The MSM let us down. Just like they wrote only about Hillary's emails, they wrote only about Joe's age. They said nothing about the vast economic progress and accomplishments during his term. I shouted it everywhere I could, but my voice went into the void. I have no influence, no followers. And I'm no match for Putin's army of bots.
The Democrats have had a media problem for decades. The party failed to recognize and respond to the propaganda efforts that were occurring on conservative talk radio in the late 80s, only paying attention when Rush Limbaugh became a force. The party failed to understand and respond to the rise of Fox News in the 90s. It missed the conservative propaganda outreach that was targeting Spanish-language audiences on digital channels like WhatsApp in the 2010s. It didn't properly engage Black Twitter or cultivate a presence on TikTok. And the party hasn't groomed relationships on BreadTube and CornbreadTube. And then there’s podcasts, black drive-time radio, spanish-language radio… the list goes on and on
And that doesn’t even count local media. Not just local broadcast TV and the disappearing local newspaper. Where’s the engagement with Patch, local city weeklies, hell, even NextDoor? Most Americans don’t even know who their local Representative is. Managing Name ID is a congressman’s job, not CNNs.
Sitting around and relying on profit- and spectacle-driven media outlets — whether mainstream or new — and expecting them to to tell your story and manage your brand has a been a complete and utter failure. Sitting around and waiting for your little friends at cable news station X to reach out, engaging in stunts so that you can “go viral” and pretending that that is constituent engagement, or chit-chatting and gossiping with them on some groupchat is a complete failure of Dem CRM. And that’s their problem, not ThE mEdiAs.
Personally, I’m gonna need them to stop whining, and to get their heads in the game.
Huh? They gaslit us about Joe’s mental fitness for four years.
Then they gaslit us about Harris being some amazing and capable leader when she’s never shown even a hint of being a good leader. Good leaders don’t experience 92% staff turnover like she did as VP. The people who actually had to work for her hated working for her.
Compare Trumps first term with how peaceful and prosperous it was for most Americans with Biden’s four years in office and it’s no wonder why they voted for Trump in ‘24.
Yes he was unprepared in 2016, but clearly came in guns blazing this time. It’s going to be a great four years! :)
Trump’s economic plan follows a familiar pattern. Tax cuts lead to short term economic growth but drive up the deficit in the long run. This happened during his first term—his 2017 tax cuts initially boosted the economy, but the federal deficit ballooned to nearly $1 trillion by 2019. When the pandemic hit, the deficit exploded to over 14% of GDP in 2020, forcing massive government borrowing.
Now, if Trump implements another round of tax cuts, we can expect a strong economy for the next two years (until 2027). However, as the deficit grows beyond 7–8% of GDP, the consequences will start catching up—higher interest rates, increased borrowing costs, and potential economic instability. If history repeats itself, the short-term gains could lead to long-term financial strain, just like last time. But he won't be there to be blamed. Just like last time.
Trump escalated Afghanistan before surrendering to the Taliban. Trump was able to not screw up the Obama economy for 3 years…everyone knows happened in 2020. Biden cleaned up Trump’s messes.
Valid observations. My question is why this occurred, or was allowed to occur.
The “conservatives” were and are powered by a single overarching strategic goal of corporate dominance of American democratic governance, along with massive funding, that was established in August 1971 by Lewis Powell.
Why was no organized countervailing strategic plan established from, for, or by The People, either within the Democratic Party or as a unified effort outside of both parties as the Powell confederation of capitalists did?
I get that splinter factions exist in the Democratic Party representing aspects of the people’s interests, but none of them have conceded there was or is a strategic goal requiring mutual cooperation and action to prevent the advent of an autocrat and the chaos that is beginning to consume America in the interests of money, or, in Trump’s case, the naked consolidation of absolute megalomaniac power.
Soros established that organization before Obama was elected. It probably existed before Clinton was elected. To think that it doesn't exist is very naive. The Kochs were just more open. Given his goals don't align with supposed leftist morals, of course it isn't openly shared or discussed.
If that was their goal they have failed pretty spectacularly. When was the last time Nike ran a pro life ad? Or any company did anything anti-trans? Are you arguing Bud Lite is conservative?
If Biden had quit when he promised, Dems would have had a chance. But Harris might not have won the convention. Other than aligning too closely to Biden, she ran a great great campaign.
"And the party hasn't groomed relationships on BreadTube and CornbreadTube."
We don't need those relationships, and they don't want them.
But, yes, the fact that the left's most effective rabble rousers spend 3/4 of their time shitting on Democrats is a big problem for us. I just think we need to provide alternatives rather than drag the intransigent commentators to our side.
We need a LIBERAL MEDIA. We have a right-wing media. We have social media and YouTube - where there are a lot of forceful voices on the left, and which is, on balance, is not particularly right-of-center as of yet, although it's shifting quickly.
But then we get the f---ing loser legacy media that is not filling the role they need to, but instead trying to cosplay 1995 and pretend they're Tim f---ing Russert.
Non-leftist (i.e., politically viable and less ideological) liberals need to find their own voice, away from the corporate media... it's a heavy, heavy lift and I don't know where we begin, let alone how we get everybody to agree to begin there. People like Paul Krugman and Jim Acosta throwing off their shackles is probably a good start. (I wrote a longer piece about those departures over the weekend on my nascent publication, if anybody would like to check it out.)
What can we DO about this?? Harris is the LEGITIMATE president! (This was the “secret” Trump was talking about).
