In case anyone hadn’t noticed, a rather important election was held just two days ago in the United States, with that being the 2024 presidential election. This is not to say the other races were unimportant, but the focal point was certainly lasered onto the race between Vice President Harris and President Trump (now President-elect Trump). Leading up to the election, the polls suggested an incredibly narrow race with a very slight tilt in favor of Trump. What ended up happening was a convincing win for not just Trump but for the Republican Party as a whole and a devastating punch to the Democratic Party. While many were shocked and astounded by these results, as many wonder how Trump was able to build upon his coalition in 2016 and 2020, seemingly winning the popular vote when it seemed nearly impossible for him to do if anyone watched this race closely, it should not be a significant surprise to anyone. In fact, this should have been expected.
It must be said that Vice President Harris ran about the worst campaign she possibly could have and consistently made significant errors that likely did play a role in her terrible performance Tuesday night. To begin, Vice President Harris did effectively nothing to differentiate herself from President Biden, who was, and continues to be, deeply unpopular. When faced with questions regarding whether or not there were any differences between the platform of President Biden and the platform of Harris’ campaign, Harris made it clear that she could not think of any major difference in their platforms. This provided incredibly easy ammunition for the Republican Party and, frankly, likely turned her off to many voters who were hoping that, at the very minimum, Harris was not President Biden.
Beyond this blunder, the Harris campaign had very little direction concerning her policy platform and agenda, making it incredibly difficult for voters to know what Vice President Harris stood for. Outside of a few specific policy positions, such as providing $25,000 to first-time home buyers, most of her policy positions were incredibly vague, poorly thought out, or were, effectively, empty words. Saying phrases like “opportunity economy” without explaining what this means doesn’t convince anyone that Harris’s policy positions were even thought out significantly. She frequently talked out how Trump is a convicted felon, dangerous, fascist, and unhinged, but did effectively nothing to explain why she was the best candidate and why people should vote FOR her and not against Trump.
Most importantly, the neoliberal, socially progressive overriding ideology of the Democratic Party has become toxic to many voters, especially the traditional voter blocs of the Democratic Party. For example, Hispanic voters, while traditionally Democratic, swung heavily in both 2020 and, once again, in 2024. One critical reason for this rightward shift among Hispanics is likely due to the Democratic Party taking unpopular opinions on niche social issues. Insisting that biological men should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, downright refusing to or struggling to acknowledge that what is currently happening at the border is a crisis, and referring to people as fascists or Nazis is not an appealing message to many voters, especially voting blocs that tend to be mostly religious, such as Hispanic voters. Not only this, but the Democratic Party did nothing to appeal to young men, which may explain why young men, such as myself, felt entirely alienated by the Democratic Party. When speaking to young voters, Democratic politicians frequently spoke to young women but effectively made their disinterest in young men explicit, which resulted in young men, unsurprising, voting for Trump based on current exit polling.
If the Democratic Party wants to have any chance of success in future elections and win back their traditional voting blocs, major policy and ideological changes must occur, and they must occur immediately.
Firstly, the Democratic Party must completely abandon liberalism and its derivatives – neoliberalism, third-way liberalism, progressive liberalism, and pretty much every other major form of liberalism. The current era of politics in the United States is much more palatable to populism – ideologically and rhetorically – than any other ideology. Most voting blocs aren’t interested in boring, liberal civility politics that focuses 95% of their attention on DEI, advancing transgender rights, focusing solely on abortion as the number one issue, and spending the other 5% pretending to be upset about some specific economic disparity, only to do not one single thing to correct the issue.
Second, while I do not believe any economic shift is necessary for the Democratic Party – with the exception of constantly acting like every economic issue is also a racial issue – the Democratic Party cannot continue the wildly socially progressive, openly antagonist policies they have assumed. Pretending like there is nothing wrong with biological men being in women’s sports, constantly attacking people who don’t believe children should be allowed to undergo gender reassignment therapy or surgery, consistently using terms like “toxic masculinity” and “misogynistic” to refer to young men, or anyone in general, who aren’t supporting Kamala Harris or hold a slightly more conservative position on gender roles or certain social issues, is a fantastic way to alienate and completely lose voters such as myself. While certain social issues – gay marriage and legalizing marijuana – are supported by a broad majority of Americans, the aforementioned social issues are much less popular and, frankly, to most people, somewhat absurd. While the Democratic Party does not need to completely flip on the issue of immigration, closing your eyes, plugging your ears, and pretending that there is no crisis at the border simply furthers the idea that Democrats do not care about resolving contentious social issues.
The Democratic Party must be willing to adopt a much more populist framework along with a more socially moderate ideology if they want any chance to regain their footing among young voters, rural voters, and certain minority groups. If not, then many people, such as myself, will continue to view the Democratic establishment as antagonistic and opposed to my interests and will never regain our vote, and they will deserve every last bit of their fall.
