In the end, the MAGA plan to steal the 2024 election was wholly unnecessary — or so it seems. Trump won handily, even managing to win the popular vote, which is an infrequent thing for a Republican candidate for President. I’m not yet ready to talk about how the left might respond to this in terms of community defense, and I might never post about that, but I can talk about what went wrong.
1. The Democratic Party does not understand unaffiliated voters.
Online, there’s already a lot of blame being pointed at “the left” and the way it is framed is really interesting. It is very clear that Democrats (as in voters who identify as Democrats) still do not understand the very simple concept that not everyone who votes for a Democrat for President identifies as a Democrat. It’s the same on the Republican side — not everyone who votes for the Republican for President identifies as a Republican. The American electoral system makes it so that only 2 parties are viable, so people who do not like those two parties must either vote for someone they don’t like, or effectively negate their vote (by either voting for an nonviable candidate or not voting). Voting for Kamala Harris does not necessarily mean you were a Harris supporter.
The typical challenge for the 2 viable parties is to appeal to these unaffiliated voters enough to win a majority of the votes. Yes, some of those unaffiliated voters have a coherent political worldview (like, for example, some kind of leftism or, alternatively, libertarianism), but most of them hold views that are disorganized and eclectic. The important thing, though, is that just because someone votes for a Democrat for President once doesn’t mean they are a Democrat and it doesn’t mean you can count on them to vote for a Democrat next time. Similarly, just because someone votes for a Republican once doesn’t mean they are a Republican. If you understand that the two major parties are highly offensive to most people, then this should be easy to understand, but self-described Democrats do not seem to understand this. They do not get that their party is disgusting.
In fact, Democrats seem to believe that if an unaffiliated person votes for the Republican then they are a Republican, and then if that person later votes for a Democrat, they have become a Democrat. Furthermore, it seems like the Democratic imagination is not able to muster enough empathy to accept the fact that other economic and political realities are possible. They can’t imagine past the current organization of this one country and their own attitudes toward it. Perhaps it is that lack of imagination that makes anything other that “Republican” or “Democrat” seem like a terrifying void to them.
This lack of imagination is probably the biggest part of why the Democrats lost. They imagine everyone who doesn’t like Trump as being a Democrat, and owing the Democratic party their vote, even though the Democrats have made it abundantly clear that they owe unaffiliated people nothing — because they clearly believe that they are perfect. I don’t believe that there will be a valid Presidential election in 2028, but if it happens, we will see the Democrats make the same mistake regarding unaffiliated voters that they made this time. They have learned nothing.
Part of the problem is that Democrats and Republicans both imagine a flat line that represents every possibly political position, with Democrats being on the left and Republicans being on the right. In fact, they imagine the far left edge of that line being the same as the far left edge of the Democratic party. Similarly, they imagine the far right edge of that line being the same as the far right edge of the Republican party. This is not true at all. In reality, Democrats represent a position within an ideology called “liberalism” (which is pro-capitalism), and Republicans represent a position within an ideology called “Christian Nationalism” (which is not necessarily pro-capitalism). (I’m not actually sure what to call the Republican worldview, but I thought that was close enough.) Both parties are right-wing (e.g., in favor of genocide, imperialism, and human suffering), but their narratives about values and reality are wildly different.
What do you do if you reject capitalism, genocide, imperialism, and human suffering as legitimate sociopolitical positions? You either don’t vote or you vote against the viable party that you hate the most.
2. The Democrats have limits placed on them by the donor class that prevent them from appealing to working class people.
A big part of why the Democrats are incapable of appealing to these unaffiliated voters is because they’ve had limits placed upon them by their biggest donors. Numerous Democratic party politicians have admitted as much, saying that big election donations are crucial to winning and thus require them to suck up to big donors, and those big donors have a clear agenda — primarily, to remain big, so to speak. Why are those big donations crucial to winning? That question leads to my next point.
3. American voters are awash in pro-capitalist propaganda and distractions and are resistant to education.
American voters are catastrophically ignorant of politics and economics. On the surface, you would think that the United States would have a fantastic educational system simply because it is the center of an empire and all the world’s resources flow toward it. However, Americans are awash in right-wing, pro-capitalist propaganda from capitalist corporations, right-wing think tanks, and even from the government itself (specifically, but not limited to, the CIA; see Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders). Individual Americans who seem to be a bit more savvy are typically just more saturated with that propaganda and thus more familiar with the details of its narratives.
