2024 U.S. Election Post-Mortem
What Happened? What Next?
Welcome. My name is Lex D’Andrea, and I am a fundraiser/compliance consultant (for Democrats) in New Jersey politics. I graduated from The College of New Jersey in 2022 with a degree in Political Science and a minor in International Studies. This post is a rather sad one to begin my journey on Substack, but it is essential nonetheless. I hope you find what I have to say helpful or just some food for thought as I begin to develop this opinion column.
Donald Trump has won the 2024 presidential election.
Here is how I want to break down this moment in American politics:
A Rejection of Incumbency Worldwide: Inflation Backlash
I think Democrats were doomed to lose. No matter what candidate, we were going to lose this Presidential election. Over the past few years, we have seen a rejection of those in power worldwide.
Labour smacked the Tories in the United Kingdom
In South Africa, the ANC lost over 70 seats
Germany’s Three-Party Coalition Collapsed
and just recently
America told the Biden-Harris Admin it did not want what it was selling.
To paint an even fuller picture, here is a chart from John Burn-Murdoch, depicting how each developed country’s incumbent party did in vote share this year:
A takeaway is that the Democrats overperformed nearly all of our counterparts in governing parties worldwide in a year where every incumbent party lost vote share (meaning we fell the least in vote share of incumbents). In other words, all incumbents did worst, but Democrats did worse by the least amount. Why? Despite the media ecosystem overwhelmingly saying otherwise, the policies Democrats implemented worked to save us from COVID-19, take care of our veterans, improve the quality of life of Americans, and much more.1 There is a reason America had the best recovery of the G7: Democrats did a good job. Despite this (and there will be more in the media later), it was not enough to overcome the incumbent punishment that voters served us in this general election.
“It’s the economy, stupid!” as James Carville said, but now I firmly believe the correct phrase is “It’s what people think of the economy, stupid!”
And the economy it was indeed. Voters remember the higher price of gas but not the millions of Americans dying in a Pandemic.
Why?
While prices are cumulative, death and destruction go away.
In a lose-lose scenario, Biden solved the Pandemic, we had a soft landing for our economy, and were still punished electorally. There is nothing quite as sticky as higher prices in the minds of the American median voter, even more so than threats to the fundamental liberal democratic institutions that have kept America alive for nearly 250 years.
Tim Miller of the Bulwark has an interesting takeaway from this election; in his view, strategists and ground campaigns no longer matter in the Presidential race, as evidenced by the past three winners of the nation’s highest office having had zero ground campaigns: Trump in 2016 out of incompetence, Biden in 2020 out of COVID-19 fears, and Trump in 2024 out of apathy and low expectations.
Had he not hyper-focused on their irrelevancy specific to the Presidential, I may have disagreed with him, but nonetheless, such an aspect of the Harris campaign was well-spent.
Why?
Despite Harris losing every swing state, Democratic incumbents and newcomers bested their Republican opponents in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina. Only in Pennsylvania, where it looks like Bob Casey’s time in the Senate is ending, did Democrats lose a seat in the swing states. The degree to which said ground campaign had an impact is up for debate, as I will discuss later in this piece, but my gut says the get-out-the-vote initiative (GOTV) was not wasted in the swing states.
Circling back to the economy, this was a check on the Democrats, who, despite our success, failed to convince people that the economy was good (which it objectively is).
The above leads me to my subsequent harsh realization.
History Repeats Itself: Joe Rogan is the New Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh pioneered the talk radio presence of the conservative movement long before liberals caught on. In an era where the media presence effect is more polarizing our politics, once again, we liberals find ourselves behind in the media game.
We do not have a liberal equivalent to Joe Rogan.
Yet not only do conservatives have Joe Rogan, but they also have Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, Megyn Kelly, and so on. Liberals are utterly outmatched in the alternative-media environment.
Look at the top charts of podcasts across the United States if you don’t believe me.
Spotify - November 7th, 2024
Apple Podcasts - November 7th, 2024
YouTube - November 7th, 2024
No matter the platform, Joe Rogan remains the king of podcasts, even on YouTube, which is less political.
What is our best liberal counterpart? Pod Save America? The Bulwark? These are fundamentally different programs than what the right produces. Pod Save America is produced by ex-Obama staffers who have conversations that do not tune into working-class America. The Bulwark is a never-Trump bastion of ex-Republican operatives and moderates that have been persona non grata in the Republican party since 2016.
We do not have content machines that produce liberal propaganda (and yes, I mean propaganda because that is what shows like Rogan, Tucker, and Kelly are) with absolute uniformity in messaging. Liberals desperately need to compete within these spaces, but our infrastructure is nonexistent.