👉. Perhaps the STATE Attorney Generals associated with the 5 Democratic swing states could rule the ballots should be HAND recounted. The reason because the voters were disenfranchised. Over a million voters registrations were thrown out without cause and it appears the tabulator computers were tampered with from this impossible unrealistic data. So we need to put pressure on those 5 Democratic Attorney Generals in the swing states to do HAND RECOUNTS. They are:
Arizona - Kris Mayes - Democrat
Phoenix Office 2005 N Central Ave Phoenix, AZ 85004-2926 (602) 542-5025
Michigan - Dana Nessels - Democrat
(517) 335-7622
North Carolina - Jeff Jackson - Democrat
919-716-6400 -5
Nevada - Aaron D Ford - Democrat
Wisconsin - Josh Kaul - Democrat
This is not a “normal “ election. It screams of manipulation. Trump doesn’t follow the rules or laws. The American Citizens deserve HAND RECOUNTS in the swing states. They deserve to know who REALLY WON!
Maybe the “rule” of window of time for hand recounts expired, but then again it was not revealed to the public until recently the election data was not only UNREALISTIC, it was IMPOSSIBLE! Again, this was NOT a “normal election.”
Donald Trump didn’t just steal the election, he stole America’s future. And it will stay that way unless we do something about it.
I don't know if you're right, but it's deeply annoying to me that no matter how ironclad the evidence was, liberals would still be too busy self-flagellating to even consider the possibility it was true.
And our journalism corps is a joke. Nobody with credentials has even ATTEMPTED to investigate this.
It's UNTHINKABLE. But how, in 2025, can people think something being "unthinkable" necessarily means doesn't mean it didn't happen?
(There's another major event that happened in July of 2024 that I am EXTREMELY skeptical of, which will also never be investigated seriously. Maybe I'll live long enough for the FBI report to be declassified - whatever happened, there is absolutely shit in there that we did not hear about.)
Working class voters lost ground under Biden. The media trying to paint a rosy picture only made things worse for him and Harris.
The /only/ way she could have won is if she threw him and the party under the bus. “We screwed up the economy but here’s how we’re going to fix it.”
Unless Dems come to terms with reality, the only way we don’t have President Vance in 4 years is if Trump does worse with the economy than Biden. He probably won’t. Recall all those famous economists 8 years ago who predicted economic collapse if Trump won then.
But Someone said or wrote somewhere - it’s not their job to tout the admins successes - that’s Biden’s responsibility . Now I think they should talk nonstop about everything that we do
He shouldn’t be faulted for spending his time working instead of promoting himself and his accomplishments. That’s what is so admirable about him. He works hard and has little interest or time for bragging about his accomplishments.
I think the idea of leaving that messaging up to the leader is not a terrible idea, but when the leader has lost the ability to speak fluently* it doesn't work.
*I will feel the need to clarify this forever, I do not for one second believe Biden's problems with speech were because of "dementia," but rather normal age-related cognitive slowing interfering with Biden's stuttering compensation techniques. That is obviously like, three steps too complicated to explain to voters, but I think almost any neurologist or speech pathologist would agree.
Not being able to speak is a bad trait in a President politically but it didn't seem to hinder Biden administratively too much. (His actual hindrance came from almost-certainly-Logan-Act-violating MAGA interference overseas, but Nixon and Reagan proved in 1968 and 1980 that the Logan Act doesn't apply to Republican candidates.)
Great analysis. I do think racism/misogyny played a role. But I agree: this was one of the most impressive campaigns of my lifetime. Glad to see it made a dent. I hope Democrats will stop blaming each other and start rebuilding. Even had Biden stepped down in 2022, I’m not sure any other candidate could have prevailed.
Like with 2016 you can point to a lot of things that would have tipped the scales, because the election was very close*. The MSM was unspeakably awful during 2024, possibly worse than they were in 2016, but they've also reached such a point of irrelevance that I'm not sure they could have swung it.
I actually think it is possible that Biden could have won, because I think "white man who has lost the ability to speak fluently," is, on balance, a more popular model for a leader among our electorate than "a 60 year-old black woman in exceptional health."**
To be clear, that is not GOOD. It's pretty obvious which one of those things should be more relevant.
(I do not think Harris would have been nearly as good of a President, executively, as Biden, even 82-86 year-old Biden. But that has nothing to do with her gender or ethnic identities, it's because of she had only about 1/8 as much legislative experience and has a more neoliberal ideology.)
*The media didn't present it that way, and then wrote articles about "why doesn't the election feel like it was close???" when they wrote the pieces that created that f---ing vibe in the first place, God I hate the press.)
**Biden winning would have required the party to spin the debate instead of melting down. The counterfactual begins on June 27 at 10:30 PM, when the party and party-aligned media moved in lockstep to sabotage his candidacy - which I can't call an indefensible decision, but I opposed it at the time and it didn't work. I don't want to speculate about who led that charge but it probably rhymes with "no llama" or... shit, what rhymes with Pelosi? Anybody who doesn't want to look at that candidate switch cynically should consider the role of Silicon Valley donors, and Biden's most vociferous defense coming from AOC and Bernie Sanders.)
((If I wanted to get really conspiratorial... you ever see the "Simpsons" episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts," where Mayor Quimby takes the wrong cold medicine before a debate...?))
You make very good points. The collective, non stop, barrage of tearing Biden down after the disastrous debate played a huge part in getting Trump in the WH but other factors also played a role. I still think racism and misogyny played a primary role. You forgot to include someone that rhymes with Mooney played a huge part bc he felt entitled and, if true, had someone's blessing to publicly humiliate Biden.
Disagree. A vibrant primary bringing Shapiro or Beshear would have been much different. Republicans had defined (unfairly) as a Baffoon and made fun of him to the point the country believed it. Running a young male vs Trump would have been much different.
“A vibrant primary” that ripped us all apart weeks before the election.
The deal is that 15 million people already voted for her as part of Joe's ticket. They were angry he was being forced out by rich people who were steamed their candidates didn't win the 2020 or 2024 primaries.
"forced out by rich people who were steamed their candidates didn't win the 2020 or 2024 primaries."
