Tom, I have got to agree on this one. This MAGA enthusiasm may last until the midterm election. People will notice lower social security benefits, higher prescription drug costs, rising unemployment, and misdirected law enforcement actions. They might also face increased costs for electronics and vehicles due to tariffs. Awareness may grow about billionaires paying fewer taxes and running low-wage businesses without benefits. Hopefully, people will start seeing interconnected issues rather than isolated problems. GOP senators may have considered this when they declined a leader totally indebted to the MAGA movement. They expect a morning after.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a woman interviewed on the street who said: instead of criticizing the opposition, tell us what you have accomplished and plan to do. Highlighting safe bridges, new factories, and planned mass transit systems would be more effective.
People like to know what has been and can be achieved. This resonates well with voters. Obama completed it successfully with the affordable care act -AKA: “ Obama Care” , Harris began but did not finish due to time constraints.
Mr. Mills, I do not agree at all with your post-mortem of the election results that attribute the Democrats’ loss to a failure to promote values. You wrote that “Being pro-choice, pro-union, pro-LGBT, pro-immigrant, or anti-fascist are positions, not values.” Being pro-union promotes the value that fair wages and health benefits should make possible a middle-class life. That’s a value. Being pro-choice means that women and their physicians should have a right to obtain or to provide medical care including abortion, IVF and contraception without being prevented from doing so by the government. Again, a value. To support the rights of LGBT people is to support human rights and to protect the right to participate in our democracy as full citizens. What part of this expression is an interest rather than a value? Voters may perhaps perceive the Democrats as “woke”, a confabulation of interest groups, etc. but it is wrong indeed to say they have not run on values. Especially as the other party means to trample value-expressing rights (through anti-democratic means). There were a number of economic messages that did not hit, that is sure, and many fewer voters for Harris than Biden—and this requires real investigation.* But surely this is not due to a failure to articulate values.
*According to Robert Reich: “nine million fewer votes were cast nationwide in 2024 than in 2020.
Trump got about a million more votes than he did in 2020 (700,000 of them in the seven battleground states). That’s no big deal.
The bigger news is that Harris got 10 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 (400,000 fewer in the battleground states).” (Nov. 14).
Thanks for your praise of VP Harris. I felt she ran an inspiring campaign in short time.
I should not fire away here without some more reflection. But all this self-analysis by Democrats is ridiioulous. They basically lost this election because this country has a bunch of dumb citizens who have been indoctrinated for years by Fox News and its evil sisters in right-wing media, by the jettisoning of civics education, by misinformation on social media platforms, and by sheer fear heightened by personal bad life choices by many Trump voters.
I , frankly, I don't know how you deal with ignorance except with education, but it is a hard process. Thses folks don't watch MSNBC. Some of them, or so I have discovered, do not even know Trump is a convicted felon.
I am not saying the Democrats are faultless. But really superb people lose campaigns and are not to blame. What I am saying is that the angst among Democrats is unjustified.
Can we please avoid "while she was an imperfect candidate"? Everybody is imperfect. Speaking that way suggests that the perfect candidate is out there if we could only find them, which is not the best way to think. Politicians should be public servants, but now people want superstar perfect angelic saviors. What you get with attitudes like that is Tr*mp.
I realize you didn't mean all this, but let's be OK with well-meaning, qualified humans.
Secondly, swing voters don't generally care about the character of presidents, only the transaction of what he can do economically for them. Republicans in 1996 ran against the character of the "unfaithful" President Bill Clinton. It didn't work. Democrats in 1972 initially ran a campaign that Richard Nixon was a liar who could not be trusted. Nixon won a landslide despite the Watergate break-in of June 1972. Remember the "Believe Muskie!" buttons, lol. I'm dating myself.
Insightful column, Thomas. I wonder if one answer for NC Democrats is right in front of them. Josh Stein and Jeff Jackson won substantial victories -- at least 7% of voters split their tickets, voting D for gov and AG but not for president. Stein, a Harvard-educated Jew, would not have had a chance in the NC I grew up in that was dominated by fundamentalist Baptists. The Dems were credited with a strong economy on the state level, but abandoned because of inflation nationally. More reflections on why the Dems lost here: https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/why-did-democrats-lose-so-badly
Hear, Hear! You are spot on! It is not for Thomas to tell us what our values should be, it is for the larger “us” to speak to our values and for our future leaders to help consolidate those values into a coherent and compelling message.
