Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, had just such a question. What lessons have been learned, he asked, from Harris’s defeat in this vital swing county in a crucial battleground state that voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how are the Democrats applying them?
“They did not answer the question,” he said.
“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”
“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”
Biden was really the only one that ran on a campaign of “I’m not Trump”. Both Harris and Clinton had independent platforms that had nothing to do with saying they are not Trump. They weren’t coming into the mess Trump had made so their policies didn’t have to focus on reversing what he had done (which is essentially all Biden ran on and did). I don’t think this argument is that strong because the 2 candidates that lost actually had a fair bit of reform in their platforms with much more fleshed out plans and details than anything Trump was offering to do.
A fair bit of reform isn’t what people are hoping for. They want radical change. Trump in a fucked up way promises that even though we all know it will be disastrous and just even more oligarchy.
I don’t know much about Hillary’s campaign other than hawkish speeches against Iran. I definitely dont remember radical promises that truly make the lives of Americans better.
Now, Kamala definitely didn’t present any great ideas in her campaign better than 25k for houses if you fit some specific criteria. Tell me how that’s a radical idea to combat high costs of living across the board. At first, when she announced Walz she made anti price gouging remarks, but she seemingly dropped those. Biden did have some progressive policies (he couldn’t communicate since he was a mummy, but hey) which she could try to lift and use herself as a starting point. She didn’t. She did the “Trump was horrible, remember?” campaign which is a remix of Hillarys losing “Trump is crazy” strategy.
600,000 people are homeless. People are in endless medical or student debt. Prices are sky high. Billionaires are getting even richer. And Kamala can’t find a simple but radical slogan to combat one of these problems. Instead she says she’s not gonna change much when the perception is that Biden did too little . Even if Biden actually has been better than he could present himself in his tine, she should have said I’m gonna step up our game. Even if it meant hurting the feelings of a president with dementia.