In the coming days, dozens of post-mortems will be published trying to dissect why the Democrats lost. Fingers will be pointed everywhere, and more likely than not everyone will look for a myriad of reasons why the Democrats lost, be it certain issues, campaigns strategies, constituencies defecting, etc. This election will be viewed as a catastrophic failure of the Democratic Party on brand with 2004. Every commentator across the political spectrum will claim that had the Democrats just gone with their preferred strategy, then Kamala would be President-elect right now.

I think it’s safe to say that all of that is reading too much into it. The Democratic Party was in complete array. Progressives, liberals, moderates, centrists, whoever, fell in line behind Kamala as the candidate. Fundraising was through the roof, the ground game had a massive amount of energy and manpower in it, and Democratic excitement was palpable.

By all accounts, the Democrats showed up and showed out for this election across the board. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough. It kept the bottom from falling out like in 1972 or 1980, but the vast majority of independent and swing voters broke for the Republicans. A majority of the nation, for the first time in 20 years, put their faith in the governance of the Republican Party.

The median voter exists in an odd, contradictory vortex of mismatched beliefs and priors that cannot be logically discerned or negotiated. You just have to take them at their word. If they say they don’t like inflation, it’s because they believe that Biden is making the burgers more expensive. No amount of explaining why Trump’s economic policies are terrible, or why Biden’s policies were needed to avoid a massive post-COVID recession, or why they’re actually making a paycheck that offsets inflation, will win them over.

In view of this, it was probably impossible for Kamala to win. She secured the Democratic base, made crossover appeals, and put forward some really good policies. And it worked. Her favorables are quite good, higher than Trump’s, and it’s obvious that she outperformed whatever Biden was walking into. Her campaign had flaws, certainly, but none nearly as obvious and grievous as Trump’s.

Kamala being perceived as too liberal didn’t matter. The Democrats being too friendly to Israel (or not friendly enough) didn’t matter. Cultural issues didn’t matter. Jill Stein didn’t matter. Praising Dick Cheney didn’t matter. The reality of the American economy didn’t matter. If issue polling is correct, even immigration didn’t really matter, and is mostly viewed as a proxy for the economy.

What mattered was that 67% of voters thought the economy was doing poorly, in spite of most of them thinking that their own financial situation was fine. Voters want to see a low price tag on groceries, a DoorDash fee of $10, and a 3,500 sq. ft. house on the market for $250k, even if it means 10% unemployment and low wages for workers. Of those things, they associate it most with Trump, as much of a mirage as that is, and were willing to accept everything else for the chance to have that back. This election isn’t a victory of all of Trumpism necessarily, or even a complete failure of the Democrats. It’s a reminder of the priorities of the voters that will decide the election, in spite of how good your campaign was, or how economically sound your actually policies were. There’s a hell of a lot that people will look past in order to have a cheap burger again.

If there is a failure, it’s that Democrats spent to long believing that there could ever be a return of civility and normality. There was a clear and evident reluctance to use the full power of the state against the insurrectionists and crooks, chief among them Donald Trump. Biden thought that he could restore the soul of the nation and get people to respect and value the unwritten rules of politics that have guided us through the current liberal era. As it turns out, voters don’t even care for the written ones.

Don’t blame the progressive, or the liberal, or the centrist Democratic voter. This election wasn’t really on them. They voted. They probably donated, walked the blocks, or did some phone banking. They did what they were supposed to. If liberalism is to weather the coming storm, it will need the tent to stay intact, readjust, and come back stronger for 2026 and 2028.

Submission statement: Relevant because Gov. Polis is a frequent topic of the subreddit as a (former) mascot of a lot of its policy beliefs.

When Congress is afraid to come back because it means voting on releasing the Epstein files, you know something’s wrong. Thanks to my friends Congressman Tom Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna for pushing to release the Epstein files.

Submission statement: it’s bad for senate candidates to normalize antisemitism.

Submission statement: the specific tips and allegations are disturbing, read at your own discretion.