“Democrats need to…say, yes, there is misogyny, but it’s not just misogyny from white men. It’s misogyny from Hispanic men, it’s misogyny from black men.” That was MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough’s analysis of the November 5 election results. Indeed, many pundits and so-called academics on the left have pushed a similar narrative: namely that Trump’s win can be explained merely by the sexist and racist proclivities of the American electorate. Joe Scarborough’s colleague, Joy Reid, went further, warning, “Latino men…you own everything that happens to your mixed-status families and your wives, sisters, and abuelas from here on in.”
Although mostly uncovered by the mainstream media apparatus, Reid’s racism drew the ire of progressive Bronx congressman Ritchie Torres, who has, to his credit, disavowed much of the radical nonsense spewed by his fellow progressives. Torres implored his fellow liberals, “Stop scapegoating, shaming, and scolding working-class Latinos. A patronizing paternalistic progressivism will not attract working-class Latino men back to the Democratic Party. It will repel them.” The problem for Torres is that his party has prioritized the opinions of those like Joy Reid and neglected the warnings issued by Torres and others like him.
In fact, Kamala Harris, in her first major decision after undemocratically ascending to the position of presumptive Democratic nominee for President, caved to the far left in her search for a vice presidential nominee. Two candidates quickly emerged as top contenders: Josh Shapiro, the highly popular moderate governor of Pennsylvania, and Tim Walz, the progressive governor of Minnesota. Among independents and even some Republicans, Shapiro was respected and liked. Harris, however, selected Walz, a self-described knucklehead (a generous characterization), and the far left of the Democratic party rejoiced. Beyond her VP pick, Harris could not believably deviate from her 2020 presidential campaign stances, including calls to ban fracking, implement Medicare for All, and decriminalize illegal border crossings. In many more of Harris’ campaign decisions, and in the aforementioned Monday morning quarterbacking, Democrats neglected to pay attention to the real issues.
The fundamentals of the election favored Trump from the start. America is now mocked on the world stage, and our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan invited Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. The Middle East too, is on fire, thanks to our weakness toward Iran, which allowed the Islamist regime and its barbaric terrorist proxies to wage a war against Jews in Israel and across the globe. Domestic policy has also been troublesome during the Biden-Harris administration. As of August 2023, over 60 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, an unsurprising figure given that costs generally are way up and that real wages have not nearly kept pace with inflation. Furthermore, horrendous border policy (Biden revoked many Trump-era executive orders that drastically reduced illegal immigration) allowed for millions of illegal immigrants to stream across our Southern border. Given the manifold catastrophes that occurred under the Biden-Harris administration, it should have come as no surprise that over sixty percent of the likely electorate polled consistently responded to polls saying that the next president should represent a major change from Joe Biden. Trump’s message that he would bring such change, as evidenced by the successes of his prior presidency, resonated with voters, and not just with the MAGA base.
Trump performed better than any Republican candidate in 52 years among blacks and in 48 years among Latinos, two historically loyal Democratic voting blocs. Donald Trump built the broadest, most diverse coalition in modern-day Republican party history, and he was rewarded by the people, as the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote in twenty years. The 2024 election was, without a doubt, an issues-based election. Americans recognized that, and when they responded by voting for Trump, they were promptly accused of bigotry.
Now, Democrats are faced with an all-important decision. Do party leaders decide to dump out-of-touch initiatives like an obsession with pronouns, stop the demonization of working class Americans who felt abandoned by the 2024 Democratic coalition, and regain the trust of the American people? Or do they continue pushing the deluded narrative that Trump’s win was because of the sexism and racism of American voters?
The former would be the correct strategic decision. But if the Democrats select the latter, expect more Republican success. Of course, one question still remains: even if some Democrats want to move to the center, would the far left of the party, which has an increasingly noticeable stranglehold on the party, allow that to happen?
Image credit: Charly Triballeau
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