2024 Presidential Race Autopsy (Part II)
The combination of the facts that almost all segments of the American public desire authoritarianism and that President Donald J. Trump (R) is giving these segments what they want by being a few steps shy of terminating the U.S. Constitution, presents a daunting challenge to those opposed to MAGAism. Despite all the warning signs of the dangers of MAGA and Trump, despite having the explicit support of some of the leading Never Trump Republican leaders, and despite record-breaking, good economic indicators, the Democratic Presidential ticket lost by a solid margin in 2024.
Unlike European countries, the United States has a front-ended political system; various political factions coalesce around a broad ideology (forming a political party) prior to elections (in back-ended systems, like in Europe, the various factions form their own parties with their own ideologies, then coalesce with each other after elections in the form of governing and opposing coalitions). As is want after every election loss, the various factions begin accusing each other of being the cause for their coalition’s defeat.
The 2024 Election is no exception, as the broadly characterized progressive wing of the Democratic Party claims that if the party had been more assertive and consistent in championing progressive causes (e.g., universal healthcare, guaranteed living wage, supporting Gaza, etc.), more of the Democratic base would have shown up to vote and the party could have appealed to the working class, young, and minority voters who Trump won over.
The moderate wing, of course, blames the progressives for being too radical, focused too narrowly on and catering too much to race/class/gender categorizations, and supporting economic policies which were a “bridge too far” for Never Trump Republicans and moderate independents to cross.
Both camps have statistics to backup their arguments. Vice President Kamala Harris (D) won approximately 6.27 million fewer votes than President Joe Biden (D) won in 2020. Former President Trump won approximately 3.08 million more votes in 2024 than in 2020. A simplistic reading from this is that approximately 3 million voters switched from Biden to Trump, while another 3.2 million Biden voters stayed home in 2024. Of course, the Democrats will delve into these numbers and try to figure out why Harris could not win over these voters and more details will emerge over this year and likely into the next.
Toxic Brand is Making
Democrats Irrelevant
What both wings can and should agree on is that the Democratic Party has a serious branding problem – especially when the Party’s popularity is still lower than Trump’s. The Republican Party has been very successful in portraying it as the Satanic Party – one which, if given power, will establish a communist Dictatorship of the Proletariat, led by child-molesting, transgender illegal immigrants.
Such portrayal has been so successful that, psychologically, it is keeping most Never Trump Republicans (including the nearly 25% who voted for Nikki Haley during the 2024 Republican Primaries) from voting Democratic. It is also pushing economically liberal, yet socially conservative voters (e.g., young Black men and Latinos) towards MAGA. Note the margins by which the Democratic Party lost rural areas of the country last November. It did not seem plausible that Trump could outdo his past margins in such areas, since the Democrats have been conceding them since the end of President Bill Clinton’s (D) administration to the Republicans. And yet, they still managed to lose several percentages more – even after Trump’s two impeachments and the failed January 6th insurrection.
Such losses would not normally be a problem in races dependent solely on raw vote totals, as long as it is offset by picking up other voting blocs, such as suburban, college educated white women. However, this also did not happen. Such losses also become more of a problem in races or governing bodies where a party’s success is dependent on the number of states it carries, such as control of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College. At the moment, the Democratic base is almost solely concentrated in metropolitan area, making it dominant in only fifteen states:
The Democrats cannot hope to stay competitive in the Senate and (to a lesser extent) the Electoral College if there are only fifteen “blue” states (and by “blue” states, I mean states which have voted Democratic every Presidential election since 2000), compared to twenty “red” states. The situation is worse if those states which only voted once for the other party this century are included (seventeen “blue” states to twenty-four “red” states):
Of course, the whole situation will become moot if Trump is successful in becoming a dictator (at which point, there either will not be elections or they will be rigged in favor of MAGA). Thus, the challenges to the Democrats are two-fold: (1) saving the Constitution and preventing an authoritarian take-over through non-electoral means; and (2) if there is another legitimate election cycle or two, ensuring victory.
A Liberal Re-brand
To accomplish both of these, the Democrats will need a serious re-brand. They will need to portray themselves in a way which appeals to the two wings of their party (progressives and moderates), as well as to the independents and Never Trump Republicans who are opposed to MAGAism.
While a policy makeover is required (more on this in another article), voters today cast their votes based on emotions, which attach themselves in a positive way to a party’s “sense of life” (for those readers who are not familiar with this concept, I will refer you to the Ayn Rand Lexicon for a summary explanation). We see this in the MAGA movement, where the sense of life is a chronic sense of foreboding, dread, and superstition. The sense of life among True Believers is that people exist in a malevolent world full of evil, with the one redeeming grace being Jesus Christ, who manifests His will through various tools (the Bible, guns, personal revelation, etc.). Thus, in the political realm, they seek a Messiah to save them (enter stage right, Donald Trump).
Appealing to this “sense of life” would be ineffective for Democrats (because MAGAism has a consistent, integrated lock on such), especially since it should be presenting itself as the pro-liberty party. More effective would be to appeal to a “sense of life” which observes the world as benevolent. It can be full of happiness, joy, and success, despite life’s challenges and pitfalls. This can be achieved through each person’s hard work, virtue, and desire to be better. The word “Liberal”, after all, is derived from the Latin word “liber”, which was used to describe a “free man” (as opposed to a slave). A state of liberty (aka “freedom”) is the realm of the benevolent.
This sense of life was the original American spirit – and one that can still win.
One of the major errors the Democrats have made for decades is to capitulate, by default, this spirit to the Republican Party – who have adopted it, by default, and warped it into a gargoyle. No example is more pronounced than the fact that “Americana” (American symbolism and pride) is dominant at MAGA events (albeit used more as a religious symbol). It’s hard to spot it at Democratic events – largely because Democrats have focused on (and rightfully apologized for) the negative aspects of America, rather than focusing on the things which helped America overcome the wrongs of the past and look forward to a brighter future (e.g., apologizing for our Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of slaves and not focusing on the fact that the principles he laid down in the Declaration of Independence formed the philosophical basis which enabled Abraham Lincoln to abolish slavery nearly 90 years later).
Tapping into this sense of life requires more than just reclaiming Americana. It requires also re-capturing the spirit of the symbols. That spirit is liberalism (in its original sense), which is the political extension of individualism.
Critics of the Democratic brand do have a valid point that the party focuses too much on collective groups. For example, at worst they treat Latinos as a monolithic group and at best they treat them as subgroups (e.g., Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, etc.). When they talk about rights, they talk about it in terms of the rights of a group (e.g., LGBTQ+ rights, worker rights, women’s rights, etc.).
Voters want to know how the Democrats will help them in their lives, not how policies will help certain groups. Democrats can universally broaden their appeal by focusing on the rights of the individual. By this, I mean showing how its policies will protect such rights and what benefits each individual citizen will obtain as a result of such.
To Be Continued . . .
