What happened to the six million Biden voters who refused to vote for Harris? Was it racism, misogyny, disgust with the Democratic Party, the war in Gaza, or the impulsive lurch to simply switch horses?
We all have opinions and biases, but in the end savvy adults face facts: Joe Biden, the uncharismatic, centrist Dem war horse, garnered 81 million votes in 2020 to rout a disgraced one-term Trump by a substantial, fraud-free margin. By measurable standards of low unemployment, sustained prosperity, “populist” legislation, science research, health care advances, offsets to climate change, wariness with new foreign entanglements, Biden’s gains were an unexpected surprise, marred by pump-priming inflation and rigidity about leaving (betting on a known, white, male). Along with under-appreciated Biden wins, a ferocious, right-wing drumbeat of anti-Joe calumny, and a cynical, billionaire-funded Trump resurgence, doomed the incumbent party and its ill-fated, non-vetted candidate. Even against the most staggeringly-disgraced Republican, 2024 was not the year for the first woman president, especially if a minority, liberal Californian.
From 2020 on, the Demagogue-in-chief incited a matchless, seditious resurrection against a fair election, fueled MAGA extremism (racist and otherwise), was convicted of multiple crimes and heavily fined for contemptuous behavior (plus two, legitimate impeachments soured by the Senate). Trump glories with malicious intent to become our first anti-constitutional dictator, abuse/corrupt the power of the federal government, shred pollution regulations, dish out billionaire tax breaks, punish personal enemies, defend Israel to the hilt (even terminate Gaza), and push isolationism while backing Putin against Ukrainian independence (betraying both a longtime ally and billions sent with popular, bipartisan support). The MAGA revenger offers few positive (“populist”) goals or legislative advances (au contraire, to ax federalism wholesale), praises autocrats, picks a bevy of unqualified cabinet cranks—and still blames Biden for his own tariff, civil rights and diplomatic blunders. Despite his low-class character and fantasy policy flaws (plus notable dementia), Trump won with 77 million votes, still dwarfed by Biden’s historic total. Fact: Trump the macho ex-president and the world’s richest predator barely beat a black, liberal woman from California.
Elections still up for sale
So, assuming Republicans can buy, pander, dissemble, disenfranchise or intimidate enough folks to sustain electoral totals comparable to 2024, the only serious Democratic question is how to motivate the lost four million voters to rejoin the party while appealing to a growing mass of demoralized centrist voters? Clearly, softball PR opportunities exist: cruel MAGA cuts to food banks, Medicaid and Medicare, shredding VA supports, oligarchy in full takeover mode, unilateral assaults on democratic and federalist institutions, reigniting the anti-abortion ban movement, illegal deportation sans any proposed immigration reforms, and prosperity-killing defiance of historic allies, modern globalism and climate threats.
Yet bizarrely, Senator Schumer invokes illusory Democratic “unity” that 1) contradicts the facts, and 2) downplays the urgent need for new national strategies (in campaigning and beyond) to engage the great frustrated center, many who hate Trump. Overly cautious newcomers, like Michigan Senator Slotkin, criticize progressives for even talking up oligarchy, as if too complex for the plebes. Schumer’s wimpy, tin-ear avoidance of confrontation ends up promising to send Trump a critical letter (!) to the worst, most illiterate president in history. No wonder the leader of the progressive faction, along with AOC, erupted in amazement at Schumer’s empty declaration that Democrats are “totally united” while the GOP is “fighting each other.” Senator Sanders’s sharp response: “Are we united in tackling a corrupt campaign finance system? How do you deal with politics in America without understanding that billionaires play an enormously destructive role in both political parties?”
No doubt, unforced, cosmic Trump blunders make any opposition party look good. The GOP tumbles with 40% support, per Trump’s latest numbers, with no bottom in sight. Yet Dems remain conflicted on what sort of candidate has the right profile and media clout (in an entertainment campaign world). Or whether to follow the passive Carville/Schumer mode (let Trump implode)—or the Sanders/AOC fierceness to fight oligarchy with specific, empowering populist/people agendas: with more job opportunities for all, strong social services, especially health care for all, fairer taxes for blue collar and middle class families, less arms for intractable allies like Israel, environmental protections and serious solutions to climate change.
Dump moderation: Kick Trump while down
No great surprise to readers that I align myself with the far more targeted, forceful Sanders/AOC rallies, identifying the enemy as libertarian billionaires dying to eviscerate the federal government’s fair-minded regulatory systems, turn the DOJ into an avenging demon that betrays due process against immigrant dissenters, batter all media and academic foes (real or perceived), and cripple anyone or any agency Trump perversely demonizes as mortal enemy (like legal investigators performing their sworn duties).
The progressive stance is well articulated by Michael Signorile, with, It’s time for Democrats to kick Trump while he’s down—repeatedly. “All the politicians, the institutions, the people who thought they should ‘work with’ Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE and ‘pick our battles’ miscalculated badly. Columbia University. The law firms. Gavin Newsom and a slew of Democrats in Congress. They all f—– up big time.”
Signorile rightly taps Democratic Governor J.D. Pritzker of Illinois as sounding the perfect note—full, non-stop alarm—when calling for mass protest and disruption, not letting Republicans have “a moment of peace.” He challenged the “do-nothing Democrats” and their appeasement message. Pritzker defended his call to arms against Trump’s highly “perilous time,” adding, “If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.”
I don’t see any conflict between railing against Trump as weak (and stupid) and getting weaker, while backing the Sanders/AOC trench warfare pushing key positives Dems must leverage against the failing Demagogue-in-chief wielding cudgels like confetti. As Signorile concludes, Trump is “going to continue to collapse, because he has no idea what he’s doing—but thinks he’s so smart—while surrounded by backward ideologues “so inside the [MAGA] bubble that they can’t grasp how badly it’s going.”
“Elbows up” as they say in Canadian hockey as Trump wars on whatever he can’t control with his arm-waving gamut of executive orders, whether Dems, liberals, judges, dissenters, media opponents, shower heads, straws, even a Supreme Court that he defies, willfully misunderstanding the ultimate law of land. Just this weekend, Trump outrageously dodged the question, whether he must uphold the Constitution, defaulting mindlessly to “I don’t know.” He then disgracefully invoked all the “brilliant lawyers who work for me”—as if hired shysters decide whether a president must honor his sworn oath, above all, to the Constitution. Saying “I don’t know” is equivalent to saying “I should never be president” or, even worse, “I am a king who can trump the Constitution.” Any fifth grader knows the answer to whether a president must and should “uphold the Constitution.” Really, President wacko-in-chief, if not the Constitution, then think of the guaranteed chaos when any mad or demented king makes up his own law to suit his own erratic whims. Too bad not enough Trumpers will think hard about what this comment reveals—and whom they elected.
P.S. In case anyone wonders how a liberal party in the dumps can turn the tables, look at Canada. Only a few months ago, conservatives up north held a 25 point lead, only to be smashed by the liberal party this week, one of the most astonishing comebacks in the history of democracies. Unpopular parties can return from the near-dead if they have the right plan (freedom vs. a privileged oligarchy), the right messaging (only the Dems can crush Trumpism) and the right deliverables (government is not a Ponzi scheme but only works well when serving as many people as possible as often as possible). Everything else is noise—and the task now is to find ways to simply retrieve lost or disheartened Democrats with a law, order and stability message, here and overseas. Our prosperity depends on it as the rest of the free world looks upon Trump as a wholly unreliable, lawless, erratic partner.
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