My opinion on why Harris lost is that:
Biden should have dropped out much earlier
than he did.
The campaign should have aggressively
countered disinformation about Harris (swift-boating goes back to 2004—20 years
ago!).
In
hindsight, I would add:
To
its base, to the registered Democrats, to the people who previously voted for
Biden and other Democrats, regardless of whether living in a swing state or
not. (Many of these people did not
vote for Harris, but presumably share Democratic Party values.)
The Democratic Party needed to emphasize
the value of government, the expertise required: in international
affairs and defense, in law enforcement and legal process, in managing nuclear
energy, in maintaining long-standing government programs such as Social
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in regulating food safety, medical and drug
safety, in workplace safety, in consumer rights, etc. all at risk due the
Trump-mindset.
The Democratic Party needed to emphasize
the values of character and morality in a presidential candidate.
The Democratic Party needed to emphasize
administrative fairness (along with its successes) in dealing with immigration
issues.
The Democratic Party needed to emphasize
fairness in dealing with “new,” “cultural” issues such as transgender sports
participation—and that it should probably not be a large role for the federal
government at this time. It probably
would be best to have the lead taken by parents on a local basis and from local
school systems and athletic organizations.
Perhaps, a place for pilot projects.
And
finally, post-election analysis comes back to misinformation and
disinformation, cognitive biases, confirmation bias in self-selection of news
and social media sources.
Misinformation
is false or inaccurate information, getting the facts wrong. Lack of full context is also a factor. Disinformation is intentionally false
information which is deliberatively intended to mislead.
The
main-stream media is not doing enough.
False equivalency, equal time, and sane washing bat-shit crazy ideas is
not helpful.
“54% of
adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are
below 5th-grade level).” https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now
[Cited by Heller, infra.]
See
Nathan Heller,
The Lede: “Republican
Victory and the Ambience of Information” https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/republican-victory-and-the-ambience-of-information [New Yorker
Newsletter, 11-13-24; accessed 11-30-2024; cited by Lawrence O’Donnell on
MSNBC.] Excerpts below:
“[M]any of us scroll through social networks, stream
information into our eyes and ears, and struggle to recall where we picked up
this or that data point, or how we assembled the broad conceptions that we
hold.”
“Trump’s command of the ambience of information wouldn’t
have been possible without his own platforms, such as Truth Social, as well as
allies such as Fox News . . . and Elon Musk . . . .”
“The communications researcher Pablo Boczkowski has noted that people
increasingly take in news by incidental encounter—they are ‘rubbed by the news’—rather
than by seeking it out. Trump has maximized his influence over networks that
people rub against, and has filled them with information that, true or not,
seems all of a coherent piece.”
The reality at present:
For
the Democratic Party to be successful in the future, it has to consider that many Americans lack an understanding of civics, of the US
constitutional system and the rule of law.
The Democratic Party has to face today’s information systems and the
“ambience of information.” The Democratic Party has to build strategies that incorporate social psychology findings on cognitive biases.
The
2025 Semiquincentennial Celebration could be an opportunity for the Democrats
to create a new narrative for civic participation.
