benefited her if she said something like we were trying to use different approaches to immigration and clearly this didn't work , and now we've learned our lesson .
Speaker 2I mean it wouldn't have won her on immigration .
Speaker 1But it maybe would have helped her go up a pointer to an immigration . And it's one thing where she could have , you know , because she famously on the View said I wouldn't have done anything differently , there's no distance between me and Biden . I mean , I think she could have just given that said , like it's clear that immigration didn't quite work out well .
Speaker 2And I don't think it would have helped her . Or you could say you know circumstances have changed , yes , yeah , and by the or you could say or they could say you know circumstances have changed , or yes , yeah .
Speaker 2And , by the way , this is a criticism that I believe is salient , as you know , without taking , you know , a stand on the substance of themselves . You know , it's really just like every time she is called out , she's like , oh , I got my hand in the cookie jar , and then it says something different . So might , might , you know again , might the reasonable observer think that all these other criticisms for which he's not yet apologized , might , might she also be , might they also be true ? And then , if these criticisms are also true , might they , might she also be a really bad , irreversibly tainted candidate ? And this is just this . This is , this is the reason why we're here . This is why you have a whole list , as long as a CBS receipt , of reasons why the Democrats , led by Harris , lost .
Speaker 1Yeah , and one thing I should have pointed out at the beginning of this is some of the numbers . I think people are familiar with them , but it's worth pointing out how bad Harris did , and that's measured by where she lost voters as compared to Biden or Clinton . She did worse with black voters overall . She did especially worse with black men .
Speaker 2She completely Especially in states where , especially in the swing states , where there was target focused , in other words , where it mattered .
Speaker 1Yeah , she lost Latino men . She did worse than her predecessors with Latina women . She . She did very bad with the under 30 vote . She lost men under 30 . She lost she . She did worse on every demographic group than Bideniden , except for white women with a college degree making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year .
Speaker 1Aka , like people who watch the view and joy read and I think that's a pretty apt description . Speaking of which , let's go to issue number three . Reason number three , the episode number three Democrats lost woke bullshit . So I've heard a lot of people . You know this is kind of being talked about more in the media . I will say I don't think it's the number one issue by any means , but I want to kind of set up this narrative of when Biden was running for the presidency in 2020 , he campaigned on this idea of a return to normalcy and I think that spoke to the idea that people felt like the country had gone off the rails in many different ways throughout all four years of the Trump administration . There is just tons of chaos . There is the crazy freakouts . It was not just the chaos that Trump himself was doing , but the reaction from people protesting and you know the media freakouts and it's breaking news all the time , and this kind of culminated in COVID .
Speaker 1And and so Biden campaigned on this idea of like I'm this really old , old school Democrat and I think that appealed to people like , oh , he's a moderate Democrat who will kind of bring it back to normal Democrat who will kind of bring it back to normal . But I think some people , as a secondary , tertiary issue , felt like the country was still kind of felt like going a little crazy . Where , you know , you have the , the gender norms changing and I will say I think most people , I think the vast majority of people , are probably fine with live and let live and you know , no one cares if you're transgender or gay or whatever . But I think when it became this , you know insisting that we can't even talk about the idea of transgender women playing men's sports , because if you even oppose it at all , you are transphobic . That you , you know everyone has to put their gender pronouns in their email . And it came to a point where and I'm going to quote the New York Times again there were ostensibly liberal women's rights organizations who were stripping the word women from their website .
Speaker 1So let me just quote the New York Times here . So they were talking about how lots of different websites and organizations no longer say women , they say terms like pregnant people , menstruators and bodies with vaginas , so this includes Planned Parenthood . Who omits the word women from its homepage ? Now NARAL , who's another women's rights pro-choice organization , switched out the word women for birthing people . The ACLU , which had been a longtime defender of Roe v Wade , when Roe v Wade was overturned , said it threatened several groups , and they listed them black , indigenous and other people of color , lgbtq , community immigrants and young people . And then , quoting the New York Times , it left out the most threatened . It left out those threatened most of all women . They literally didn't talk about women as being threatened by the overturn of Roe v Wade . And then just one other thing the British Medical Journal , the Lancet .