Never forget.
Liberals are too busy being angry at Biden and slagging his character over one decision to notice that we got pretty f---in' hoodwinked.
Oh, cool, Silicon Valley donors worked with a SF-based party leader to try to install a SF-based President? Nothing to see here. Did you see that debate???
By the way, I wanna say - the debate has been so mythologized that anybody who went back and watched it would be surprised by Biden's performance. It was just a normal shitty debate like Obama's first with Romney in 2012, just with four or five extra-bad moments, that each lasted seconds. ("Beat medicare" is the one I have the most trouble with, ugh.)
I guarantee you there are a lot of people who were sucking their teeth and saying "not great," but otherwise not crestfallen about the debate, until Maddow and Joy Reid and everybody else in the media with deep party connections got on their TVs and started talking about the biggest disaster in history and how we had to replace Biden immediately.
After getting the talking points they were all aboard that train. We're different from Fox News viewers, but we're not a different species. Our consent can also be manufactured.
Don't get me wrong, Biden deserves some blame for running when his speech had deteriorated so badly and opening the door to this coup. If he had been more popular within the party or if people believed more in his candidacy, they couldn't have pulled it off. But a coup is a coup.
People MUST look at the messaging towards young men about WW3 and Kamala drafting them. We are in a very blue area, my college freshman is out of state and every single kid he know voted for trump and referenced being drafted for WW3. How did this get missed?
Yeah, I was surprised when I heard that from a young nephew of mine a couple of weeks ago. Although I didn't know it was a concerted propaganda effort until after the election
Thanks CT. That sorta' shocked me. On a bit of reflection though, I can see the validity in today's world. Paranoia... no, I won't 'feel' that. Fears, yes, that's valid. The U.S. is not the cause for the threat of WW3. There are things worth standing for, lest one fall for anything.
The "messaging" is deeply true. The Democrat party, with Dick Cheney (!) now on board, have become the warmongers for the MIlitary Industrial Complex. If y'all can't see the drift toward WW3 just by looking at the Middle East and Eastern Europe, maybe look at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "Doomsday Clock" which they set to 90 seconds to midnight in 2023. Biden presided over a couple of hundred billion in funding and weapons for proxy wars including this past year's genocide. The world hates us more and more, with quite valid reasons. My son will not be going into the desert to die for your standard of living and I will be happy to go to jail with him.
Thanks Pete. That sorta' shocked me. On a bit of reflection though, I can see the validity in today's world. Paranoia... no, I won't 'feel' that. Fears, yes, that's valid. The U.S. is not the cause for the threat of WW3. There are things worth standing for, lest one fall for anything. But, by any and all means, keep your family safe, as you should.
Really? Same reply to my post and to the previous, which seemed to have opposite meaning.
My point was that concern over the danger of nuclear armageddon, and unwillingness to send our children to die in imperial wars, are not MERELY "propaganda" designed to trick young people into voting for Trump. They are real legitimate reasons NOT to vote for the Democrats, who have been the slightly more reckless warmongers in the past 10 years.
Good luck keeping your family safe from nuclear holocaust.
Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing more analysis.
I don't fault the Democrats on this. They knew what was on the line, and they did everything they could to fight hard and smart. So many of us donated and volunteered and Harris ran a brilliant campaign.
I think fundamentally however, institutional and cultural rot make it very difficult for Democrats to win even if the Democrats do EVERYTHING RIGHT in terms of tactics, candidate quality, policy positions, etc. Even if Biden did more to brag about the economy, what media channels would have amplified his message? -- Almost none. Virtually all media mainly serves a right-wing (overtly or not) propaganda purpose.
We will see a more steeply rapid decline in our institutions now. The question for progressives is how do we adapt to a situation where old norms and institutional assumptions no longer hold?
We need to find ways to constantly remind low-information voters (and misogynists) that their MAGA votes are directly to blame for the chaos and misery that's to come. Remind them of their responsibilities. Boil things down to the shortest, clearest, most emotionally resonant messages. And we need to do this in a hostile media environment owned by oligarchs.
"Boil things down to the shortest, clearest, most emotionally resonant messages." I CANNOT LIKE THIS ENOUGH. This is exactly what I've been thinking of this too. We need Schoolhouse Rock for the 2020s - short clips/messages that educate people on civics and that (accurately but harshly) inform the public about every terrible thing Trump and his ilk do that hurts ordinary Americans and benefit Trump and his billionaire cronies. And we all must amplify these messages - it's going to be up to us to create our own media environment.
Do not underestimate the role the catholic and right wing churches played in preaching that democrats are the anti Christ and Trump was sent by God to save the world. Republicans didn’t need a ground game, they had preachers doing it for them!
I think the “religious right” contribution to this mess is very underreported. Is it fear to criticize religion in general so not to hurt people’s feelings and lose their votes? This aspect needs to be covered more fully making clear distinctions between Christian Nationalism and religions that are NOT politicizing their teachings and worshipping political scoundrels.
From a subjective viewpoint every time I watched coverage of Biden, the Democrats, and the economy on tv or read about it in mainstream publications, the accomplishments of the administration were downplayed, ignored, or folded well beneath the "concerns" of Biden's age and supposed questionable mental acuity and physical status. Where else would the vast majority of the electorate even read or hear about what the government was doing in regard to the economy other than through the mainstream media?
Looking forward to more analysis. While I’m still heartbroken about our loss, it’s very encouraging to see how all our efforts made an impact on the overall race.
Now we need to close the loudness gap, get our message out there 24/7 and harness this phenomenal organization for the future.
I need a break. I am only reading Hopium and now Tom Bonier substack right now. Taking a break, long walks, and just allowing myself to feel great sadness and anger. One thing I won't do is blame Biden, Harris, Simon or Tom.
