THE BLAME GAME

 It appears everybody has an opinion about why the Democrats lost the 2024 Presidential Election, but nobody seems to want to address the obvious facts in the matter,,,,”out of kindness I suppose.”[1]

The Democrats lost the 2024 Presidential Election when Joe Biden broke his campaign promise to the American people to be an “interim President.” Millions of Democratic voters felt betrayed by his decision to run for reelection, and it only got worse after that. As Biden continued to insist he was up to the task, could defeat Donald Trump and serve four more years as President when it was obvious he wasn’t and couldn’t, that sense of betrayal turned to disappointment, then resentment and eventually disillusionment. When he was finally pressured into stepping down it was much too little and much too late. In retrospect, his stepping down wasn’t selfless. His choosing to run for reelection was selfish.

Let’s remember how this all happened. The country was hemorrhaging under the Trump administration. The COVID pandemic was killing hundreds of thousands of people, the economy was collapsing and White House staff and Cabinet members were being replaced almost daily. Nothing was getting done. Despite the turmoil in the Trump camp, none of the Democrats running in the Primary had gained any traction with voters. That’s when Joe Biden reluctantly (he had already retired) entered the race promising to use his enormous experience as a senator and Vice President and his political relationships to stop the bleeding, get the country back on course and position it so that voters could select a new generation of leaders. He made it clear he wanted nothing more than to be an “interim President”, get us through the crisis and pave the way for new leadership.

His campaign message was well received. Almost 12 million more people voted in the 2020 election than in any previous Presidential election in our history and Biden won the popular vote by a little over 7 million votes as well as the Electoral College. As soon as he took office, he went right to work doing what he promised to do.

When the mid-term elections rolled around two years later, despite the pundits predicting a “red wave”, the Democrats had unprecedented success. That was a vote of confidence for the Biden administration and shortly after the mid-terms Democratic voters were expecting him to announce that he would not be running for reelection and that he was launching an open Primary with VP Harris at the top of the list of potential candidates. But, that’s not what happened. In April of 2023 Joe Biden announced he was going to run for reelection and not a single Democratic leader or official questioned of challenged that decision.

Joe Biden eventually withdrew his candidacy, but when and how he did it deprived Democratic voters of the opportunity to select a new generation of leaders. Kamala Harris was an extremely qualified candidate and ran an excellent campaign. She might very well have won an open Primary, but Joe Biden didn’t give voters the opportunity to make that choice. He made that choice for them and that only intensified their feelings of betrayal, disappointed, resentment and disillusionment. As a result, 4 million of the voters that gave Joe Bident a 7 million vote margin of victory in 2020 didn’t vote in 2024; and another 3 million of that 7 million margin of victory in 2020 voted for Donald Trump in 2024, along with about a million new voters, giving Trump both the popular vote and Electoral College victory.

Those are the facts! That’s what happened.

So, what conclusions can we draw from those facts? Obviously, you can draw your own conclusions, but here are mine, The Democratic Party was clearly not in touch with a large segment of the Democratic voters in particular and American voters in general. The party and its leaders were oblivious to the disappointment, resentment and disillusionment millions of Democratic voters were feeling as a result of having been betrayed by a man (and a political party) they had trusted and had given unprecedented support. Democratic leadership also hadn’t, and still hasn’t, recognized that, despite all the progress that has been made, Women’s Lib has still not reached the poorest and least educated states and counties in the country, which is where most of the MAGA base resides. And the fact of the matter is, until Women’s Lib reaches those parts of the country a woman is not going to be elected President of the United States of America.

The irony of this election is that had Joe Biden kept his promises it is very likely he would go down in history as the President who saved our American democracy. Because he broke his promises he could very possibly go down in history as the President who lost it.

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[1] Poncho and Lefty by Townes Van Zandt