Speaker 2The British Medical Journal of inbred pedophiles .
Speaker 1It's probably the most prestigious medical journal in the world .
Speaker 2What do they do ? Do they examine ? They have a storied legacy of reconstructing royalty who got their arms blown off in an IRA incident .
Speaker 1Where is Lord Mountbatten ? All right , so the Lancet said the Lancet had a cover article about menstruation and instead of mentioning people who menstruate , they refer to people as bodies with vaginas instead of women . So again , I don't want to say that the whole thing is about this ?
Speaker 1I don't think it is . And I also want to emphasize you know this is not reflective of my views , but how I think the thing that bothered me the most about this kind of whole life , and was an FDR liberal and said like , hey , maybe how long was her life if she was black and had the right to vote and voted for FDR ?
Speaker 2She's old .
Speaker 1But if she said you know , I don't know about , you know men playing women's sports , If she said that cast it out of the party . Yeah , how dare you vote for FDR and play ?
Speaker 2women's sports . If she said that , Cast it out of the party .
Speaker 1Yeah , how dare you say that she voted for SCR and played women's sports ? You must be cast out of the party . I think it's an important point and you know to underscore that point right after the election , seth Moulton , who's a congressman from Massachusetts was giving an interview where he said something like he was talking about the election .
Speaker 1He said you know , I'll have to admit I have concern for my two little girls getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete .
Speaker 1But as a Democrat I'm supposed to be afraid to say that Right after he said that some of his staff resigned , some of his other staffers circulated a letter asking him to apologize to the LGBTQ plus community . It was his campaign manager who resigned . Other Democratic officials asked him to resign and so again , this is to emphasize the idea not of his position , but the fact that he couldn't he was saying I'm afraid to even say this position , and then the reaction kind of reaffirmed . That is again underscoring . I don't think it's the major issue , but I think the idea that Trump played into one of his closing ads which was one of his most effective ads as measured by a few different outlets was a commercial talking about quoting Kamala Harris saying that she supports transgender surgeries for immigrants in US prisons , and the gist of the commercial is that they're using taxpayer money for this and it ends with a narrator saying Kamala stands for they them , trump stands for you .
Speaker 1And it was criticized for being transphobic , which of course it kind of is , but I think it heads to a larger point that while you're suffering at the message , while you're suffering economically , she's Democrats are obsessed with these social issues and they're taking your taxpayer money to help migrants who shouldn't even be in this country get surgeries for something you didn't don't even understand . That's what they care about . I , donald Trump , I'm going to fight for you to put bread on the table , and that's kind of the big point that I'm trying to make here is that it was portrayed as a distraction and I think the Democrats kind of fed into that .
Speaker 2I don't argue that the Democrats didn't feed into that or , frankly , into any narrative that lets up their downfall . However , I mean , then I will disagree with you here , because I mean you know all these examples you cited as the New York Times oh , it's in this highfalutin place , or just congressmen from you know , one of the most posh parts of the country , you know , specifically , like the northeast corner of , like northeast Massachusetts . These were even salient issues . I don't doubt that they might have resonated with those making the criticisms . I don't doubt that they might have resonated with those making
Democrats' Foreign Policy Impact
Speaker 2the criticisms . I would also remind you and listeners that do not forget , that when Donald Trump was running for the nomination in 2015 , and , as you may recall , it was coming down to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz , and one of the sort of , like you know , silly issues or questions at the time was like , well , what if , like , caitlyn Jenner came into Trump Tower and needed to use the bathroom ? And Trump's like , well , I didn't care , and Ted Cruz made a big stink about it .