I agree 💯. You cannot tell me that the MSM did not know what they were peddling. Heck, if WE knew they were sane washing and holding Trump, yet again, to a
different standard, you mean to tell me the MSM didn't know what they were doing?
We saw what Trump did four years ago to try to overturn that election and it should have been obvious from the start of his campaign that he would do so again. He even basically admitted as much, that he had the votes he needed and that he and Mike Johnson had a secret plan to win. It was a huge travesty of justice to not immediately arrest and prosecute him back in 2021.
Whether we like and/or want to admit it, many men will not vote for a woman. And a number of women hate other women. This isn't to say the Dems didn't make mistakes. Kamala Harris is a superbly qualified person, trump and his coterie have shown an alarming attachment to patriarchy and bigotry. It's a fight like the 1950 s and 60 s.
Is that a Democratic thing? Because Nikki Haley beat Henry McMaster (the current Governor) in a Republican primary runoff. And she did better than anyone else against Trump in the primaries.
Women hating other women is a thing that’s often not spoken of. I’m glad you brought it up. It sounds like a feature with many Christian Nationals which Andra Watkins writes about in her Substack, “For Such a Time as This” She has a great article on “Female Envy and Regret”
Thank you for these initial thoughts. It softens an otherwise brutal blow to all of us who poured our heart and soul into the Harris/Walz team. Her performance was off the charts under unbelievable circumstances. She deserved better.
And the sane washing of Trump by the MSM and drubbing of Biden is the largest dereliction of duty I have seen in my lifetime. Shame on them all.
Finally, Democrats have best take seriously the need to engage in the dissemination of information. We don’t have to lie, but we have to be unapologetic about who the GOP is.
With all due respect the corporate media failed to cover Biden’s presidency except through GOP criticism-watch tape-gas prices too high, inflation too high, Hunter Biden, Biden crime family-when T was in and out of office he got massive coverage but always from his perspective-“Trump says” Trump denies” not fact based so don’t blame Biden. Also abroad Putin engaged in a global disinformation war and T had operatives abroad doing his own dirty work-Grenell, Flynn, Kushner, Bannon. So chart about other incumbents may reflect impact of same disinformation warfare we have here and Biden failed to penalize or defend against any of it from 1/6 on
I think this article provides a good explanation regarding why people heard what they did and how this (dis)information impacted the outcome of this election. Perhaps in the future it would be wise to consider the scale and power of right wing media and develop better ways to combat it.
The disconnect in ballots re abortion is bc of a person has agency *right there right then* to directly affect abortion access, then they don’t have to consider that in candidates. Boom. As I’ve long said to students, Dobbs is going to remake party platforms and shifted the issue to states-not going away despite what the anti abortion folks thought they managed w Dobbs & SCOTUS. Policy processes never end in the US bc that’s how we built the system.
Knowing the extreme risk to our national security (see Senate Report 2018, Mueller Report, etc. etc. ) and the associated extreme risk to the entire post-WW2 western order HOW IN THE WORLD DID THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEAVE TRUMP 'untouched" for almost three years? HOW? The president (Biden) took an oath to protect the country and its citizens and I feel his entire legacy will now be "Trump got away with everything".
I am devastated. I've put up with many GOP administrations in my 68 years. But I have never been as terrified as I am today. If multiple generals took the extreme risk to speak out, we must know this is serious.
Kamala ran a great traditional campaign. Traditional campaigns don't work any more. Dems need to break through the right wing information bubble, which is now more influential than all of the mainstream media combined. This requires a massive and innovative communication effort by cultivating influencers, much better social media strategy, and engaging in disruptive messaging.
Kamala's campaign was incoherent, messy, and ineffective. It cleanly missed demographics she took for granted to support her. How was it great in any way? It couldn't even operate within the billion dollars that it raised.
You have to run a candidate people want to elect. Even my far left friends, and moderate left friends, felt like she was either 1) way too incompetent or 2) way too liberal for them to openly support her. Instead, they campaigned against Trump, which is truly a weak endorsement.
The MSM let us down. Just like they wrote only about Hillary's emails, they wrote only about Joe's age. They said nothing about the vast economic progress and accomplishments during his term. I shouted it everywhere I could, but my voice went into the void. I have no influence, no followers. And I'm no match for Putin's army of bots.
I shouted it everywhere I could too, with the same result as you. 😥
Me too.
I agree with you and disagree with Tom Bonier. MSM is still stumping for Drumpf. After all, they are corporations, and have seen how destructive and expensive Drumpf’s Retribution Tour is, and don’t want the fight. https://open.substack.com/pub/tinfoilmatt/p/nine-ways-to-prove-the-2024-election
They also profit from our clicks on all the train wreck stories.
I won't give them that, this time.
The Democrats have had a media problem for decades. The party failed to recognize and respond to the propaganda efforts that were occurring on conservative talk radio in the late 80s, only paying attention when Rush Limbaugh became a force. The party failed to understand and respond to the rise of Fox News in the 90s. It missed the conservative propaganda outreach that was targeting Spanish-language audiences on digital channels like WhatsApp in the 2010s. It didn't properly engage Black Twitter or cultivate a presence on TikTok. And the party hasn't groomed relationships on BreadTube and CornbreadTube. And then there’s podcasts, black drive-time radio, spanish-language radio… the list goes on and on
And that doesn’t even count local media. Not just local broadcast TV and the disappearing local newspaper. Where’s the engagement with Patch, local city weeklies, hell, even NextDoor? Most Americans don’t even know who their local Representative is. Managing Name ID is a congressman’s job, not CNNs.
