Much is being said after the shock of President-elect Donald Trump winning the most recent election against Vice President Kamala Harris. Many are blaming Latinos while pundits are focusing on blaming the party’s messaging (both of which are typical excuses). Those same pundits also say the focus should have been on the economy and the border while ignoring broader social issues. But that’s precisely what cost them elections across the country.
Sure, the economy should have been the top issue. But one could argue that not acknowledging trans rights, handing police billions without any accountability measures, and shifting hard right on immigration didn’t help matters either. The failure to differentiate themselves from far-right nonsense and all but validating white nationalist talking points could easily have left many voters unexcited and somewhat disenfranchised from the process.
We saw Colin Allred take the position that he never agreed that “boys should play in girls’ sports” (as if that’s a broader problem) while appeasing the Christian nationalists by declaring that he’s a “Christian”. But by saying that, he validated the far-right and Ted Cruz in making it seem as though it is. When Harris was asked about trans rights for inmates in prisons or ICE facilities, she responded with, “I will follow the law, a law that Donald Trump actually followed.”
“You’re probably familiar with now, it’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis to people in the federal prison system,” Harris told Fox News anchor Bret Baier in October.
That was the extent of the Democrats’ position on trans rights. But in a 2019 ACLU survey, Harris supported gender-affirming care for all trans adults, even those who were incarcerated in prisons or ICE facilities. However, in the Fox News interview, she said, “That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on,” referring to the ACLU survey. While it doesn’t seem like a broader issue to many, self-determination is a key tenet of freedom and human rights.
It wasn’t only this issue that the party failed to set itself apart. Immigration was a major issue where Democrats shifted to the right and that shift was dramatic. The so-called Bipartisan Border Bill isn’t all that bipartisan. It’s a gift to far-right MAGA Republicans and has been referred to as the worst anti-immigrant bill in over a century due to the changes in it. The bill would severely restrict asylum – a process President Joe Biden vowed to protect on the campaign trail in 2020 – by creating higher and nearly impossible bars to meet.
This failure to differentiate on issues critical for Democrats in 2020 is one reason many campaigns failed. The effort to appeal to conservatives who would never vote for a Democrat harmed the party on a broader scale. Republican voters and independents likely saw this as simply pandering. I covered this shift from the beginning of Biden’s presidency and by the time the most recent election came around, the evolution was impossible to ignore.
That doesn’t take away from what is arguably the biggest issues that cost Harris: Misogyny and racism. As many voters focus on Latino support for Trump in some exit polls, what they are overlooking is the support for Trump from men across all demographics. Latino men more broadly supported Trump than they did in 2020 while Latinas supported Harris. White men and white women unsurprisingly supported Trump in larger numbers too.
He even garnered as much as 20% support from Black men.
What is clear from these numbers is that the manosphere greatly impacted the election. Many Influencers like Andrew Tate, Jesse Lee Peterson, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and many others often demonize women, boast about how men should be at the top, and often declare that we should’ve never given women the right to vote. While these influencers target younger men, we can not ignore that this attitude prevailed in this election especially now that it’s backed by exit polls.
We have to face the fact that men are afraid of women in power and Harris, like Hillary Clinton, scares the shit out of them. In a society created by and for white men and built on machismo, until we address this with the men in our proximity, it will only get worse. Like the racism that also impacted the elections, ignoring it only allows it to fester and grow.
Even then, the biggest reason for the loss was millions fewer votes. As it stands, Harris received about 14 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020. While that number continues to decrease, it is unlikely that Harris will meet Biden’s 81 million votes. That can not be ignored. This signals a lack of enthusiasm despite what was portrayed on social media and the news. Sure, it seemed like the politics of joy was met with broad enthusiasm, but early numbers show it wasn’t enough.
Many will analyze why Harris lost for months and years to come. But it is incumbent on the Democratic party to refrain from blaming any single group or demographic and conduct reflect on its failed platform. Because the contrast from 2020 to 2024 is far too great to deny and trying to appeal to a voter base that operates on racist and bigoted beliefs that deny broad demographics basic human rights isn’t and shouldn’t be the future of the party.
If that’s the case, we may need a new party.
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