Creators like Brian Tyler Cohen, David Pakman, Luke Beasley, Harry Sisson, Adam Mockler, and Pondering Politics are impactful but not as salient as their conservative counterparts. Unlike every conservative listed above, these creators are known for introspection, interpersonal debate, and fact-based approaches to content.
I am not suggesting we abscond our duty to produce accurate and quality content; I am merely suggesting (begging? or pleading?) that the liberal establishment greatly expand our support for these kinds of creators. We must develop an ecosystem where we stop pretending that the liberal side of media is CNN, NYT, and MSNBC. No, it is not and will never be the side that favors liberals. Take this fantastic mini-monologue from Brian Tyler Cohen, who summarizes precisely what needs to happen.
We must challenge these creators on their playing field while keeping our values of truth and data-based approaches to politics high. This means we should have had a weekly podcast for the past four years, shouting from the top of our lungs that the economy is recovering and great (because it was and is), hosted by some charismatic young figure.
What’s worse is that our echo chambers that do exist, like on Twitch, the farthest left political platform on the planet, produce content that is mainly focused on criticizing the Democrats rather than the Republicans. So, even the media infrastructure that has manifested on the left is often self-sabotaging.
One could only imagine the salience an attractive man like Hasan Piker would have had he been challenging misogynists on Fresh and Fit and dog-walking Joe Rogan rather than sitting in his LA Mansion mindlessly hating on the Democrats and being antisemitic. But enough about the communist fringe of the liberal alternative media sphere.
To drive home my point about the importance of this media sphere, please take a look at this tweet from Hutch.
“Here’s an anecdote. I have a good friend that I deeply respect. He’s a really smart guy who has given me more than a few valuable nuggets of wisdom. He’s a successful professional in a field adjacent to health care. He is super excited that RFK will be a part of Trump’s team. He commutes ~3 hours a day. Do you want to take a guess what he is doing for that entire stretch 5 days a week?”
Spoiler Alert. It’s listen to Joe Rogan and the sort. Liberals need a presence in the alternative media ecosystem.
If you don’t believe millions of people like Hutch’s friend above exist and can make an impact, look at this recent Reuters/Ipsos Core Political poll chart. Where do you think people are getting so many misconceptions? It’s no longer just Fox News; it’s all of the above conservative creators I listed.
There is nothing more damning of an indictment that our media ecosystem is destroying American’s understanding and grasp of reality. Joshua Reed Eakle, President of Project Liberal, put it perfectly: “The Internet is now, officially, real life.”
Israel-Palestine: It Did Not Matter
Seriously, it was not a determining factor at all! Pro-Israel Dems won where Kamala lost (see Elissa Slotkin in Michigan), and despite a higher amount of both Jewish and Arab voters for Republicans, it was not nearly enough that if Dems had embraced one side entirely, such an electorate would have manifested enough for Kamala to get across the finish line. It is vital to note that Jewish voters still overwhelmingly backed Harris, while the data on Arab voters has yet to be entirely determined.
Look at this map from the New York Times. No one policy change could save the Democratic party from the wave of anti-incumbency that swept the nation.
Americans do not care about foreign policy. As much as I would like them to care about Taiwan, Ukraine, or self-determination at large, they don’t. And it makes me sad, frustrated, disappointed, aggrieved, depressed, and a whole host of other emotions. But I can’t do anything about that, and neither can you, at least not until we establish the media ecosystem I outlined above.
Don’t believe me? Just look at polls from earlier this year from both Gallup and Pew; Americans do not rank foreign policy nearly as much as they do say the economy, immigration, or democracy. Just recently, people cited Harris as being too pro-Israel or too pro-Palestine as some of the lowest reasons why they did not choose her in a Blueprint Poll. Additionally, people rank her as “being too conservative” as a non-factor for why they did not vote for her. So, not much evidence supports the claims that “being center-right/left posturing” is the wrong approach directionally.
The lesson about voters is painful: the cost of gas from two years ago is more important to voters than global strife and undermining the liberal institutions that serve as the foundation of the United States.
Third parties continue to fail, so for those who supported Jill Stein, your movement is ineffective. For those who complain that such parties cost Democrats the election in 2024, no, they did not. Do I still disapprove of third-party voters? Yes, the decision to vote for them has always been incredibly ineffective and equivalent to endorsing whoever wins.
In 2016, Stein got 1.1 percent of the vote, yet in 2024, when people told me Gaza was the pivotal issue, Stein got just 0.5 percent of the vote. The Green Party is a failed movement led by a Kremlin-friendly political cicada who does not care about you or your foreign policy concerns.
I am begging people to stop pretending these individuals have any role to play in our coalition. The goalposts will move forever; there is no room for far-left accelerationists like Briahna Joy Grey in our party. They do not even want to be here, and I don’t want her vote.