Speaker 2And next thing , you know , ted Cruz loses literally middle America . He lost a big lead , bigly , the uh , the primary in in indiana and even after uh uh , having a colleague for arena as as his vp nominee to be dropped out and and ted cruz or ted cruz ? Ted cruz lost and don trump went on , went on to win . I guess all that is to say whether , whether , whether , whether it's you know , like elite media outlets gabbing to their , to to their elite audiences , or , or , or whether , or whether it's you know , like elite media outlets gabbing to their , to their elite audiences , or whether or whether it's you know , the 2015-16 Republican primary , I guess I guess was 2016 . I don't think that that is a salient criticism and it does play into narrative of , as Democrats , as ineffectual in caring more about things that affect only a very small segment of our society as as compared to the rest , but I struggle to think that that was , or I think , one much struggle to think that that was a controlling factor .
Speaker 1But I was arguing it wasn't a controlling factor .
Speaker 2I was saying it was not a controlling factor .
Speaker 1It was a background factor .
Speaker 2Well , I thought . I thought there was a number three .
Speaker 1I thought there's a number three on your list I'm sorry it was , but they , they interplay with each other . It was , I think it was an issue , I think people were sick of it , but I think the economy was number one and abortion was number two .
Speaker 2Okay , well , everything else was far below that fair enough . In any event , I , I , I don't , I don't necessarily share your assessment of that factor , but that's OK .
Speaker 1OK , so we'll move on to a very interesting one , Number four , foreign policy . Speaking of issues that I don't think were the most important issue but I think had an impact in the broader narrative , was the Democrats' foreign policy , and where to begin on the Democrats' foreign policy .
Speaker 2So one thing I'll say largely , and I think you know I mean no , I'm just , I'm just suggesting that , yeah , that the list .
Speaker 1Well , we'll just focus on Ukraine and Gaza .
Speaker 1And I'll say one thing you know Biden lost the House , his in the midterms and so it would be natural that he would not be able to focus on Domestic legislation or legislation as much , but I think his second half of his presidency . As Americans were suffering economically , they were seeing billions and billions probably up to $200 billion sent overseas to Ukraine , to Israel , to other countries , while they were suffering and that the whole narrative was ridiculous . It was Bush era , like we're fighting for democracy , when it was obviously not true and I'm happy to get into that . But I think you know getting into the actual issues I mean Ukraine is a debacle the actual issues mean .
Speaker 1Ukraine is a debacle and I don't . I mean again , we're just sending them so much money and we're not really seeing results . But I don't think Ukraine really played , excuse me , into this that much . I do think somewhat their Gaza thing did definitely affected Michigan . I think it probably had an impact on the youth vote . It had an impact on just kind of the stalwart liberal vote , I think .
Foreign Policy Influence on Democratic Elections
Speaker 1So I'm going to quote Peter Beinart right now , also from the New York Times , but he also writes for Jewish Currents and so he's in multiple publications . So he wrote over the past year excuse me , over the past year .
Speaker 1Israel's slaughter and starvation of Palestinians , funded by US taxpayers and live streamed on social media , has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation . Many Americans , roused to action by their government's complicity in Gaza's destruction , have no personal connection to Palestine and Israel , and the point that he's making there is it's not just Arabs . So he says , like many Americans who protested South African apartheid or the Vietnam War , their motive is not ethnic or religious , it is moral . All of this provided Mr Trump an opportunity .
Speaker 1According to the New York Times , his campaign found that undecided voters in swing states were about six times as likely as other swing state voters to be motivated by the war in Gaza . Mr Trump wooed them . He pledged to help quote return the Middle East to peace and lambasted former Representative Liz Cheney , a Republican , with whom is Harris had chosen to campaign as a radical war hawk . And so the point that he's making . There is not just that . We can talk about the data in Michigan , which I think is pretty clear , especially with Democratic senators running ahead of Harris in Michigan and winning in Michigan and taking a kind of more nuanced view of the war . Harris was instead campaigning with Liz fucking Cheney , and there's a number of other issues that I mean ways she fucked up on Gaza .