Sitting around and relying on profit- and spectacle-driven media outlets — whether mainstream or new — and expecting them to to tell your story and manage your brand has a been a complete and utter failure. Sitting around and waiting for your little friends at cable news station X to reach out, engaging in stunts so that you can “go viral” and pretending that that is constituent engagement, or chit-chatting and gossiping with them on some groupchat is a complete failure of Dem CRM. And that’s their problem, not ThE mEdiAs.
Personally, I’m gonna need them to stop whining, and to get their heads in the game.
Huh? They gaslit us about Joe’s mental fitness for four years.
Then they gaslit us about Harris being some amazing and capable leader when she’s never shown even a hint of being a good leader. Good leaders don’t experience 92% staff turnover like she did as VP. The people who actually had to work for her hated working for her.
Word. Losing has apparently pushed some Dems into a psychotic break with reality.
“Biden’s accomplishments”
“Kamala was a great candidate and proven leader!”
“The media conspired against the Democrats”
“Musk STOLE the election!”
Lol! Absolute insanity.
Trump was president already—and he clearly believes his first term was a failure!! And yet his voters still came out to vote for him.
Compare Trumps first term with how peaceful and prosperous it was for most Americans with Biden’s four years in office and it’s no wonder why they voted for Trump in ‘24.
Yes he was unprepared in 2016, but clearly came in guns blazing this time. It’s going to be a great four years! :)
Trump’s economic plan follows a familiar pattern. Tax cuts lead to short term economic growth but drive up the deficit in the long run. This happened during his first term—his 2017 tax cuts initially boosted the economy, but the federal deficit ballooned to nearly $1 trillion by 2019. When the pandemic hit, the deficit exploded to over 14% of GDP in 2020, forcing massive government borrowing.
Now, if Trump implements another round of tax cuts, we can expect a strong economy for the next two years (until 2027). However, as the deficit grows beyond 7–8% of GDP, the consequences will start catching up—higher interest rates, increased borrowing costs, and potential economic instability. If history repeats itself, the short-term gains could lead to long-term financial strain, just like last time. But he won't be there to be blamed. Just like last time.
Trump escalated Afghanistan before surrendering to the Taliban. Trump was able to not screw up the Obama economy for 3 years…everyone knows happened in 2020. Biden cleaned up Trump’s messes.
Valid observations. My question is why this occurred, or was allowed to occur.
The “conservatives” were and are powered by a single overarching strategic goal of corporate dominance of American democratic governance, along with massive funding, that was established in August 1971 by Lewis Powell.
Why was no organized countervailing strategic plan established from, for, or by The People, either within the Democratic Party or as a unified effort outside of both parties as the Powell confederation of capitalists did?
I get that splinter factions exist in the Democratic Party representing aspects of the people’s interests, but none of them have conceded there was or is a strategic goal requiring mutual cooperation and action to prevent the advent of an autocrat and the chaos that is beginning to consume America in the interests of money, or, in Trump’s case, the naked consolidation of absolute megalomaniac power.
I have the very same questions.
Soros established that organization before Obama was elected. It probably existed before Clinton was elected. To think that it doesn't exist is very naive. The Kochs were just more open. Given his goals don't align with supposed leftist morals, of course it isn't openly shared or discussed.
Nahh. There was never such an organization. If there was America wouldn’t be in the situation that it is.
Denying it doesn't make it go away. And, if it was more effective, it might be more obvious. Definitely grateful its such a failure though.
If that was their goal they have failed pretty spectacularly. When was the last time Nike ran a pro life ad? Or any company did anything anti-trans? Are you arguing Bud Lite is conservative?
absolutely. We are so far behind in all the channels outlined here. I actually am surprised (reflecting on all this now) that we won the votes we did!
If we could not beat this candidate I don't know what to say about my party. I really don't.
If Biden had quit when he promised, Dems would have had a chance. But Harris might not have won the convention. Other than aligning too closely to Biden, she ran a great great campaign.
I wish people would stop pretending "I heard what I wanted to hear" = "Biden made a promise."
"And the party hasn't groomed relationships on BreadTube and CornbreadTube."
We don't need those relationships, and they don't want them.
But, yes, the fact that the left's most effective rabble rousers spend 3/4 of their time shitting on Democrats is a big problem for us. I just think we need to provide alternatives rather than drag the intransigent commentators to our side.
We need a LIBERAL MEDIA. We have a right-wing media. We have social media and YouTube - where there are a lot of forceful voices on the left, and which is, on balance, is not particularly right-of-center as of yet, although it's shifting quickly.
But then we get the f---ing loser legacy media that is not filling the role they need to, but instead trying to cosplay 1995 and pretend they're Tim f---ing Russert.
Non-leftist (i.e., politically viable and less ideological) liberals need to find their own voice, away from the corporate media... it's a heavy, heavy lift and I don't know where we begin, let alone how we get everybody to agree to begin there. People like Paul Krugman and Jim Acosta throwing off their shackles is probably a good start. (I wrote a longer piece about those departures over the weekend on my nascent publication, if anybody would like to check it out.)
The election was hacked. Harris won. Look at the data:
This video explains it well:
https://youtu.be/y3-jqU8m-80?si=AzvhGqSUU-bC6VC1
Another great video:
https://youtu.be/qmzGOQwMG_k
https://open.substack.com/pub/tinfoilmatt/p/nine-ways-to-prove-the-2024-election
https://electiontruthalliance.org/
This election WAS STOLEN from Harris.
HAND recounts in the swing states would have shown this.
This is the very latest analysis showing data on NUMEROUS states:
https://open.substack.com/pub/smartelections/p/so-clean
https://youtu.be/qmzGOQwMG_k
https://youtu.be/3l8vWfaFVMU
https://youtu.be/T5cq1ITqzWU
👉 ElectionTruthAlliance.org
What can we DO about this?? Harris is the LEGITIMATE president! (This was the “secret” Trump was talking about).
