Nov.27

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

"What's Actionable Here?", Part II: The Sky Is Falling

Yesterday, we had an item where we expressed our low regard for a politician's analysis of the 2024 election. Today, we'd like to share a few election postmortem quotes from pundits:

• Slate: Democrats, You Have to Do Better Than This
  
  Based on the Democrats' personnel decisions and public statements, you'd have no idea the party lost control of all three branches of government last week. Literal congratulations have been doled out for tough losses in a near-impossible electoral environment, for a spirited effort amid utter defeat. It's almost as if Democratic leadership hadn't spent the entire fall projecting publicly that the electoral environment was tight but winnable.
  
  Now that it's clear they were wrong, there has been basically zero accountability. No real reckoning from the Democratic National Committee on how it managed to spend $1 billion on the only Democratic presidential popular vote loss in 20 years. No apologies from Sen. Chuck Schumer and other members of leadership for embracing the crypto industry, which promptly turned around and spent tens of millions of dollars against Democrats in tight races, including the all-important Ohio Senate race, which Dems lost. No introspective messaging about losing not just the presidency but the Senate and the House.
  
  
• The BBC: A Democratic Party in Disarray
  
  Narrow defeats in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan proved the mortal blow to the [Democrats], and the losing margins were due in part to Mr. Trump's performance among the state's blue-collar rural voters. They had been a key component of the Democrat's winning presidential coalitions in both the 1990s and 2000s, but had been swept up by Mr. Trump's populist movement.
  
  "We need to regroup and figure it out," says Eve Harmon. "Maybe party politics is not even the way to talk about. What do we want to see this country be?"
  
  She says the party should prioritise education reform—although she does have an ulterior motive, given that white voters without a college education were some of Mr. Trump's most loyal supporters.
  
  "Education really does matter because what I think we're seeing here is a lot of really uneducated people voting for somebody that they think will help them—and they're misinformed," she said.
  
  For the Democrats, there could be a long and dark journey before they once again emerge from the political wilderness.
  
  
• New York Times: Can History Save the Democrats?
  
  God and a newly triumphant Republican president are once again in the headlines. And there are signs that the present national divide, between the narrow but solid Republican majority and a Democratic party seemingly trapped in second place, may be hardening into a pattern that will persist for years to come.
  
  Democrats, especially, are left to wonder: What will it take to break the pattern -- an act of God?

We actually had a lot more, but decided to just run with these three, because they get a little repetitive. You get the point; the Democratic Party is a mess, and needs to make BIG CHANGES.

We suspect—though maybe we are wrong on this—that some readers are already on to our little game. The first quote is most certainly from this year. The second is from after the Democrats' defeat in 2016. And the third is after the Party took it in the teeth in 2004.

As a reminder, here's what happened in the next two elections after the second and third postmortems were written:

• 2006: Democrats gain 5 Senate seats, 30 House seats
  
  
• 2008: Democrats gain the presidency, 7 Senate seats, 21 House seats
  
  
• 2018: Democrats lose 2 Senate seats, gain 41 House seats
  
  
• 2020: Democrats gain the presidency, 3 Senate seats, lose 11 House seats

The point here is presumably obvious. The 2004 and 2016 pieces were written by people who were seeing "apocalypse," when it was really just "the usual ebbs and flows of the American political system."

It is fair to guess that is (largely) what happened this year, as well. There are many Chicken Littles right now, writing many pieces about how the sky is falling. However, they are surely speaking from a place of emotion and, in particular, fear. Understandable, but not on target. Even an early analysis supports the conclusion that the recent election wasn't really disastrous for the Democrats, even if the results were a huge disappointment to members of the Party. And note, we could have done this exact same exercise with the Republican Party, and the response of pundits on that side of the aisle in 1992, 2008, and 2020.

Anyhow, although it may seem like this series is about taking potshots at bad political analysis, it's not. This piece, and the one yesterday, were just the introduction. In subsequent pieces, we want to try to look at what really happened, things that might be actionable, things that we think are not actionable, and things that we think were beyond the control of any politician or political party.

Oh, and we will give just one more quote:

• The Argus: The Democrats' Debacle -- Causes Examined
  
  Great sections of Northern population have moved into Southern states by reason of inevitable migratory movements within the country itself. Florida is a notable example. As a great winter resort it has attracted thousands of Northerners, who now make Florida their residence. These bring with them Republican sentiments.
  
  [Meanwhile,] the urban element in the Democratic Party' has become predominant. There is the possibility that male laborers may begin to align with the disgruntled rural minority in the Midwest... to permanently make the Republicans the dominant Party.

The language is a little archaic, but the analysis feels awfully familiar. That was written by a left-leaning newspaper in 1928, and we know what happened for the Democrats in 1932... (Z)