Speaker 1But I want to emphasize Bynard's point was it's not just that , it's not just that and , for context , michigan has the largest Arab-American population in the country .
Speaker 1But the point that Bynard is making is it's not just Arab American voters , it's young voters , it's kind of the base , the kind of activist base , the kind of people who protested the war in Vietnam or a generation earlier apartheid or a generation before that Vietnam , and that that did affect turnout . I don't know that it was determinative . But when it comes down to I mean this , this bound to being a close election on the popular road , at least in in the swing states . And you got to look at the broader picture of a . It's just a country suffering economically and administration just obsessed with sending weapons overseas , trying to sell it as an economic program because it's helping Raytheon and Lockheed Martin because they might be building bombs here , although there's objectively no economic benefit . That we've seen and just the moral atrocities that a Democratic administration is selling , I think takes a dent out of support and energy for the party from the people who are usually the most energetic and that's the young base of the party Right and I completely agree .
Speaker 2But I also think that , just as I was obviously in my opinion funnily alluding to earlier , where I'm saying that this is like the opposite of the 2012 election and that General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead , I think people looked around and saw the world was on fire . Massive amounts of dollars . We're going to uh , uh , these , the , you know , these four uh , which I believe that americans are more and more viewing with an increased , uh , isolationist eye . So I don't think yes , I agree with you that that foreign policy doesn't necessarily matter singularly , but but it plays into and supports a larger narrative of she is for they , they them , and he is with us . So that's how I think this all ties together .
Speaker 1How offensive was it to you that she was campaigning with Liz Cheney ? And not only that , she was touting Dick Cheney . So it's not as if she tried to get distance from the father . She was touting Dick Cheney's endorsement , calling him an American patriot and thanking him for his service . He killed a million people and set up an illegal torture regime .
Speaker 2I was offended that Donald Trump thought there could only be nine guns pointed at him .
Speaker 1And we should be clear about that , like he was saying that she was a chicken hawkk , not that the media totally misreported this he wasn't saying that she should be shot in a firing squad . He was saying , if you're gonna advocate for these wars that you're so gun happy about right , go and fight them yourself , which everyone used to say during the george w bush years .
Speaker 2I support him . Yes , I guess . Yes , yes , yes , I mean she's a war mongering genocidal monster who's never made a country she doesn't want to invade ?
Speaker 1There's no distance between her and her father . She also worked in the George W Bush administration and the State Department helping all these war crimes occur . She's never repudiated those views .
Speaker 2She's going to have her own circle of hell named after her .
Speaker 1I mean come on yeah , Well , after that the family name and her father would be there .
Democratic Campaign Messaging Failures
Speaker 1Did that bother you that she was going around ? Yes , having like women's clinics .
Speaker 2Believe it or not , as a human being , it bothered me .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , what a dumb fucking move . And it wasn't just dumb , it was insulting , like it truly was . Yes , yeah .
Speaker 2Right move , and it wasn't just dumb , it was insulting , like it . Yes , yeah , right , right , right , so right , and does that not undercut , like to the extent you know ? Yeah , you know they're . They're people like you and me who are so-called older millennials who came in political age . Uh , you know when , when , when bush's hitler and , by the way , all these criticisms of the bush administration in his cohorts were were correct and were right .
Speaker 1Yep .
Speaker 2And now they're walking this back . No wonder people say to him no wonder , you know , perhaps you know youth in Dearborn , michigan were like huh , you know it's November , it's cold , I just didn't bother to get out of the house today .
Speaker 1Well , I want to read you the data on the house today . Well , I can , I want to read you the data on dearborn , but first I want to read you a . So as a quote from donald trump , so as data on dearborn george w bush administration library . Probably this is what so she's going . Harris goes to michigan . This is um . Trump goes to michigan .