The most important "value" in this past election was/is the character of the candidate. As Liz Chaney said in her Duke visit earlier this fall, policy differences between the parties matter far less then the basic character of the candidates. For complex reasons I don't fully understand, Democrats were unable to convince a majority of the electorate of the total unsuitability of Donald Trump to reside in the oval office. Instead his perceived better management of the economy and border took precedence .
One has to wonder about the role of information, both lack of and false. If you are getting your news from fox or snippets from the Internet, your view of things will be far different from most democrats. Dems need to do a much better job of communicating with and informing the public.
Thomas, please tell me what the values should be. Unfortunately, I feel the biggest issue is that the tremendously talented democratic candidate was a women and is black. I thought we had gotten past that especially sense her opponent was a convicted felon and a con man but unfortunately not. Tremendously disappointing.
Gotta disagree with your theme here. To suggest the Democratic Party dumb down their political messaging is playing into the hands of Republicans, racing to the bottom and sinking to the low level of MAGA (not even traditional Republicanism).
Where was all this introspective critique prior to Election Day?
I’m personally not turning the most consequential election of our lifetime into a sporting contest open to Monday morning quarterback analysis for the sake of pointing fingers.
Democrats’ overarching, unified concern for helping the least fortunate in society, while still providing plenty of opportunities for mainstream Americans to thrive is as close to ideal as we have ever seen in the U.S.A.
MAGA won the 2024 election on fear tactics, harping on Inconsequential social issues and a misinterpretation of the true state of our economy.
Let’s not bury those three glaring facts in retrospection and 20/20 hindsight.
It happened, it sucked, and if we want to do better next time we have to collectively begin today educating the public on how politics = policy, and policy = rights, and without engaging in politics one is not protecting their own rights.
Becasue if the Left sinks to the political tactics of the Right, next time the rights of conservatives will be attacked.
I canvassed for 18 of the last 30 days leading up to Election Day. The many Dems and Republicans who were Trump supporters did not speak of fear as much as for a defense of their values - and not all of that was sexism or racism, so much as the feeling of abandonment by Democrats who seemed out of touch with the economic plight of rural Americans, not speaking with clarity about people’s helplessness with the high cost of living, or understanding the feeling of emasculation by young men.
“Emasculation by young men”? Wondering what they meant by that. Who are they pointing fingers at for their perceived emasculation? Was Taylor Swift too successful and talented as to make them feel small and unsuccessful by comparison? Was Kamala too accomplished in her career and outspoken about women’s rites?
If either is true, that’s on them. Boys become men by getting off their asses and working hard to achieve their personal goals — in work, school, sports, whatever.
Also, Kamala and Joe both regularly went out of their way to mention the plight of rural men and women who’ve dealt with jobs leaving their areas for overseas production. That’s WHY they pushed for the ChiPS and science Act — to bring back some good-paying jobs. They’re coming. If these folks had watched less reality TV, NASCAR and WWE maybe they would have gotten those messages.
I’m done with MAGA feeling sorry for themselves. What happened to picking yourself up by your bootstraps and also “F your feelings”?
I'd supplement this by suggesting Trump appealed to the 'old brain' and three core emotions---fear (e.g. immigrants taking jobs and causing crime), anger (e.g. not getting fair share, foreign countries taking advantage), disgust (e.g. Ivies, elites)--and the lies told to prompt these emotions bypassed the critical thinking of the "new brain"...and those (many less educated) voters who don't think, but imitate their tribe. Seems all his fabrications and truths were designed to trigger. (Interesting how, again, Trump never sicced attention on the oligopolists.)
Given what Biden h as done in the last 4 years in spite of COVID and this new Republicanism is truly amazing. Going back to Trumpism should scare everyone. He is danger to himself and our democracy. I am afraid that skin color and being a woman was a big detractor for far to many!!1
I believe the problem with the Democrats was the economy ( as Bill Clinton said many years ago-“it is the economy , stupid”). They should have challenged the Republican lies with the facts that most of the inflation was due to the pandemic and its results ( demand came back faster than supply!). We now have a great economy - low inflation, low unemployment , a record high stock market. That is what should have been emphasized, and it wasn’t.
Four years ago I wrote a values statement for the Democratic party. When I get home I'll repost it.
