Any detailed post-mortem of Election 2024 will fill volumes, but briefly, voters recognized that Kamala Harris is an insecure, high-functioning airhead unqualified to be president.
Despite offering “A New Way Forward,” Harris couldn’t name anything she would change from four years of Biden/Harris administration failures. Accordingly, Donald Trump won both the Electoral College and popular votes.
Election 2024 post-mortem analyses and commentary will fill websites and column inches, and dominate the airwaves for days, weeks – years, even.
But, first, a necrology, starting with Republicans.
Trump’s win killed off the withered husk of Bush/Cheney Republicanism. A Bush daughter and Liz Cheney actually campaigned for Kamala but to no avail. Dick Cheney’s Wyoming went for Trump 71-25 percent.
The 2024 election saw a fundamental realignment in American politics. In building a multi-class, multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition, Donald Trump cannibalized a Democrat Party that always claimed to represent the “people,” but that sold out to wealthy elites and special interests during the Obama years.
There are still some RINOsaurs in Congress, and Never-Trumpers remain welcome on MSNBC, but the Republican Party has been transformed.
On the other side …
Kamala’s presidential ambitions are dead – and buried. Furthermore, her inability to think/speak clearly, her spotty “professional” record, her hyper-liberal politics, and the left’s historical aversion to losers may make Kamala unemployable anywhere outside the People’s Republic of California.
Celebrity endorsements also died. Kamala had dozens, but even Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Oprah couldn’t save her.
Joe Biden’s career suffered an ignominious death. Betrayed by the party he faithfully served for a half-century, Joe and his wife (who pointedly wore a MAGA-red pantssuit to the polls) may both have cast vengeance votes for Donald Trump.
The Clinton era is officially dead. Bill and Hillary made half-hearted attempts to rally voters for Kamala, but one suspects that Hillary, at least, voted for Donald Trump, too. In Hillary’s mind, if she cannot be the first woman president, no one can – while she’s alive, anyway.
The Obama era is also dead. The Obama holdovers who pulled Joe Biden’s strings for four years will be out of work. Both Obamas campaigned for Harris but made no difference. In fact, in his usual condescending manner, Barack lectured – and offended – Black male voters, 25 percent more of whom moved into the Trump column compared to 2020. There will be no Obama fourth term.
The Democrats’ malicious partisan lawfare campaign against Donald Trump died on November 5. Clear-eyed voters effectively acquitted him.
Apparently, 2016 taught Democrats nothing. The party jettisoned a man who allegedly beat Trump in 2020 in favor of a candidate who is even less likable, less authentic and possesses worse political instincts than Hillary Clinton.
In the final analysis, Kamala didn’t outperform Joe Biden’s vote totals in a single county in any state, while Donald Trump gained support in nearly every voter demographic.
At the national level, at least, the Democrat Party is dead, leaderless, and its coalition dismantled.
However, on the positive side, Kamala’s crushing loss may be the best thing that could have happened to party Democrats.
America’s two-party system needs two functioning parties. For years – before Trump – America barely had one, and, at times, that “one” – Republicans – appeared incapable of performing its duties responsibly. Republicans joined Democrats in bankrupting America.
Going forward, if ranking Democrats manage to pass through the stages of grief quickly enough (the 2028 campaign unofficially began this week), they would be wise to take their Election 2024 rebuke as a wakeup call, reevaluate, and realign their policies and priorities with those of the normal Americans – the majority – they alienated.
Most Americans are upset about the economy, inflation, government waste and corruption, a broken immigration system, crime, the left’s assault on free speech, and Democrats’ obsession with “woke” identity politics – prioritizing race, gender and sexual orientation over merit and common sense.
Normal Americans dislike their daughters competing with men in women’s sports, and children undergoing life-altering sex changes when they’re too young to vote or get a tattoo.
Is self-recognition and course correction possible? Democrats have always excelled at rationalization and finger-pointing but assiduously avoided introspection. Personal responsibility and accountability remain alien concepts. Only time will tell.
Finally, in Election 2024, after decades of serving as Donkey Party propagandists, legacy media finally committed ritual seppuku.
Details to follow …
Contact columnist Jerry Shenk at [email protected]