Speaker 2In quoting him , I'll try and uh yeah , at least he went , at least at least he tried hear me , hear me out .
Speaker 1This is my trump thank you . This is a quote from him many muslim and americans , and arab americans have friends and family living in the middle east , and kamala is campaigning with warmongers like liz cheney . They want to get the Arab vote , they want to get the Muslim votes , so she begs Liz Cheney , whose father virtually destroyed the Middle East . I don't think that's working out too well . That's a quote from Trump .
Speaker 1And the data on Dearborn , which is the largest Arab majority city in the United States , which Biden won . Biden won Dearborn , michigan . 75% of the vote . You know how much Harris got 27% of the vote . Oh my God , 27% of the vote .
Speaker 2You have to be like a theoretical physicist to figure out the , the negative imaginary integer to quantify how much her share of the vote decreased it's .
Speaker 1I mean , she fucked up . And again I want to emphasize who is the senator that just won ? Was it Slotkin Slotkin , Michigan ? Yeah , so she's the senator-elect , alyssa Slotkin . So she was a Democratic House representative for Michigan . She was running for the Senate . She won . I don't have her statements up in front of me , but when she was asked about Gaza and Israel , she had a much more nuanced view where she would more . And of course , kamala had this line of like we're working so hard for a ceasefire and we're going to help the Palestinians live in dignity and peace , but then you're going around campaigning with Liz Cheney . You can't have it both ways . So Alyssa Slotkin again , I don't have her statements in front of me , but she had a much more kind of favorable not disparaging Israel , because you're not allowed to do that but she had a more nuanced view and she didn't campaign with Liz Cheney . She won statewide in Michigan as a .
Speaker 1Democrat and Harris lost Yep , yep . Okay , before we go to the fifth , any other thoughts on the fourth reason ? No no no , no , you got them all . Okay . Number five , the last big one , and this is something we've kind of talked about throughout , but this is the messaging sucked , and so just to kind of set this up so Harris centered her campaign around freedom . Do you remember she had Beyonce ?
Speaker 2Yes .
Speaker 1Yes , Her Beyonce song goes like freedom , freedom . Of course Beyonce never sang it .
Speaker 2I don't want . I don't want your podcast to get demonetized there . My friend , I'm singing Richie Valens .
Speaker 1OK so she she also centered a significant amount of her campaign around , I think it's fair to say , two issues One abortion , the other authoritarianism . So abortion , again , I think it's an important issue .
Speaker 2Right , right , a lot of people , both of which are not not not bad and salient issues she made it like the there was a like the end all be all .
Speaker 1I mean she went down . Well , hold on . She went down overall with women . She did worse with women than Joe Biden . She was playing on this idea that women will be so freaked out by Dobbs . One thing that's interesting , that's interesting that Democrats didn't appreciate was , hold on , that Trump moderated on abortion . So the Republican Party , since Roe v Wade , has had a plank in its platform saying we want to criminalize abortion . Trump made them take it out and of course you could say it's because Dobbs happened , they didn't need it . But they you know they would , a lot of them still want a national ban .
Speaker 2He said he would veto a national ban on abortion .
Speaker 1I think it got kind of moderated out a little bit .
Speaker 1The majority of the country is in favor of abortion and in some cases , but not all cases they say and you know there's obviously geographical differences , but she kind of made it like the thing of her campaign . And then the other plank of her campaign that I thought was so stupid was Trump's a fascist , trump's Hitler . This is the last election ever . You know , at her last election or , I'm sorry , at her last rally where she had fucking Oprah Winfrey come out , oprah told people that this will be the last election we ever have .
Speaker 2For how much ?
Speaker 1For how much ? For how much ? I heard that was a rumor . So supposedly Oprah was paid a million dollars . Oprah denies that . I kind of think it probably was not true .
Speaker 2They did excessively spend it .