In fact, propaganda must be at its most ubiquitous within the imperial core because the purpose of the core is to provide the most safety and stability for those at the top of the imperial hierarchy — they physically live in the core. The rich can just drop bombs on Iraq if the Iraqis act up, but they can’t do that in New York City because they live there. While most of that propaganda is not meant to promote the Republican (Christian Nationalist) worldview, it does create a situation where people who are unsatisfied with the current system (i.e., most working class people) don’t really have anywhere else to turn. Sure, they could turn to the authentic left, but the information they typically have available to them (all produced by pro-capitalist propagandists) does not allow for that option to make sense.
This problem is manifested in the kinds of comments about the left that you typically see online and in traditional media:
- “Communism obviously doesn’t work.”
- “All the third party candidates seem like they’re on drugs.”
- “Communism failed.”
- “Anarchists want to burn everything down.”
- “That third party candidate is obviously working for Russia to elect Trump.”
- “People are inherently selfish, so the ideas of leftists are unworkable.”
To make matters worse, nonsense media saturates American culture, creating a huge amount of distraction that takes away from the cognitive resources people have available to attend to politics. There are plenty of people who can name all the Marvel movies but can’t tell you anything true about American politics. American news media presents a simplistic and sterilized view of the world, which ends up being just another distraction from reality with pro-capitalist, pro-colonial, and pro-war messaging embedded within. Even Heather Cox Richardson is ultimately a distraction and a purveyor of propaganda.
Under these conditions of near-total political ignorance and hard limits on what positions the Democratic party can take, successful political messaging comes down to saturating media with simplistic ideas. Any idea that cannot be transmitted simplistically or that does not fit within the accepted paradigm (as defined by all this right-wing propaganda) will not be successfully received by these simple voters. This year, even days before the election, there were a substantial number of voters who did not know who was running for President! (Google searches for “who is running for president” spiked dramatically during the 24 hours before the election.) Reaching all those ignorant, simple voters requires a huge amount of money.
Propaganda isn’t the only reason that Americans are so ignorant of politics and economics, though. The USA also has a culture of narcissism which prevents people from learning new things. Science fiction author Isaac Asimov explained this in his famous quote:
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’
Narcissists quite literally believe that their opinion is just as valid as a fact, no matter how legitimate the source of that fact; they call this “common sense”. When faced with a fact that they don’t like, or that doesn’t fit their (propaganda-formed) worldview, they will simply dismiss it and call it an opinion. In essence, for the average American, an opinion is any idea that they don’t like, and a fact is any idea that they do like. Under those circumstances, a person like Trump has an enormous advantage because he will literally say anything his audience wants to hear.
The problem is much deeper, though, because it prevents many Americans from succeeding in an educational environment. While I wouldn’t ever suggest that everything taught in American schools is true, it is more true and certainly more complex and nuanced than whatever students brought with them to school. However, when the teacher says something that doesn’t mesh easily with an American student’s preconceptions, they immediately reject it as unworthy of the mental effort required to integrate it into their worldview.
For example, I can say that although historical white people did horrible things (like slavery and colonialism), the actions of historical white people do not directly reflect on the moral standing of today’s white people as long as we come to a nuanced understanding of those historical actions, condemn those that were immoral, and refuse to repeat those mistakes… but that is really complicated, and it still indicates that historical white people are bad. Narcissists generate self-esteem primarily through group memberships rather than their actions, so white people will typically find this idea about historical white people to be completely unacceptable and reject it. They will not attempt to integrate it into their worldview. In a classroom, this manifests in students shutting down and failing to learn the material. It often also manifests in demands from angry parents to end “woke” schooling.
In contrast, the kinds of ideas that win elections are:
- I like you.
- I am on your side.
- I am tall.
- I will protect you.
- I will help you have material success.
- I will punish the bad people.
- I represent a group of people who are competent.
- I am physically fit.
- I represent your aspirations for yourself.
