Rebuilding Rob

If you’ve read my blog for a decent amount of time, you have a good idea of where my political loyalties lie. So like many “blue voters” I’m going through the all 5 stages of grieving process and not necessarily in order. I’ve been laying low on social media the to days as I try to process what happened, what went wrong and what the Democratic party needs to do going forward.

An all-too-brief campaign

Kamala Harris’s Presidential campaign lasted just over 90 days after her formal nomination in early August. While the pivot from Biden to Harris certainly threw the Trump campaign for a loop, I feel like it wasn’t enough time to run a proper Presidential campaign. Presidential campaigns naturally have their own ebbs and flows. Because this campaign was so short, the moment her upward momentum cooled off, it looked as if her campaign was losing steam.

Back in 2020 Biden had implied – if he did not explicitly say – that he was going to be a one-term transitional president. I think somewhere along the way either someone said to Biden, or it got to his head, that he was “the only one who could defeat Trump”. In 2020, that was absolutely true. It even by 2020, it was clear that Biden’s best political days were behind him.

Harris was unwilling / unable to distance herself from Joe Biden

In an interview on “the view” Kamala Harris was asked “Is there anything you would have done differently than Joe Biden?” or words to that effect. And her response was something long in the lines of “I would do everything pretty much the same“. I’m not saying that this response completely destroyed her presidential aspirations, but it painted a picture in which a Kamala Harris ministration would been a continuation of Joe Biden‘s policies, which, as we mentioned before, The majority of Americans were not happy with.

Like so many other presidential elections, 2024 was a referendum on the incumbent president; in this case, Joe Biden. While the economy has shown signs of improvement over the last four years, inflation was on the rise for much of Biden‘s term. To make matters worse, businesses are not increasing wages to keep up with inflation. Many people don’t feel that the economy is going in a good direction; or at least it wasn’t improving fast enough.

For these reasons, it seems as if it was unwise for Harris to attempt to model herself as a continuation of the Biden administration. In the last few weeks of the election, however, she seem to be attempting to carve out an agenda of her own. But this may have been too little, too late.

Would Harris’s attempts to establish her own brand, apart from Biden, have worked better during a longer presidential campaign? It’s hard to say. On the flipside, I don’t know if Harris campaign would’ve enjoyed the buzz that got in the way DNC had Biden declared himself one term president and not sought re-election to begin with.

Disconnected from the masses

At the risk of sounding like a typical liberal snowflake, I think that the Republican Party, at least in its current MAGA mutation, is a collection of racists, sexists, homophobic, xenophobes.

Having said that, I think that the left suffers from what I call “no tolerance for intolerance”. I’m not saying that any of the aforementioned phobias or isms are okay. But I do think that that rather than teach people the errors of their ways, some on the left would rather condemn people forever to one of those labels.

When the party is more interested in condemning people than they are in trying to enlighten them, it is very off-putting – coming across as self-righteous at times.

Liberals have done a great job of reclaiming the flag and the very concept of patriotism but when we’re willing to lump a significant portion of the country (specifically undecided voters) with MAGA, it’s hard to win elections.

I’m not suggesting the left should embrace these -isms. But I think we need to be more cautious about casting off the undecided.

The elephant in the room

In 2016 Hillary Clinton ran against Trump and lost the election. I don’t think Clinton’s ill-fated campaign was a result of her gender as much as it is the fact that she’s Hillary Clinton. The GOP spent nearly 25 years demonizing her – going all the way back to her husband’s presidency. The truth is there are a lot of centrists who simply didn’t like her. I said at the time that she was un -electable. But I said the same thing about Trump.

In 2020, Joe Biden, a long-time Washington establishment and white guy, defeated Trump. How much of Biden’s victory can be attributed to the aforementioned “referendum on the incumbent president” still remains to be seen.

This past Tuesday Kamala Harris, ran unsuccessfully against Trump. Again, I don’t really think Harris losing the election has to do with her gender. At least, I would like to think that we have evolved beyond sexist attitudes like that. Clearly, a lot of people just didn’t like her policies; or the Democrat ideology in general.

But Donald Trump ran three presidential campaigns , two against women; one against a man. He lost to the one man and defeated the two women. And like so many other things about Trump’s two presidential victories, 2016 may has been a shock; the 2020 was a confirmation. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not justifying electing a convicted felon to be president. After all, I voted for Harris. And Hillary Clinton. But I think this speaks volumes to the degree of sexism in America, when majority of Americans would rather elect a convicted felon to be president than a woman

Of course, this is all Monday morning quarterbacking, if you will. This list is not meant to be all inclusive; nor is it the end-all, be-all of all things 2024 presidential election. These are some thoughts and observations I had in the immediate aftermath.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Sunday is borrowed time
• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)

The article “Ruminations on the 2024 US Presidential Election” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.