Speaker 1Or her spokespeople denied it . No , she denied it . She like TM TMZ founder or something , and she said , no , that's not true . And I believe the Harris campaign did spend very stupidly . They spent $100,000 in the . Call her daddy .
Speaker 2Right , they refused to go on Joe Rogan , but so I .
Speaker 1Set that aside . Yeah , a different article , not from the New York Times that talking about , there was an internal memo that was found that the Harris campaign had , that was leaked to the press . That said attacking Trump's fascism is not that persuasive and it basically said that this is not moving voters . And yet they went over and over again saying you know , it's the Third Reich or the Fourth Reich , I guess , and it's going to be so awful . And , by the way , trump is at the White House today shaking hands with Joe Biden . They're smiling , they're laughing , it's all great . You know , harris , when she gave her concession speech , is like , oh , we'll live to fight another day .
Speaker 2When you look at the Twitter speech and , as we understand , on the call with supporters right .
Speaker 1Yes , but I was going to say when you look at the , there's like the libs of TikTok will have videos of people for some reason Friends of the pod libs of TikTok ?
Speaker 2No , no , not them .
Speaker 1I mean just average people , just kind of having mental breakdowns and freaking out because they believe that Trump is Hitler . Obviously the Harris and Biden people didn't actually believe that , but I think this I mean CNN , new York Times , msnbc , you know everything is Trump's a fascist . That example before of him saying Liz Cheney is a chicken hawk and they twist it to he wanted her assassinated .
Speaker 1But like I could have told you , abortion important issue , don't make it like basically one of the only issues . And yet she did , I , I mean , and she , she did worse with women right biden , she , she lost white women , I mean , she apparently that that magic did not work right , right .
Speaker 2So , yeah , I mean again , I will , I mean I'll largely agree with you . I I think part of the downfall here is that Harris and her campaign I think deliberately because they had no other choice conflated the two and so , yes , trump might overturn Roe v Wade . Obviously , I think I would characterize myself as an institute observer of American politics . I think if that legislation came to his desk it's quite possible he might sign that piece of legislation .
Speaker 1But setting that aside , Wait a national ban on abortion ? I don't think he would . I don't think it would get to him . I don't think . I think his allies in Congress would make sure it never shows up on the floor .
Speaker 2I think , I think he misunderstood .
Speaker 1Johnson's going to put that on the floor .
Speaker 2He's a , I think I well okay , all right , okay , well , well , I , I , I , I think I don't think most of them even give a shit about abortion . They're same with him . I think Trump cares about abortion . No , no , no , but , but , but . But let's set that aside .
Speaker 2My criticism here is that the Harris campaign was saying you know , you know their way to victory here , and they were deliberately conflating that with Trump is Hitler .
Speaker 2And I'm sorry , you know Trump is Hitler , trump has been on the scene . Then if he's trying to , you know , launder that , you know , with the whole , because he wants to potentially , you know , make abortion illegal at the national level , I just don't think any of that criticism washed . In fact , it was probably watered down with this criticism of Trump as Hitler , because I just don't think anyone took that to be the real thing . Because here we are in the year of our Lord 2024 , and we've survived this far , and we're under the great fourth year of the wonderful Biden administration , and we've already survived four years from Trump and even more if you count the number of years he's been on the national scene . People know him is what you're saying at the national level , when people saw that he's not Hitler . Ergo he's not going to have any regressive effect on access to abortion or abortion rights . So I think that was counterproductive to try and wash those two together .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think overall . I mean I wish I sat in the room with her communications people Like the . I mean I'm not saying this would have solved it , but her just the messaging sucked . And again her own internal documents said they knew it . But yes , yeah , but yes , it just was not working . You know why ? It's because she didn't want to criticize Wall Street . She didn't want to criticize her donors , right ? She didn't want to criticize Silicon Valley because Mark Cuban might be mad . She can stand up for her brother-in-law Right , tony West .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , you know that's another thing .
