Democrat Beatdown (or do you like Democrat Smackdown?)

Nancy O'Brien Simpson

Photo: Дмитрий Плотников Pravda.Ru

Death by a thousand cuts.  There are as many postmortem reasons for the Trump landslide as there are pundits.  It was a historic comeback with inroads in every demographic group.  However, Trump did not win by millions of new voters joining the Trump Train he won because Democrats stayed home and did not vote for Kamala Harris.  Trump gained about 300,000 new voters and Democrats lost three million voters from the 2020 election.  

This is my take on the top five reasons why the Democrats did not show up for Harris.

1.  It all goes back to Joe Biden.  He billed himself as a transition president if elected in 2020.  A one-term bridge to the next generation of Democrat leaders. Instead, his ego got the better of him.  He was wildly unpopular and an old eighty-one when he decided to run again.  This is where things began to fall apart.  No one questioned this, rather Democrats just fell in line.  This was exacerbated by the fact he was in visible cognitive decline that was ignored at best and hidden at worst by the media and his inner circle. 

When Biden debated Trump in June his decline shocked the nation, he had to go, but it was too late.  The American people knew they had been lied to about his cognitive decline.  There was no time for a primary at this late date and Kamala Harris was anointed the new candidate.  At this point, eventy percent of the country when polled felt Biden/Harris were leading the country in the wrong direction.  

Harris tied herself to a highly unpopular Biden and she tied herself to their disastrous administration's direction.  When asked what she would have done differently in that woeful administration, she said,  "I can't think of anything."  Many think she lost the election with that utterance.  

2.  People in the USA are frustrated.  Wages are stagnant.  We do not have universal health care.  People can work two jobs with zero health care because employers do not want to hire them full-time with benefits.  In 2020 and 2021 gas and food prices went up twenty percent.  Biden spouted on rare appearances that Bidenomics is working and the economy is the best in the world.  A slap in the face to those who do not feel the "best economy in the world" is working for them.  Harris's campaign is pushing that Trump is an authoritarian fascist while Trump is telling America he feels their pain and he is going to fix everything.  Democratic ads focus on Trump being a felon, a sexual predator, and going to ban all abortions.  People had heard all that for ten years and it had long ago lost its punch.  They wanted to be seen and they wanted a fix for their woes.  

3.  Immigration is a hot mess in America.  There is no way to know the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the USA.  Estimates vary wildly with most landing between 10 and 25 million.  If you live in a border state the complexion of your population is vastly changed.  Migrants are now being shipped or finding their way all across the United States.  People do not like it.  They want people who enter the country to honor the process and not enter illegally.  Many are angry Trump tapped into that anger, ever the showman he claimed immigrants are "eating your cats and dogs.'  People trusted Trump, not Harris to remedy this problem of illegal immigration.
 
4.  Lawfare played a role in this dramatic loss.  Lawfare is using the law to punish a political rival.  Many of Trump's 91 indictments were pure lawfare executed by democrat prosecutors.  We can briefly look at two cases.  We have a statute of limitations in the USA.  After seven years you cannot be indicted for a crime unless it is a capital offense such as murder.  Thirty years had gone by in a sexual imposition case brought by E. Jean Caroll.  New York made an exception to the rule so that this case could be prosecuted.  That is called lawfare.  

Trump had a fixer, his attorney, Michael Cohen.  He paid him to make problems go away.  One of those problems was his dalliance with Stormy Daniels a porn star.  Trump entered a payment to Cohen on his taxes as a legal expense and the district attorney thought it should be entered as a hush money or political expense.  This quibbling minor filing detail was a misdemeanor at best but by lawfare was made into a major felony.  Voters saw this and it made all these indictments seem malicious and they gained Trump more sympathy than outrage.  

4.  Cultural issues also mitigated for a Harris beatdown. Trump is not an ideologue.  If anything his core is a NYC Democrat moderate.  He is not for an abortion ban.  When Florida wanted a six-week abortion ban Trump said, absolutely not, not enough time.  The guy is a moderate on abortion.  However, the Democrats made it sound like he was the Handmaid's Tale and would ban all abortions.  They thought this would be enough to gain women's votes.  it was not.  Only 14% of voters put that as their first issue.  

Kamala Harris at one time was big into transgender rights.  She even is on record and video promoting that prisoners should be able to transition on taxpayer money in prison.  This is a bridge too far for most Americans.  And, although she tried to avoid the trans issue the Trump people had her saying she would provide prisoners a sex change on loop.  

Puberty blockers for children also tied to Harris and Democrats was something that was just not popular with regular American voters.  

5.  Harris well outspent Trump with a war chest of one billion dollars.  It is staggering to think she had that much money and lost so badly.  She did this by paying big-time A-List celebs and working a ground game.  Trump?  He went after the bros.  He played social media like a fiddle.  Our most popular podcaster Joe Rogan had Trump on and the bros loved it.  Kamala refused to go on Rogan although she was invited.  Trump went on podcasts big and small whereas Kamala would not consider going on some small-time podcast.  The result?  Trump actually won Gen Z women and Latino men and of course the white brosephere.  

And, so for the reasons listed above well over three million democrat voters stayed home and gave Donald Trump the biggest political comeback in American history.