Tom, I have got to agree on this one. This MAGA enthusiasm may last until the midterm election. People will notice lower social security benefits, higher prescription drug costs, rising unemployment, and misdirected law enforcement actions. They might also face increased costs for electronics and vehicles due to tariffs. Awareness may grow about billionaires paying fewer taxes and running low-wage businesses without benefits. Hopefully, people will start seeing interconnected issues rather than isolated problems. GOP senators may have considered this when they declined a leader totally indebted to the MAGA movement. They expect a morning after.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a woman interviewed on the street who said: instead of criticizing the opposition, tell us what you have accomplished and plan to do. Highlighting safe bridges, new factories, and planned mass transit systems would be more effective.
People like to know what has been and can be achieved. This resonates well with voters. Obama completed it successfully with the affordable care act -AKA: “ Obama Care” , Harris began but did not finish due to time constraints.
Mr. Mills, I do not agree at all with your post-mortem of the election results that attribute the Democrats’ loss to a failure to promote values. You wrote that “Being pro-choice, pro-union, pro-LGBT, pro-immigrant, or anti-fascist are positions, not values.” Being pro-union promotes the value that fair wages and health benefits should make possible a middle-class life. That’s a value. Being pro-choice means that women and their physicians should have a right to obtain or to provide medical care including abortion, IVF and contraception without being prevented from doing so by the government. Again, a value. To support the rights of LGBT people is to support human rights and to protect the right to participate in our democracy as full citizens. What part of this expression is an interest rather than a value? Voters may perhaps perceive the Democrats as “woke”, a confabulation of interest groups, etc. but it is wrong indeed to say they have not run on values. Especially as the other party means to trample value-expressing rights (through anti-democratic means). There were a number of economic messages that did not hit, that is sure, and many fewer voters for Harris than Biden—and this requires real investigation.* But surely this is not due to a failure to articulate values.
*According to Robert Reich: “nine million fewer votes were cast nationwide in 2024 than in 2020.
Trump got about a million more votes than he did in 2020 (700,000 of them in the seven battleground states). That’s no big deal.
The bigger news is that Harris got 10 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 (400,000 fewer in the battleground states).” (Nov. 14).
Thanks for your praise of VP Harris. I felt she ran an inspiring campaign in short time.
I should not fire away here without some more reflection. But all this self-analysis by Democrats is ridiioulous. They basically lost this election because this country has a bunch of dumb citizens who have been indoctrinated for years by Fox News and its evil sisters in right-wing media, by the jettisoning of civics education, by misinformation on social media platforms, and by sheer fear heightened by personal bad life choices by many Trump voters.
I , frankly, I don't know how you deal with ignorance except with education, but it is a hard process. Thses folks don't watch MSNBC. Some of them, or so I have discovered, do not even know Trump is a convicted felon.
I am not saying the Democrats are faultless. But really superb people lose campaigns and are not to blame. What I am saying is that the angst among Democrats is unjustified.
Can we please avoid "while she was an imperfect candidate"? Everybody is imperfect. Speaking that way suggests that the perfect candidate is out there if we could only find them, which is not the best way to think. Politicians should be public servants, but now people want superstar perfect angelic saviors. What you get with attitudes like that is Tr*mp.
I realize you didn't mean all this, but let's be OK with well-meaning, qualified humans.
Secondly, swing voters don't generally care about the character of presidents, only the transaction of what he can do economically for them. Republicans in 1996 ran against the character of the "unfaithful" President Bill Clinton. It didn't work. Democrats in 1972 initially ran a campaign that Richard Nixon was a liar who could not be trusted. Nixon won a landslide despite the Watergate break-in of June 1972. Remember the "Believe Muskie!" buttons, lol. I'm dating myself.
Insightful column, Thomas. I wonder if one answer for NC Democrats is right in front of them. Josh Stein and Jeff Jackson won substantial victories -- at least 7% of voters split their tickets, voting D for gov and AG but not for president. Stein, a Harvard-educated Jew, would not have had a chance in the NC I grew up in that was dominated by fundamentalist Baptists. The Dems were credited with a strong economy on the state level, but abandoned because of inflation nationally. More reflections on why the Dems lost here: https://jimbuie.substack.com/p/why-did-democrats-lose-so-badly
Hear, Hear! You are spot on! It is not for Thomas to tell us what our values should be, it is for the larger “us” to speak to our values and for our future leaders to help consolidate those values into a coherent and compelling message.
