How the Democrats Lost It

"American liberalism's 10-year obsession with "Trump" is now proven to be a historic mistake. There is no parallel in U.S. politics for a political party and an overwhelmingly allied media allowing their attention to be diverted so overwhelmingly by the persona of one individual.

Forget the first Trump presidential term. Or Jan. 6 and disproven election denial. Eventually, in 2021, Donald Trump went off to Mar-a-Lago to content himself with griping and golf. There were no Trump rallies. Then, all of a sudden, Democrats at the national, state and local level obtained indictments of the former president. Naturally, he reappeared to fight back.

Pouring all their psychic energies into "Trump," Democrats took their eyes off the American people the past four years. What a high price they are paying for that now.

In the election's final weeks, virtually all the opinion polls showed Mr. Trump and Kamala Harris in a statistical tie in the seven swing states. It was an admittedly striking result, and the question became: Are the polls "missing" something?

Indeed they did. They missed the public's loss of belief that the Democratic Party represents its interests.

The normal habit of politics is to create policies and then sell them to voters as the best expression of their self-interest. That's what political machines have always done. Overlooked by this reliable re-election strategy is that voters ultimately decide for themselves where their interests lie, as they did Tuesday. More than anything, the 2024 election looks like it has redefined the majority's understanding of what constitutes economic self-interest.

Blaming Kamala Harris for losing this election is a cop-out. If Joe Biden had been sharp as a tack and run his own campaign, the result would have been the same.

Across Mr. Biden's term were two intriguing story lines. One was the Trump indictments dominating the news, meaning of course free publicity for "Trump." 

Less dramatic but as persistent was the noted failure of the Biden economic policies to gain favor with the public. The Biden (Harris) White House is indeed entitled to wonder why the expenditure of so many trillions on so many domestic projects failed politically with the public.

Ms. Harris largely ignored the massive Biden outlays, including on the climate, substituting instead her own grab-bag of price controls on groceries and handouts for home-buying and child care. The political failure of Bidenomics, however, is central to understanding the Democrats' election defeat.

The turning point began in the Democratic presidential primaries of 2020 when, as this space has noted often, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn endorsed Joe Biden over the progressive insurgent, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Rep. Clyburn, who came to political age during the transformative years of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, recognized that Sen. Sanders's socialism would discomfort the electorate. So he swung the party to the liberal establishmentarian Mr. Biden. What Mr. Clyburn and like-minded Democrats missed, and has now cost the party dearly, is that time was running out on that same establishment's half-century-old political model, which was to make the public believe that its economic interests depend on federal transfer payments.

Ms. Harris ran on that idea, and its decline, reflected in public opinion about the Biden economic policies, explains in part why she underperformed Mr. Biden's 2020 results. For liberals, Bidenomics was an apotheosis -- and the modern Democratic Party's last hurrah.

A centerpiece of the Biden presidency was the multitrillion-dollar American Rescue Plan of 2021. This massive legislation did nothing for Mr. Biden politically. But it did drive an inevitable inflationary spiral in household-related prices, which eroded wage gains.

The importance in this election of the lost support among black and Hispanic voters (including women) and younger white men can't be overstated. Let's keep this simple. When they look at Donald Trump, do they see a 2017 cut in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, derided by Ms. Harris as a giveaway to billionaires? No, they see something they like and admire -- an unapologetic fat cat, a guy who looks like the personification of wealth created by private effort rather than yet another government check in the mail.

Ms. Harris and her vast network of allies -- Silicon Valley's progressive billionaires, the innumerable celebrities, and especially the Obamas -- wanted these voters to see a nightmare creation of their own making called "Trump." They regarded themselves as protectors of minority-voter interests. That self-regard needs rethinking. What these formerly Democratic voters saw most of all was a newly emerging definition of economic opportunity. Business isn't an enemy of the people.

The election results suggest this movement away from the 50-year-old Democratic establishment won't be temporary. Mr. Trump got 46.5% of the vote in New Jersey. In Virginia's Senate race, the Republican nominee, Hung Cao, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and served in the U.S. military, got 46% against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine. The New York City borough of Queens gave Mr. Trump 38% of the vote.

With control of the Senate, Republicans indeed have a great opportunity. But in their historic loss, Democrats do as well. If they will recognize it." [1]

1. How the Democrats Lost It. Henninger, Daniel.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 07 Nov 2024: A.15.