👉. Perhaps the STATE Attorney Generals associated with the 5 Democratic swing states could rule the ballots should be HAND recounted. The reason because the voters were disenfranchised. Over a million voters registrations were thrown out without cause and it appears the tabulator computers were tampered with from this impossible unrealistic data. So we need to put pressure on those 5 Democratic Attorney Generals in the swing states to do HAND RECOUNTS. They are:
Arizona - Kris Mayes - Democrat
Phoenix Office 2005 N Central Ave Phoenix, AZ 85004-2926 (602) 542-5025
Michigan - Dana Nessels - Democrat
(517) 335-7622
North Carolina - Jeff Jackson - Democrat
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Nevada - Aaron D Ford - Democrat
Wisconsin - Josh Kaul - Democrat
This is not a “normal “ election. It screams of manipulation. Trump doesn’t follow the rules or laws. The American Citizens deserve HAND RECOUNTS in the swing states. They deserve to know who REALLY WON!
Maybe the “rule” of window of time for hand recounts expired, but then again it was not revealed to the public until recently the election data was not only UNREALISTIC, it was IMPOSSIBLE! Again, this was NOT a “normal election.”
Donald Trump didn’t just steal the election, he stole America’s future. And it will stay that way unless we do something about it.
I don't know if you're right, but it's deeply annoying to me that no matter how ironclad the evidence was, liberals would still be too busy self-flagellating to even consider the possibility it was true.
And our journalism corps is a joke. Nobody with credentials has even ATTEMPTED to investigate this.
It's UNTHINKABLE. But how, in 2025, can people think something being "unthinkable" necessarily means doesn't mean it didn't happen?
(There's another major event that happened in July of 2024 that I am EXTREMELY skeptical of, which will also never be investigated seriously. Maybe I'll live long enough for the FBI report to be declassified - whatever happened, there is absolutely shit in there that we did not hear about.)
Finally, someone stating the truth!
These videos are now private. Coincidence?
Working class voters lost ground under Biden. The media trying to paint a rosy picture only made things worse for him and Harris.
The /only/ way she could have won is if she threw him and the party under the bus. “We screwed up the economy but here’s how we’re going to fix it.”
Unless Dems come to terms with reality, the only way we don’t have President Vance in 4 years is if Trump does worse with the economy than Biden. He probably won’t. Recall all those famous economists 8 years ago who predicted economic collapse if Trump won then.
I feel the same way. All of this ☝️.
But Someone said or wrote somewhere - it’s not their job to tout the admins successes - that’s Biden’s responsibility . Now I think they should talk nonstop about everything that we do
He shouldn’t be faulted for spending his time working instead of promoting himself and his accomplishments. That’s what is so admirable about him. He works hard and has little interest or time for bragging about his accomplishments.
Agreed - it’s admirable- it doesn’t win elections . Don’t shoot the messenger.
I think the idea of leaving that messaging up to the leader is not a terrible idea, but when the leader has lost the ability to speak fluently* it doesn't work.
*I will feel the need to clarify this forever, I do not for one second believe Biden's problems with speech were because of "dementia," but rather normal age-related cognitive slowing interfering with Biden's stuttering compensation techniques. That is obviously like, three steps too complicated to explain to voters, but I think almost any neurologist or speech pathologist would agree.
Not being able to speak is a bad trait in a President politically but it didn't seem to hinder Biden administratively too much. (His actual hindrance came from almost-certainly-Logan-Act-violating MAGA interference overseas, but Nixon and Reagan proved in 1968 and 1980 that the Logan Act doesn't apply to Republican candidates.)
Great analysis. I do think racism/misogyny played a role. But I agree: this was one of the most impressive campaigns of my lifetime. Glad to see it made a dent. I hope Democrats will stop blaming each other and start rebuilding. Even had Biden stepped down in 2022, I’m not sure any other candidate could have prevailed.
I agree with you. I believe with every fiber in my body that racism, misogyny and the MSM were a huge factor.
Like with 2016 you can point to a lot of things that would have tipped the scales, because the election was very close*. The MSM was unspeakably awful during 2024, possibly worse than they were in 2016, but they've also reached such a point of irrelevance that I'm not sure they could have swung it.
I actually think it is possible that Biden could have won, because I think "white man who has lost the ability to speak fluently," is, on balance, a more popular model for a leader among our electorate than "a 60 year-old black woman in exceptional health."**
To be clear, that is not GOOD. It's pretty obvious which one of those things should be more relevant.
(I do not think Harris would have been nearly as good of a President, executively, as Biden, even 82-86 year-old Biden. But that has nothing to do with her gender or ethnic identities, it's because of she had only about 1/8 as much legislative experience and has a more neoliberal ideology.)
*The media didn't present it that way, and then wrote articles about "why doesn't the election feel like it was close???" when they wrote the pieces that created that f---ing vibe in the first place, God I hate the press.)
**Biden winning would have required the party to spin the debate instead of melting down. The counterfactual begins on June 27 at 10:30 PM, when the party and party-aligned media moved in lockstep to sabotage his candidacy - which I can't call an indefensible decision, but I opposed it at the time and it didn't work. I don't want to speculate about who led that charge but it probably rhymes with "no llama" or... shit, what rhymes with Pelosi? Anybody who doesn't want to look at that candidate switch cynically should consider the role of Silicon Valley donors, and Biden's most vociferous defense coming from AOC and Bernie Sanders.)
((If I wanted to get really conspiratorial... you ever see the "Simpsons" episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts," where Mayor Quimby takes the wrong cold medicine before a debate...?))
You make very good points. The collective, non stop, barrage of tearing Biden down after the disastrous debate played a huge part in getting Trump in the WH but other factors also played a role. I still think racism and misogyny played a primary role. You forgot to include someone that rhymes with Mooney played a huge part bc he felt entitled and, if true, had someone's blessing to publicly humiliate Biden.
