A silver lining for disappointed Democrats

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If I have learned nothing else in life, it is that sometimes we have to hit rock bottom—and lose it all—in order to gain the kind of perspective necessary to build ourselves back up stronger and better than ever!

Tuesday's election results, at least for the Democratic Party, was rock bottom and if there is a sliver lining, it is that the pathway up will be difficult but not insurmountable in the years that lie ahead!

First, allow me a moment to dispel one of the pervasive myths that I have read on social media over the past 72 hours, which is that Kamala Harris ran a terrible campaign—that is a complete lie! To quote one of my favorite R&B singers, Gladys Knight, Vice President Harris was tasked to "make the best of a bad situation" when she was thrown into the mix last July when President Joe Biden decided to stand down with slightly over three months left to Election Day.

With hindsight always providing the clearest vision, looking back, Mr. Biden should have gracefully bowed out of the 2024 Election last year to give Democrats an opportunity have a primary season and allow Harris and other contenders an opportunity to introduce and distinguish themselves from his administration—all the while sucking much of the media air out of the Republican Party's coronation of Trump (and the year and a half long infomercial which allowed a sense of political normalcy to a very abnormal candidate who was facing multiple criminal and civil trials while on the campaign trail). 

Second, to quote one of my favorite Pop singers, Sting, VP Harris was "caught between the Scylla and Charybdis," or the popular modern form of this ancient Greek phrase, "a rock and a hard place," when it came down to distinguishing her potential presidency from her boss, President Biden. Around this time last year, I predicted in this column space that the War in Gaza would come back to haunt Biden (and by extension, Harris) due to his choice to embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's total war tactics that led to the indiscriminate killings of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians. I knew that Palestinian Americans comprised a significant bloc of Democratic voters in Michigan, Minnesota, and even Wisconsin, and my fears that they wouldn't vote for Trump—but wouldn't vote for Biden (or Harris) either, seem to have been well founded as we survey the post election damage! There was a way to affirm support for Israel while refusing to supply war materials that were killing more Palestinian civilian men, women, and children, but Biden-Harris fumbled the ball on this notion, to their (and my) chagrin.

In fact, the most sobering raw numbers that I've read this week is that VP Harris received nearly 12 million fewer popular votes than Joe Biden did just four years ago (81 million for Biden/69 million Harris), while Trump's popular vote numbers slightly dipped (74 million in 2020/73 million 2024). Meaning, it's not that Trump added multiple millions of voters to his MAGA rolls (even though he did make percentage inroads with Latinos, Asians, and 20 or so percent of Black male voters—while continuing his 50’s percentage domination of the sizeable white women voter bloc just like he did in 2016/2020).

The above means that as Democrats continue to reflect upon "why" America is heading into Trump 2.0—replete with a Republican dominated Congress as well—the analyses must consider factors beyond racism, misogyny, and sexual bigotry—the triple pillars of American culture since its founding in 1776—to better understand how a nation with a relatively strong economy and stable job stats was successfully portrayed as "broken" and "in need of fixing" by Trump and Republican candidates down ballot.

Make no mistake—I surely believe that racism and misogyny played a role for some voters who did not select VP Harris; this political gender glass ceiling will be broken some day, but amid reports that my generation, Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), broke heavily for Trump— the same generation that watched British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and German Prime Minister Angela Merkel lead admirably in our lifetimes, I find it quite disturbing that so many chose a convicted felon and civil sex offender who literally tried to overthrow the 2020 election over a former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, and sitting Vice President who is extremely well qualified to lead this nation!

Red—Trump; Blue—Harris

But the given factors of racism and misogyny alone don't diminish the fact that the high costs of food and goods continue to trouble a great many voters, many of whom were quite easily duped into believing that these costs are a direct result of poor fiscal oversight by the Biden administration—and an immigration crisis at the border.

Listen, I do not mean to be mean when I say the fact that the majority of Americans read at a 5th grade level is a huge contributing factor to the lapses in reading comprehension, logic, and basic understanding of how civics work in our nation, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well, it damn sure ain't a goose! Hence, Trump, his podcast/political influencer friends on the right, Fox News and his pal Elon Musk's "X" platform did a masterful job in making a significant enough number of voters believe that he was better situated to "fix" inflation and their personal economic woes.

But here is where the lack of reading comprehension skills will bite those voters really soon—the populism that MAGA Republicans espouse, the "otherism" that suggests that "they" (illegal immigrants) are taking "your jobs" (even "Black jobs" as Trump said)—runs contrary to 40 plus years of conservative "Trickle Down Economics" which favor tax cuts and financial incentives for the wealthy corporate elite, under the guise that these modern day "Robber Barons" will raise wages and ameliorate costs of living for their employees! Nothing, and I do mean nothing, could be further from the truth—which is that the chasm between management/shareholders and workers grows wider each year—and its against basic Republicanism to go against what former President George W. Bush once called the corporate elite: "the haves and haves more—my base!"

The real simple truth is that Trickle Down Economics have not led to better wages or more job creation over the past 40 years! Americans without a college degree, the true base of the Republican Party, have found that those factory jobs that once led to middle and upper middle class lifestyles have vanished in the wind due to trade deals and mechanization. The latter, mechanization and Artificial Intelligence, are even taking away lower middle class and working class jobs as well as we see from self-checkout lines at grocery stores and Walmart that eliminate cashier positions, to kiosks at McDonalds that have eliminated the same, the job market is changing and not to the advantage of those without the education to adapt!

But again, those lacking such education are easy prey for right wing culture vultures who stoke their anger about unemployment, underemployment, and low to no wages by blaming "others" while promising to "bring jobs and prosperity" back to Main Street USA. 

Which leads to my final silver lining for Democrats, which is that with Republicans firmly in control of the all three branches of the Federal government, when those manufacturing jobs don't come back; when those tax cuts for the wealthy lead to expanded deficits, recession, and cuts in social security; when the price of food and gas remain sky high; when health care becomes unaffordable again and prescription drugs like insulin go back to costing $600 dollars a vial instead of $35, those same folks laughing at Trump's comedic routines who proudly wore the red MAGA hats and cast their ballots for him, will have no one to blame BUT themselves and their Republican political preferences—and they WILL be looking for relief! Which is why Democrats, instead of sulking, need to be about the business of drafting an agenda that speaks to the basic needs of ALL Americans, regardless of their demographic or educational backgrounds. 

Lest we forget...