I cannot stress this enough to Democrats about degenerates like Briahna and Hasan and their followers: ABANDON THEM AND MOVE ON.
Trumpism: Without Trump, it Fails
Harris lost Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina
Do you know who else lost in those states? These mini-Trumps.
Kari Lake (R) Senate - Arizona: She is an election denier
Sam Brown (R) Senate - Nevada: Views our judicial system as a sham
Eric Hovde (R) Senate - Wisconsin: Claims debates are rigged against Republicans
Mike Rogers (R) Senate - Michigan: Completely abandoned principles
Mark Robinson (R) Governor - North Carolina: Self-avowed “black Nazi”
In any state not solid to deep red, Trumpism failed (outside of Pennsylvania). The movement only exists with the egomaniac that is Donald Trump. He sucks up all of the oxygen; no one else can shine the same way he can to his voters, and no one else has his charismatic ability to lie as he breathes.
Another point I want to reevaluate is Tim Miller’s claim that ground games and strategists are useless for the presidential seat. I initially pushed back on this because of the downstream effect of the Harris campaign to lift up the Democrats in these seats. Still, an alternative explanation is that Trumpism fails without Trump so hard that any Democrat would have defeated these candidates.
Occam’s Razor: Misogyny and America
This point is a bit redundant because “It’s the economy, stupid!” is the essence of Occam’s Razor, but regardless, I wanted to include a small section on a third or fourth causal elephant in the room.
I will not pretend like half of the electorate is racist or sexist. Do I think these voters are incredibly ill-informed? Yes, absolutely. But let’s not pretend that there isn’t an issue with a decent amount of voters and female candidates.
Consider the following:
Harris is a lawyer; Trump is a felon.
Harris has had a lifelong career in civil service; Trump is a lifelong conman who thrived on scamming consumers.
Harris had a humble upbringing; Trump grew up rich.
Harris has a happy marriage and beautiful family; Trump is a twice-divorced adulterer who is an adjudicated rapist.
I could go on; this decision is truly disappointing America. You could also list many of these positives for Hillary Clinton (a historically unpopular candidate); Harris, unlike Clinton, recovered a ton of her reputation and ran a relatively clean campaign in 100 days. Yet both were defeated, to me, although not the primary reason (again, think inflation); you have to look at this and think if I were the Democrats, I would probably not run a woman for President for at least one to two decades more. America is not ready for its first female President. More and more people are backsliding into becoming like Nicholas Fuentes (a vile man with the moral character of a Nazi combined with a pedophile), much like how America is currently a backsliding Democracy.
But people like Fuentes are downstream of their leader. To put it rather bluntly, many Americans are now like Trump, as retired Professor and writer for the Atlantic Tom Nichols described so dishearteningly.
Trumpism is what a lot of America is right now.
What Next?
Should Democrats engage in a new era of Clintonian politics where we rebrand to the center?
Do Democrats jump onto left-wing Sanders populism and fight populism with populism?
I think it is a combination of media infrastructure issues and the above.
We may need to shift right on a few issues (unfortunately), say gun reform, as many independents treat that issue like Democrats do Abortion (alien to me, but it is how they feel about the Second Amendment). Next time, the government should maybe focus on curtailing inflation rather than prioritizing low unemployment, as
expertly wrote here. Would I prefer this? As someone with many friends, including myself, who all got their first jobs under Joe Biden’s administration, I would not, but would it be more electorally salient? Perhaps.And we might need heavily populist rhetoric without any implementation of populist policies. Democratic governance improves the quality of life of individuals, but they don’t feel it. Perhaps instead of “We will enforce antitrust,” we say, “We will take on the degeneracy of the billionaire class so prices decline,” but just do antitrust enforcement like Lina Khan at the FTC has been doing a lovely job at over the past four years. It doesn’t have to be this exact example. Still, populist rhetoric without implementation might be the way to go.
This populist rhetoric, I believe, comes in tandem with building the alternative media ecosystem the liberals sorely lack. A way to get around the criticism that may come with Democrats engaging in such aggressive language could be to have our new media outlets that promote civic nationalist, and liberal propaganda do it for us. The propaganda will have to be rooted in our core factual message while embellished to suit the current diet of the American electorate. This mode of delivery will, in essence, contain Democratic values; it will merely be packaged as a chocolate bar, stocked on every shelf in Walmart, but taste like a vegetable as that is what every person needs to stay healthy.
I do not think the Democrats have a losing message; we simply have no way to deliver that message to the hearts of Americans who need to hear it.
-Lex
A few alternative/additional explanations for why Democrats overperformed other incumbents are the nature of our two-party system and Trump's unique terribleness as a candidate. I think it is probably a mix of all of them.