The Enemies List

As with so much in your personal life, so often politics comes down to mood. 

There was an inevitably about this election. One that I admittedly refused to acknowledge (because I don't believe we should be governed by mood). The Democrats and Harris (or Biden) were never going to win no matter what they did. It didn’t matter that they passed historic legislation on infrastructure, manufacturing and lowering drug prices. Legislation to relieve student debt, and historic investments in clean energy. It doesn’t matter Biden led the world in a coalition to help Ukraine fight against Putin's illegal war of aggression, and he strengthened and expanded NATO. It doesn't matter that Biden inherited an economy in total collapse, and notwithstanding the dire predictions of most economists that a recession was inevitable, piloted it to a soft landing, creating record numbers of American jobs. He is handing his successor an economy that is the envy of the world. He never got credit for any of it. The highest approval rating of Biden's presidency was the day he was inaugurated and basically dropped after that (it actually started dropping six weeks later, in mid-March). Biden had the shortest 'honeymoon' period in presidential history. Today his approval rating stands dismally in the mid thirties, almost historically low.   

The pandemic had a lot to do with it, and still does. I agree with Vlad Vexler (belatedly) that this election was the second term election that trump would have won handily had Covid not intervened. Biden rode pandemic anger and fear against trump to victory in 2020. The American people remained angry throughout the Biden administration, and trump has now rode that post-pandemic anger to victory in 2024. There was nothing the Democrats could do about it.

The 'To-Do List' versus the 'Enemies List' - a line from the Harris campaign that sums it up perfectly. Democrats always naively believe that Americans want their president to work on their behalf. But that premise is wrong, particularly in the post-pandemic period. If the Democrats failed at anything in this campaign, it's a failure of imagination: they could not imagine that Americans would prefer an Enemies List over a To-Do List. But they did. This election showed that Americans want a president who will be an avatar for their mood. One who expresses the anger, victimization and hostility they are feeling. It's not more complicated than that.  

I hope the Democrats, who are now going through an election post-mortem and 'soul-searching', don't draw the wrong conclusions. I've been hearing all sorts of nonsense from talking heads and pundits about how Democrats are no longer the party of the working class, or how they are out of touch with the average American. They ran a positive campaign that offered hope, optimism and solutions. A campaign that was supported by the largest unions in the country and addressed the concerns of the average family. But that campaign was beaten by a campaign that was underwritten by billionnaires and expressed anger, grievance and victimization. 

So what is to be learned from soul-searching? For one thing, I hope the Democrats learn that in this election there was nothing they could have done differently to win. 

I also hope the Democrats learn one important lesson from the Republicans, and that's to double-down on exactly who they are. The one thing I know about voters is that they hate inauthenticity. Democrats fundamentally believe that government can and should work to benefit the collective good. They believe government can solve problems. They are all about the To-Do List, and I hope whatever changes they decide to implement to fight future elections, it involves adding to that list. There will come a time soon when Americans want a President who enters the Oval Office carrying a To-Do List instead of an Enemies List.