The Democrats lost because they abandoned democracy. They bungled massively in selecting their presidential candidate.
Chicago: As polling closed in some east-coast states, the exit poll indicated that “democracy” was the voters’ prime (35%) concern going into November 5 election day. Most media pundits took this as a sign of a pro-Harris wave. However, the concern for “democracy” was a bipartisan one at worst. Given the censorship and lawfare of the Biden administration against its political rivals, more Republicans were worried about freedom of speech, individual choice, the right to bear arms, etc., than Democrats about the perceived threat of a “fascist” and “Hitler” (re)entering the White House.
The media and the Harris campaign misread the electorate badly. Demonizing their opponent did not turn out to be a winning strategy by any stretch of the imagination. Vice President Kamala Harris failed even to articulate the agenda of her future administration. On the other hand, former President Donald Trump had a track record of running the country for four years. The result: Mr Trump won a massive electoral verdict against Ms Harris, the chosen successor of President Joe Biden, who was pushed off the ticket by the party elites after his devastating debate performance against Mr Trump. Voters were willing to overlook Mr Trump’s personal failings.
Mr Trump has now won a historic mandate, winning 295 electoral college votes at the time of writing for these pages and outperforming Ms Harris in popular votes. Mr Trump’s Republican Party wrested the Senate majority from the Democrats and is also at pace to retain the majority in the House of Representatives. With a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, Mr Trump and the Republicans can drive their agenda until at least 2027.
This electoral drubbing has stunned the Democrats and their surrogates in the US legacy media, including pundits and psephologists who had consistently projected a “neck-and-neck” race. In the end, it wasn’t even close. With a considerable margin, Mr Trump has now won all swing states for which the results have been called at the time of writing for these pages. It was an unambiguous rebuke of the Democrat Party’s woke progressive agenda and the Biden-Harris administration’s performance in the domestic and international arena over the past nearly four years.
As the Democrats and pundits go into the deep dive post-mortem of their loss, a few points stand out. First and foremost, the Democrats lost because they abandoned democracy. They bungled massively in selecting their presidential candidate. When Mr Biden assumed the presidency, the assumption was that his would be a transitional presidency. Readers will remember that the Democrat Party establishment threw their weight behind Mr Biden late in the 2020 primaries, fending off stiff competition from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. However, midway through his presidency, Mr Biden decided to seek a second term. The Democrat Party establishment manipulated the 2024 primaries to ensure Mr Biden’s candidacy remained unchallenged.
The Party and the White House insiders kept the failing physical and mental health of the commander-in-chief a secret, ably aided by a compliant legacy media and the party elites. However, almost every public appearance of Mr Biden exposed his increasingly failing mental acuity.
Democrats’ increasing tilt toward the radical left has alienated ordinary voters, including Indian and Hindu Americans. Voters wanted their leaders to take on issues like the economy, crime, education, immigration, etc., head-on and not virtue signal with their woke DEI agenda, transgenderism, climatism, and pandering to Islamism. “The damage caused by the Biden years will not be easy to undo,” said Subhash Kak, the Regents Professor in the Computer Science Department of Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. Kak called the Ukraine war “unnecessary.” He also said that Democrats’ pushing “wokism in industry and schools” and their inability to curtail rising crimes and stop unchecked illegal immigration were some of the factors that went against Ms Harris.
Ms Harris’ inability to separate herself from Mr Biden proved fatal. She failed to cite a simple example of how she would have approached things differently than Mr Biden did on multiple occasions. In Ms Harris, the voters saw a continuation of the same failed Biden policies on the economy, immigration, crimes, international relations, etc. “Financial profligacy with $3 trillion deficits that has increased corruption and inflation,” said Kak
Ms Harris’ defeat has been staggering. She underperformed her predecessor Democrats across the board in almost all demographics. She surrendered a share of the Democrat advantage over men, women, blacks, Latinos, college-educated, and Indian Americans. Many of these demographics are part of the Democrats’ core constituency. Democrat strategists also overplayed their hand on abortion rights. Even in the states where pro-abortion rights measures were on the ballot, Mr Trump carried those states.
“Making abortion, which affects a tiny percentage of the population, into the number one issue was a grave mistake for the Democrats,” said Chicago area-based author Deepa Bhaskaran Salem. She was quick to remind us that the Democrats spent over $500m on abortion ads this election even after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs. Wade to return it to the legislative bodies, and Presidents have no influence on this issue anymore.
Besides inflation and illegal migration, the progressive agenda of the progressive left also proved to be a liability for Kamala Harris and the Democrats. “Those who can’t define what a ‘woman’ is,” said Salem, “constantly attack family, inciting needless comparisons between genders.”
Powering Mr Trump’s victory in some key swing states was the grassroots work by a newly formed Political Action Committee (PAC), Hindus for America First. Its founder, Utsav Sanduja, was pivotal in getting the Trump campaign issue statement about the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus, which may have drawn many Hindu Americans to Mr Trump’s campaign and the GOP. The PAC also prepared and distributed yard signs, organized door knocks to encourage potential voters to register, and organized a get-out-the-vote campaign.
“Utsav campaigns, advocates, and pushes our causes like a pro,” said Teesta Dasgupta of Pittsburg, PA. An IIT Hyderabad and University of Pittsburgh graduate is a Hindus for America First activist. “I always assumed that Hindu Americans voted Blue. It was amazing to find other conservative Hindu Americans,” Dasgupta added.
When Mr Trump occupied the White House last time, his opponents never gave him a chance to govern. They created the Russiagate hoax and impeached him twice. The 2024 mandate allows Mr Trump to work on his agenda. “There is a new dawn in America with a lot of work to do,” said Kush Desai, a member of Mr Trump’s communications team, in a phone interview.
“We look forward to a positive engagement with the Indian diaspora,” he added.
After a bitter and deeply polarized 2020 presidential election, there was hope that President-elect Biden would be a Healer in Chief. After all, Mr Biden is a Washington insider with a lifetime in politics. However, as time passed, it became apparent that Mr Biden was everything other than a healer. As fate would have it, that healer role has fallen squarely on the 47th President-Elect, Mr Trump. Only time will tell how he handles this role and everything that comes with a complex democracy such as the US of A.
* Avatans Kumar is a Chicago-based award-winning columnist.