Instead, what we got from the Democrats regarding the economy (as one example) was something like, “Hi there, I’m a wealthy person compared to you, but I want you to know that the economy is getting better based on this line going up, which doesn’t affect you at all because you don’t have enough money to own stocks.” Regardless of how true their message was, it was just too complicated and made no sense in its more simplistic form. To be clear, it was not entirely true (because the Democrats always have to put the wealthy first), but the Republican message was a much bolder lie — a very simple lie that was more compatible with the average American’s worldview. Instead of disagreeing with their constituency by saying that everything is great, or things are getting better, Republicans agree with the complaint and deflect it toward immigrants, Democrats, Jews, etc. In fact, they offer multiple groups to blame so that the simple narcissist can accept the parts of the message that make sense and just ignore the rest.
Indeed, it appears as if poor messaging regarding the economy was the reason Harris lost.
4. Democrats do not understand immigrants, or any group of marginalized people.
From the Democratic perspective, the Republican position on immigration should be very repulsive to American citizens who are immigrants. However, immigrants don’t like to think of themselves as immigrants for a few reasons. First off, immigrants are not generally thought of positively. They want to be thought of as Americans, not immigrants. Third, the immigrant status of those individuals is not the thing about themselves that they most value; it does not speak to their aspirations or self-worth. They’d rather think of themselves as Catholics, or small business owners, or essential workers. Fourth, Americans who immigrated here from other countries have the same kinds of complaints that other Americans have — they don’t have any complaint relative to immigration because that is in the past for them. Fifth, the kinds of people that want to become Americans are generally going to be the worst kinds of people in terms of only thinking about themselves. If they were people who thought about others or cared about other people like them, they wouldn’t have abandoned their home country, and they would not have seen going to the US as a good idea.
This is also true of any group of marginalized people. Think about it: Who would want to have being “marginalized” (regardless of how you put it) as a significant part of their identity. Nobody wants to be the victim; they want to be the winner, the main character, and so forth. This concept is all the more important in the US because US culture is based on selfishness, but even the best people do not want to be reduced to a single characteristic that is widely believed to be detrimental. For one thing, they’re sick of hearing about it. This is why so many immigrants Americanize their names — they are tired of being treated as different.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this — because we’ve heard this from the groups of people that Democrats thought they could win over — is that people assume that a criticism leveled against a group that they technically belong to does not apply to them. If Republicans say, “Immigrants are entering the country illegally!” then they naturally assume this does not apply to them because they did it legally, and they naturally dislike this hypothetical illegal immigrant as much if not more than a person who is not an immigrant would. This makes perfect sense. Never mind that the entire immigration issue was created as a dog whistle to appeal to white supremacists. The immigrant is not a white supremacist, so they can’t hear the dog whistle. Similarly, “I will do something about violent crime,” is a dog whistle about people of color, but if you are a person of color, you just hear the plaintext message, and everyone is concerned about violent crime. Just saying, “Crime is at a 50-year low,” (i.e., “your fears are unfounded”) is not effective.
In summary:
- The Democrats failed to appeal to unaffiliated voters and unaffiliated potential voters.
- Democrats have limits placed on them by the donor class that prevent them from appealing to working class people.
- American voters are unable to receive nuanced or complex arguments, giving Republicans an enormous advantage.
- Democrats do not understand how to appeal to minority/marginalized voters.
In my opinion, these are structural problems that are part of the essence of the Democratic party and cannot be overcome. To overcome them, the Democrats would have to:
- Genuinely appeal to working class people, including thinking outside the box (of capitalism) in terms of economic solutions.
- End their financial relationship with wealthy donors.
- De-emphasize identity politics, and focus on a positive narrative that appeals to everyone.
- Find a means of delivering simple messages to more people, including finding a candidate for President that is relatively unproblematic and easily recognizable by all Americans.
However, it really does look like 2024 was the last normal American election. Moving forward, we should expect elections to be more like the staged events that we see in places like Russia. Even if the Democratic party were to completely reform itself, it wouldn’t matter, because it will never again be given the opportunity to succeed again. If you understand the Democrats, I think you’ll agree that this situation will be fine with them. They’ll go ahead and raise millions of dollars for campaigns and talk about how they’re fighting for you, it just won’t work, so they won’t have to engage in that complex dance where they say that they’re progressive but then have to somehow always fail in order to satisfy the donor class.
Please stop giving money to the Democratic Party.