The Democrats lost because they ran a weak and out-of-touch campaign | Bhaskar Sunkara

The party, increasingly divorced from workers, leaned too much on an activist base instead of a voting base

I turned on MSNBC after the election results came in and this, verbatim, was the commentary I heard: “This really was a historic, flawlessly run campaign. She had Queen Latifah [who] never endorses anyone! She had every prominent celebrity voice, she had the Taylor Swifties, she had the Beyhive. You could not run a better campaign in that short period of time.” Democrats, it seems, are already blaming their defeat this week on a host of contingent factors and not on their own shortcomings.

It’s, of course, true that inflation has hurt incumbents across the world. But that doesn’t mean that there was nothing that Joe Biden could have done to address the problem. He could have rolled out anti-price-gouging measures early, pushed taxes on corporate super profits and more. Through well-designed legislation and the right messaging, inflation could have been both mitigated and explained. That’s what president Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered his supporters in Mexico and his governing coalition enjoyed commanding support.

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The Democrats lost because they ran a weak and out-of-touch campaign | Bhaskar Sunkara

Topics

Related

Rubio: Democrats lost election because they think Americans are ‘dummies’

Democrats lost because we don’t know how to speak everyday American

Top Democrat says party lost election because of ‘overreliance on consultants and pollsters’

Brian Williams: Democrats out of touch with American voters

Axelrod: Team Trump ran a smart campaign

Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Have Lost Their Way

Biden going on campaign trail after weak October jobs report

Weak jobs data can’t stop 10-year yield’s climb as stock-market rally lost steam

Was Kamala a flawed candidate, or was her campaign doomed?

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