Speaker 1Is she at the Democratic the head of the one of the largest unions in the country , the Teamsters Union ? I think his name is Sean O'Brien . Yeah , sean O'Brien , yeah , yeah , yeah , oh , yeah , so he so hold on . So he asked , he asked both parties . Could I speak at your convention ? And unions are traditionally a Democratic affiliated apparatus , because democrats tend to be more pro-union the rnc , the republican national convention , you know , and with trump's acquiescence , let him speak at the rnt .
Speaker 1He gave a fantastic speech , right critical of republicans , but it was also yep praising some it was positive . It's positive too , yeah and democrats kamal harris's campaign would not let him speak . The head of the one of the largest unions in the country would not let him speak at the democratic national convention why do you think ?
Speaker 1that was because they were control freaks . They wanted to . He said this they wanted to pre-approve his speech and edit it , and he said that with the rnc too . The rnc tried to edit his speech and susan w , and he said that with the RNC too . The RNC tried to edit his speech and Susan Wiles , who was Trump's campaign manager now his chief of staff stopped them and said let him say whatever he wants to say , Cause he said I'm not going to speak if you try to edit it .
Speaker 2I think that's a credit to the Republicans , and especially the Trump campaign and I've never even heard of her except on paper . But that's a credit .
Speaker 1But they but they said like we'll take I mean Trump can take criticism because he knows it'll help the broader message , whereas the Harris campaign was so insecure . They wanted if you watch any of the DNC it was . I mean I'd rather put a gun to my head , but it was every speech was the exact same . And it was , which happens at almost every convention .
Speaker 2But how ?
Speaker 1wonderful she is . He might have gone off script . He's not going to attack her directly but he would have said you know , I love I'm guessing I love Democrats , they're great . But you know , we felt betrayed by NAFTA and you know PNTR with PN , permanent trade relations without normal trade relations with China , and that sort of thing , and right , but so what Like ? So what ? So they wouldn't let him speak . They also wouldn't let a single Palestinian speak at the I mean just over and over again .
Speaker 2She , yeah , right , and it wasn't just speaking , it was like it wasn't like I even congregate . You're like being like ?
Speaker 1you know the .
Speaker 2The same breath of yeah , they were ejecting Palestinians from their prominent Arab Americans from their rallies .
Speaker 1Okay , so bad messaging , very , very bad . So those are again the tough issues that I think they lost the economy .
Speaker 2I agree .
Speaker 1Immigration woke bullshit . Foreign policy messaging suck . I will just , at the end here , want to go over my honorable mentions and see if you have any thoughts on that . I'm just going to run through them quick , without detail .
Speaker 2So pick your poison here .
Speaker 1She just had complete lack of conviction . We kind of talked about this , but I think the idea that- no . I disagree with you strongly there . That she was able to flip-flop on so many issues showed that she had no conviction .
Biden's Anger Towards Democratic Party
Speaker 1Another one she was seen as the establishment candidate . She was embracing the FBI .
Speaker 2This is the Democrats in general . Let me run through them real quick and then react to them .
Speaker 1So the Democrats are seen as embracing the CIAia , the fbi , the fda , big pharma , all that . She didn't handle media well , she refused to go on joe rogan . She also embraced wall street .
Speaker 2I guess I already said that one hold on a whole one second , one second , one second . Did you , did you not see recently that it was alleged , at least that was her name , jennifer Palmieri ? With regard to Joe , Rogan .
Speaker 1I saw that this was in the Financial Times , so she was at some event sponsored by big banks talking about the campaign . She she was an advisor to the Harris campaign and a Hillary Clinton acolyte and she said when it came in that they were invited to go . And Joe Rogan , which people should understand , is the largest podcast in the history of the world . It has regularly 10 to 12 , 15 million downloads . For comparison , cnn gets 100,000 people watching on a good night and probably like 20,000 in the key demographics . The Trump interview with Rogan is at 80 million downloads . So this is the largest audience she probably would have gotten . Her convention speech got something like 10 million views . This would have been the largest audience she would have gotten to key demographic men who she did bad with . But she could have enjoyed Rogan people . The media makes him out to be a Nazi .