The most important "value" in this past election was/is the character of the candidate. As Liz Chaney said in her Duke visit earlier this fall, policy differences between the parties matter far less then the basic character of the candidates. For complex reasons I don't fully understand, Democrats were unable to convince a majority of the electorate of the total unsuitability of Donald Trump to reside in the oval office. Instead his perceived better management of the economy and border took precedence .
One has to wonder about the role of information, both lack of and false. If you are getting your news from fox or snippets from the Internet, your view of things will be far different from most democrats. Dems need to do a much better job of communicating with and informing the public.
Thomas, please tell me what the values should be. Unfortunately, I feel the biggest issue is that the tremendously talented democratic candidate was a women and is black. I thought we had gotten past that especially sense her opponent was a convicted felon and a con man but unfortunately not. Tremendously disappointing.
You just can't say that Dems lost because he was a White man and she was a Black woman, can you?
100% agree with this.
I wish I could share your optimism.
Gotta disagree with your theme here. To suggest the Democratic Party dumb down their political messaging is playing into the hands of Republicans, racing to the bottom and sinking to the low level of MAGA (not even traditional Republicanism).
Where was all this introspective critique prior to Election Day?
I’m personally not turning the most consequential election of our lifetime into a sporting contest open to Monday morning quarterback analysis for the sake of pointing fingers.
Democrats’ overarching, unified concern for helping the least fortunate in society, while still providing plenty of opportunities for mainstream Americans to thrive is as close to ideal as we have ever seen in the U.S.A.
MAGA won the 2024 election on fear tactics, harping on Inconsequential social issues and a misinterpretation of the true state of our economy.
Let’s not bury those three glaring facts in retrospection and 20/20 hindsight.
It happened, it sucked, and if we want to do better next time we have to collectively begin today educating the public on how politics = policy, and policy = rights, and without engaging in politics one is not protecting their own rights.
Becasue if the Left sinks to the political tactics of the Right, next time the rights of conservatives will be attacked.
I canvassed for 18 of the last 30 days leading up to Election Day. The many Dems and Republicans who were Trump supporters did not speak of fear as much as for a defense of their values - and not all of that was sexism or racism, so much as the feeling of abandonment by Democrats who seemed out of touch with the economic plight of rural Americans, not speaking with clarity about people’s helplessness with the high cost of living, or understanding the feeling of emasculation by young men.
“Emasculation by young men”? Wondering what they meant by that. Who are they pointing fingers at for their perceived emasculation? Was Taylor Swift too successful and talented as to make them feel small and unsuccessful by comparison? Was Kamala too accomplished in her career and outspoken about women’s rites?
If either is true, that’s on them. Boys become men by getting off their asses and working hard to achieve their personal goals — in work, school, sports, whatever.
Also, Kamala and Joe both regularly went out of their way to mention the plight of rural men and women who’ve dealt with jobs leaving their areas for overseas production. That’s WHY they pushed for the ChiPS and science Act — to bring back some good-paying jobs. They’re coming. If these folks had watched less reality TV, NASCAR and WWE maybe they would have gotten those messages.
I’m done with MAGA feeling sorry for themselves. What happened to picking yourself up by your bootstraps and also “F your feelings”?
I'd supplement this by suggesting Trump appealed to the 'old brain' and three core emotions---fear (e.g. immigrants taking jobs and causing crime), anger (e.g. not getting fair share, foreign countries taking advantage), disgust (e.g. Ivies, elites)--and the lies told to prompt these emotions bypassed the critical thinking of the "new brain"...and those (many less educated) voters who don't think, but imitate their tribe. Seems all his fabrications and truths were designed to trigger. (Interesting how, again, Trump never sicced attention on the oligopolists.)
Given what Biden h as done in the last 4 years in spite of COVID and this new Republicanism is truly amazing. Going back to Trumpism should scare everyone. He is danger to himself and our democracy. I am afraid that skin color and being a woman was a big detractor for far to many!!1
I believe the problem with the Democrats was the economy ( as Bill Clinton said many years ago-“it is the economy , stupid”). They should have challenged the Republican lies with the facts that most of the inflation was due to the pandemic and its results ( demand came back faster than supply!). We now have a great economy - low inflation, low unemployment , a record high stock market. That is what should have been emphasized, and it wasn’t.
Yes they should have. So my question is, why don't democrats hire staff members who can handle this most basic messaging task???