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Much ink has been spilled trying to make sense of President Trump’s landslide victory. Explanations ranging from misogyny and racism to Joe Biden’s belated exit are both overly simplistic and lacking introspection, but perfectly encapsulate the increasingly small echo chamber dominated by Beltway insiders. Early on, Trump labeled Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as failed, weak, and dangerously liberal. The question Democrats must now honestly grapple with is: was he right?
Elections are a referendum on the party in power and nearly every poll told us that (COVID aside), Americans feel worse off than four years ago. Telling those same Americans not to believe their lying eyes was arrogant and condescending, indicative of a Democratic Party that has become dominated by elitists and divorced from the realities of the people they purport to represent. When you are bleeding Hispanics, the youth, Jewish, urban and union vote, and even those in AOC’s district it’s you: You’re the problem.
Inflation
The number one issue was – as it almost always is – the economy. But Harris’ campaign instead focused almost singularly on abortion. And while Biden’s American Rescue Plan inarguably propelled our rapid post-COVID recovery, it also resulted in the largest jump in consumer prices in decades. Housing stock in short supply caused rent to soar, gas prices remained at record highs, and heightened interest rates made homeownership unattainable. Democrats touted jobs numbers while ignoring that real wages stagnated (and briefly declined) and trumpeted record-breaking numbers on wall street, ignoring that to most the Dow Jones has virtually no impact on day-to-day spending power.
Taken together, the 2024 election revealed a Democratic Party that is dangerously out of touch – unsure of what it is, who it represents, what their constituency wants and needs, and how to deliver for them.
Harris struggled to separate herself from her own administration’s actions while her campaign preached patience and resorted to class warfare, vowing to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Recycled promises of $25,000 for first-time homebuyers fell flat on the ears of a cynical public who long ago soured on the notion of wiping away college loan debt, while price gouging proposals landed with a too little, too late thud.
Alternatively, Trump at least proposed some economic policies tailored to segments of voters struggling to make ends meet, promising to make tips tax-deductible to low-wage workers in Nevada, to tax imports on foreign-made automobiles in a union hall in Michigan and restore the ability to deduct state and local taxes in Nassau County, home to the nation’s second-highest property taxes (ignoring that he himself rolled back the SALT policy years earlier). These initiatives connected directly with low-wage and middle class voters, offering concrete, tangible solutions.
The Border
Biden-Harris’ unilateral reversal of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, fulfilled a virtue-signaling campaign pledge without an iota of forethought to the management required by a move that would inevitably invite a crush of asylum seekers. In a masterstroke of inhumane political genius,