Me too.
Racism is only supported and accepted by democrats, through their DEI stance.
Disagree. A vibrant primary bringing Shapiro or Beshear would have been much different. Republicans had defined (unfairly) as a Baffoon and made fun of him to the point the country believed it. Running a young male vs Trump would have been much different.
“A vibrant primary” that ripped us all apart weeks before the election.
The deal is that 15 million people already voted for her as part of Joe's ticket. They were angry he was being forced out by rich people who were steamed their candidates didn't win the 2020 or 2024 primaries.
"forced out by rich people who were steamed their candidates didn't win the 2020 or 2024 primaries."
Never forget.
Liberals are too busy being angry at Biden and slagging his character over one decision to notice that we got pretty f---in' hoodwinked.
Oh, cool, Silicon Valley donors worked with a SF-based party leader to try to install a SF-based President? Nothing to see here. Did you see that debate???
By the way, I wanna say - the debate has been so mythologized that anybody who went back and watched it would be surprised by Biden's performance. It was just a normal shitty debate like Obama's first with Romney in 2012, just with four or five extra-bad moments, that each lasted seconds. ("Beat medicare" is the one I have the most trouble with, ugh.)
I guarantee you there are a lot of people who were sucking their teeth and saying "not great," but otherwise not crestfallen about the debate, until Maddow and Joy Reid and everybody else in the media with deep party connections got on their TVs and started talking about the biggest disaster in history and how we had to replace Biden immediately.
After getting the talking points they were all aboard that train. We're different from Fox News viewers, but we're not a different species. Our consent can also be manufactured.
Don't get me wrong, Biden deserves some blame for running when his speech had deteriorated so badly and opening the door to this coup. If he had been more popular within the party or if people believed more in his candidacy, they couldn't have pulled it off. But a coup is a coup.
Defined Biden.
Very very impressive
People MUST look at the messaging towards young men about WW3 and Kamala drafting them. We are in a very blue area, my college freshman is out of state and every single kid he know voted for trump and referenced being drafted for WW3. How did this get missed?
WW3, really - that was a thing ?
🤔
Yeah, I was surprised when I heard that from a young nephew of mine a couple of weeks ago. Although I didn't know it was a concerted propaganda effort until after the election
Thanks CT. That sorta' shocked me. On a bit of reflection though, I can see the validity in today's world. Paranoia... no, I won't 'feel' that. Fears, yes, that's valid. The U.S. is not the cause for the threat of WW3. There are things worth standing for, lest one fall for anything.
The "messaging" is deeply true. The Democrat party, with Dick Cheney (!) now on board, have become the warmongers for the MIlitary Industrial Complex. If y'all can't see the drift toward WW3 just by looking at the Middle East and Eastern Europe, maybe look at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "Doomsday Clock" which they set to 90 seconds to midnight in 2023. Biden presided over a couple of hundred billion in funding and weapons for proxy wars including this past year's genocide. The world hates us more and more, with quite valid reasons. My son will not be going into the desert to die for your standard of living and I will be happy to go to jail with him.
Thanks Pete. That sorta' shocked me. On a bit of reflection though, I can see the validity in today's world. Paranoia... no, I won't 'feel' that. Fears, yes, that's valid. The U.S. is not the cause for the threat of WW3. There are things worth standing for, lest one fall for anything. But, by any and all means, keep your family safe, as you should.
Really? Same reply to my post and to the previous, which seemed to have opposite meaning.
My point was that concern over the danger of nuclear armageddon, and unwillingness to send our children to die in imperial wars, are not MERELY "propaganda" designed to trick young people into voting for Trump. They are real legitimate reasons NOT to vote for the Democrats, who have been the slightly more reckless warmongers in the past 10 years.
Good luck keeping your family safe from nuclear holocaust.
I haven't and will not dismiss you and your concerns 'Peter'.
Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing more analysis.
I don't fault the Democrats on this. They knew what was on the line, and they did everything they could to fight hard and smart. So many of us donated and volunteered and Harris ran a brilliant campaign.
I think fundamentally however, institutional and cultural rot make it very difficult for Democrats to win even if the Democrats do EVERYTHING RIGHT in terms of tactics, candidate quality, policy positions, etc. Even if Biden did more to brag about the economy, what media channels would have amplified his message? -- Almost none. Virtually all media mainly serves a right-wing (overtly or not) propaganda purpose.
We will see a more steeply rapid decline in our institutions now. The question for progressives is how do we adapt to a situation where old norms and institutional assumptions no longer hold?
We need to find ways to constantly remind low-information voters (and misogynists) that their MAGA votes are directly to blame for the chaos and misery that's to come. Remind them of their responsibilities. Boil things down to the shortest, clearest, most emotionally resonant messages. And we need to do this in a hostile media environment owned by oligarchs.
"Boil things down to the shortest, clearest, most emotionally resonant messages." I CANNOT LIKE THIS ENOUGH. This is exactly what I've been thinking of this too. We need Schoolhouse Rock for the 2020s - short clips/messages that educate people on civics and that (accurately but harshly) inform the public about every terrible thing Trump and his ilk do that hurts ordinary Americans and benefit Trump and his billionaire cronies. And we all must amplify these messages - it's going to be up to us to create our own media environment.
Short clips, animation - graphic novel like story boards ( like on the GOP great redistribution of wealth )
Democratic keadership would rather hold into power within the Party than try something new. Grass-roots people have tried.8
Do not underestimate the role the catholic and right wing churches played in preaching that democrats are the anti Christ and Trump was sent by God to save the world. Republicans didn’t need a ground game, they had preachers doing it for them!