Speaker 1He's very , very nice , basically liberal guy and yes , I think would have been completely fair and fine with her , but her Paul Mary said that when she was invited , Harris's staff freaked out and were opposed to it and they thought there would be backlash and it wouldn't look well .
Speaker 2And then so that is that is so . So I understand that that is false .
Speaker 1How do you know it's false ? It was just reported . No , no , no , no , no , no , no , oh , false . Their perception was false .
Speaker 2Yes , obviously , because well , what I'm getting at is that they knew , you know , jennifer Palmieri and her staff knew that their boss could not survive for 30 minutes , much less an hour , much less three hours on that show without making a fool of herself , and so , I guess , in a way , to her credit , she dove on a bullet and did not let her . I guess now former boss take the blame , but in my estimation that's what happened .
Speaker 2I mean yeah , to his credit , joe Rogan lets people talk on like almost any other outlet in the whole , whatever Twitter or podcast verse or whatever I mean and so that's admirable . But that's enough to be not salient . But Jennifer Palmieri knew that she could not let her boss be open minded , which is a generous way of putting it , you know .
Speaker 1For three hours . I don't think Jennifer PalmieriPalmer was making the decision . She was just reporting out that the staff freaked out , and I think this is probably true . The staff is probably woke and they thought oh my God , he's so bad ?
Speaker 2I think that's not true .
Speaker 1It might be . Yeah , all right , so those are , those are the major honorable mentions . So the party , the establishment , as with media , lack of convention conviction and just an overall bad candidate she was not a good candidate and you can't . You can't always get your Obamas or your bill Clintons . I don't think he was that great of a president , but he was . He had great charisma .
Speaker 2Yeah , oh my God , oh my God , yes , yes , yes , all three , all three .
Speaker 1You know , we and I , I kind of think , and maybe we can kind of close out on this thought and get your thoughts on this , but I wonder if this was Biden angrily spiting the party that spurned him , because , from what we now know , so he , after , after the horrible debate that we all watched , he got pushed for a month to get out and he was refusing . He was becoming angry . As you know , senile old people challenge , it happens to them , and he thought he was getting attacked by Pelosi and the Obama people and all that . So they all .
Speaker 1A word on the street was , and Pelosi has said what they wanted was him to step aside and then have kind of like a mini primary . They did not want an anointment of Harris , because they knew she had terrible numbers and was not a good candidate .
Speaker 1So he does this thing where he says I'm going to step aside , and then on the way out later he endorses Harris and people should understand he had delegates from the fake primary that he had where they pushed out all the other candidates . The delegates were pledged to him . They were all Biden supporters . So when he endorses Harris , he's basically handing her the nomination . No one could have challenged her at that point . I wonder if it was a big fuck you to the Democratic Party , a fuck you to Pelosi and Obama . Who he blames ? I don't think it's fair to blame only them , but who he blames . And that's why when you looked at Trump at the White House today , Biden had the biggest smile on his face .
Speaker 2Well , I mean , my suggestion , or my explanation is that there's no way to know , because sundowning and angry and I know this without enlightening your audience to a personal experience with my family I mean , if I was sundowning and angry and now he's got a smile on his face when he's doing you know something . He's angry when he's doing thing x and then something happens y , and he's got a different disposition about him , you know . I mean , like I , there is no causal relation between the two . Nevertheless , I would suggest it's quite possible and I think we should just leave that to the listeners' imaginations as to whether or not he's a he's . He's a supremely vindictive asshole , would you just be really funny , and we should all be appreciative of that possibility .
Speaker 1And now he retires to Rehoboth Beach . All right , jake . Thanks so much for coming on , toodles , much appreciated . We'll see you next time .