I think the “religious right” contribution to this mess is very underreported. Is it fear to criticize religion in general so not to hurt people’s feelings and lose their votes? This aspect needs to be covered more fully making clear distinctions between Christian Nationalism and religions that are NOT politicizing their teachings and worshipping political scoundrels.
From a subjective viewpoint every time I watched coverage of Biden, the Democrats, and the economy on tv or read about it in mainstream publications, the accomplishments of the administration were downplayed, ignored, or folded well beneath the "concerns" of Biden's age and supposed questionable mental acuity and physical status. Where else would the vast majority of the electorate even read or hear about what the government was doing in regard to the economy other than through the mainstream media?
Because that (Biden's age) was the click-bait story. A story that was seeded via a relentless social media campaign on the right.
Looking forward to more analysis. While I’m still heartbroken about our loss, it’s very encouraging to see how all our efforts made an impact on the overall race.
Now we need to close the loudness gap, get our message out there 24/7 and harness this phenomenal organization for the future.
I need a break. I am only reading Hopium and now Tom Bonier substack right now. Taking a break, long walks, and just allowing myself to feel great sadness and anger. One thing I won't do is blame Biden, Harris, Simon or Tom.
Agreed Cindy. That’s my MO too.
Well-said, Cindy H!
💙😢✊🏻
So sad, how could we not have bragged more about it all?
The horrible press played a big part in not covering all the ways President Biden moved us forward.
I agree 💯. You cannot tell me that the MSM did not know what they were peddling. Heck, if WE knew they were sane washing and holding Trump, yet again, to a
different standard, you mean to tell me the MSM didn't know what they were doing?
plus, people are in their silos and miss the broader picture
We saw what Trump did four years ago to try to overturn that election and it should have been obvious from the start of his campaign that he would do so again. He even basically admitted as much, that he had the votes he needed and that he and Mike Johnson had a secret plan to win. It was a huge travesty of justice to not immediately arrest and prosecute him back in 2021.
Whether we like and/or want to admit it, many men will not vote for a woman. And a number of women hate other women. This isn't to say the Dems didn't make mistakes. Kamala Harris is a superbly qualified person, trump and his coterie have shown an alarming attachment to patriarchy and bigotry. It's a fight like the 1950 s and 60 s.
Is that a Democratic thing? Because Nikki Haley beat Henry McMaster (the current Governor) in a Republican primary runoff. And she did better than anyone else against Trump in the primaries.
Oh, and her parents are immigrants too.
Women hating other women is a thing that’s often not spoken of. I’m glad you brought it up. It sounds like a feature with many Christian Nationals which Andra Watkins writes about in her Substack, “For Such a Time as This” She has a great article on “Female Envy and Regret”
Thank you for these initial thoughts. It softens an otherwise brutal blow to all of us who poured our heart and soul into the Harris/Walz team. Her performance was off the charts under unbelievable circumstances. She deserved better.
And the sane washing of Trump by the MSM and drubbing of Biden is the largest dereliction of duty I have seen in my lifetime. Shame on them all.
Finally, Democrats have best take seriously the need to engage in the dissemination of information. We don’t have to lie, but we have to be unapologetic about who the GOP is.
This 👉🏻 💯. "Finally, Democrats have best take seriously the need to engage in the dissemination of information."
Especially this 👉🏻. "We don’t have to lie, but we have to be unapologetic about who the GOP is." 💯
With all due respect the corporate media failed to cover Biden’s presidency except through GOP criticism-watch tape-gas prices too high, inflation too high, Hunter Biden, Biden crime family-when T was in and out of office he got massive coverage but always from his perspective-“Trump says” Trump denies” not fact based so don’t blame Biden. Also abroad Putin engaged in a global disinformation war and T had operatives abroad doing his own dirty work-Grenell, Flynn, Kushner, Bannon. So chart about other incumbents may reflect impact of same disinformation warfare we have here and Biden failed to penalize or defend against any of it from 1/6 on
I think this article provides a good explanation regarding why people heard what they did and how this (dis)information impacted the outcome of this election. Perhaps in the future it would be wise to consider the scale and power of right wing media and develop better ways to combat it.
https://newrepublic.com/post/188197/trump-media-information-landscape-fox
Thank you for the article rec. Excellent take.
The disconnect in ballots re abortion is bc of a person has agency *right there right then* to directly affect abortion access, then they don’t have to consider that in candidates. Boom. As I’ve long said to students, Dobbs is going to remake party platforms and shifted the issue to states-not going away despite what the anti abortion folks thought they managed w Dobbs & SCOTUS. Policy processes never end in the US bc that’s how we built the system.
❓ Elaborate please ?
Knowing the extreme risk to our national security (see Senate Report 2018, Mueller Report, etc. etc. ) and the associated extreme risk to the entire post-WW2 western order HOW IN THE WORLD DID THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEAVE TRUMP 'untouched" for almost three years? HOW? The president (Biden) took an oath to protect the country and its citizens and I feel his entire legacy will now be "Trump got away with everything".
I am devastated. I've put up with many GOP administrations in my 68 years. But I have never been as terrified as I am today. If multiple generals took the extreme risk to speak out, we must know this is serious.
HOW?
How??!!!!
Kamala ran a great traditional campaign. Traditional campaigns don't work any more. Dems need to break through the right wing information bubble, which is now more influential than all of the mainstream media combined. This requires a massive and innovative communication effort by cultivating influencers, much better social media strategy, and engaging in disruptive messaging.
Kamala's campaign was incoherent, messy, and ineffective. It cleanly missed demographics she took for granted to support her. How was it great in any way? It couldn't even operate within the billion dollars that it raised.
You have to run a candidate people want to elect. Even my far left friends, and moderate left friends, felt like she was either 1) way too incompetent or 2) way too liberal for them to openly support her. Instead, they campaigned against Trump, which is truly a weak endorsement.