The 40 Democratic Party Moments That Led to Their Epic Loss (Chapter 1 of 4)
This will be my last article about the 2024 Election and the DNC, because quite frankly every time I research and reminisce about the political events that has shaped the current situation, we find ourselves in, I just get mad and overly stressed out. I’m just tired of battling against the MAGA cult for so long only to see them end up in the White House again. What makes this all the more frustrating is how this had been in the works for years, this was a very preventable situation (on multiple instances) but the Democratic Party just don’t know how to properly govern or properly read the political room.
It is going to be awful moving forward, this I can guarantee, unless you are in the upper class.
Smaller states are going to suffer immensely, the in-fighting that will occur within the White House will stall any semblance of progress or governing. I fully expect the Elon Musk/Donald Trump relationship going south very early in 2025. I fully expect the slew of poor decisions affecting those who voted for him in the first place. I have zero positive thoughts concerning the upcoming Trump Administration. But like I said, if the Democratic Party had not been so ridiculous, we wouldn’t even be here today. Everyone is now writing their think pieces as to where it all went wrong, when there really isn’t any main thing to point to. Personally, I believe many MANY decisions and events led to the disastrous 2024 results, with some having more impact than others but overall providing a package of inevitability that gives us Donald Trump 2.0.
I am going to provide a list of 40 events, decisions, circumstances, moments, and inactions surrounding the frustrating Democratic Party that has taken us directly towards the path of more political ridiculousness under a deranged, bigoted, narcissist, Christian supremacist cult.
For the record: there are many people and circumstances to blame outside of the DNC, and there are many MANY elements within American culture and American history also responsible for Trump winning. I’m not here to deny the sexism, racism, bigotry, extremism, post-Manifest Destiny-isms that persist within our ecosystem that also results in large swaths of people to always seek ways to harm the more vulnerable and our most maligned minorities, as a reminder. Nonetheless, with proper planning and decision-making we could have been able to overcome those major obstacles to move towards a more progressive, inclusive, and joyful country.
Chapter One: Before The Obama/Biden Era
Source: Wikipedia
1) The Formation of The Electoral College (and the eventual misinterpretation of Trump’s “shift”)
Let’s get this out of the way: we have to stop talking about the election results as if -everyone- voted. Voter turnout constantly hovers between 50% to 70%, which is still significantly lower than it has any right to be. Even the 2020 election which saw record numbers, only experienced 67% voter turnout, barely 2/3rds of all registered voters. By the looks of it the 2024 election will hit numbers close or just under 2020’s results.
If 70% of the country shows up to vote in the midterms and general elections, the Democrats would likely win every single election and can likely kill the Republican Party for eternity. Donald Trump despite his wins remains a very unpopular candidate, there is no widespread satisfaction at him returning to the White House. That being said, even in 2020 the satisfaction of a Biden win wasn’t as big as it was the relief that Donald Trump was no longer in charge as the pandemic ravaged on and kept its killing streak going. I think the last time a country had an elongated happy streak at the results was Barack Obama back in 2012, and even then there were underbellies of frustration.
The entire political process to electing our future leaders remains fundamentally broken. Most of the White House don’t understand how technology works, there’s a non-zero chance that Donald Trump even stays alive during the next four years because of his advanced age and his increasing dementia, and we see many politicians remaining in government only to collect fat checks while ignoring their constituents. But the biggest culprit as to why we’re in such a muck politically is because the electoral college still exists.
I have screamed for decades about how the Electoral College needs to be Bin Laden’d, as in killed quickly and unceremoniously, then tossed into the ocean so that nobody can find it and attempt to memorialize it. The Electoral College produces poor candidates, it allows many more opportunities for fraud, it disincentivizes voters in larger states or “Solid Red” or “Solid Blue” states, and it sometimes produces results that doesn’t properly reflect the wills and desires of the people.
Take this election for example: Donald Trump clearly won and I’m not going to dispute that, but his “gains” in New York and other Blue regions are fake---these are states already essentially guaranteed to be Blue States so combine that with the annoyance of the process and the disappointment in what the Biden Administration has become, and you’ll find many democratic and progressive voters skipping the process altogether.
The Democratic Party continues playing checkers when the game is chess, they continue playing battleship when its actually monopoly, they think they’re playing Gran Turismo when the game is actually Mario Kart. Popular vote does not actually matter, it never has, and the Dems need to understand how to appeal to the widest range of voters in select states while also tossing a bone to the strongholds to ensure the guarantee remains. New York got zero attention from Kamala Harris, and it makes sense because Trump will forever be unpopular there. At the same time, they have also basically abandoned the states of Florida and Texas despite their combined total of registered/identified liberals and progressives can likely outnumber the totals of all of New England---all because of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College will never allow us to have the best candidates and representatives of the nation, and this is a huge reason for why we’re stuck with Trump again---even with him winning the popular vote, its an unearned popular vote that is a result of millions of voters giving up altogether or not voting in guaranteed Red or guaranteed Blue states. Mississippi only saw 50% voter turnout, same with Tennessee, these are frustrated people never showing up. The Deep South has a significantly more diverse population than you may think, but you’d never know it because those minority groups don’t see the point. And soon, Florida will also join those ranks of being Solid Red states with low turnouts moving forward.
Kill the Electoral College. And I would have said this even if Kamala Harris had beat Trump while losing the popular vote.
2) 22nd Amendment Not Expanding its Rules
This is one of my more unpopular takes among the progressive circles despite associating myself with the Far-Left, the Bernie Bus folks, but I think presidents should be allowed to continue running past a second term, instead setting the limit at four. I understand why the 22nd Amendment was passed, but I’m pretty sure they never anticipated the ridiculousness happening in the 21st century, but there’s a bigger problem at hand.
The 22nd Amendment never expanded its idea of term limits to the Supreme Court justices and House/Senate members. The lack of term limits has produced some of the grimiest politicians to walk this earth, which includes the likes of Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Nancy Pelosi, and the died-without-an-impact Dianne Feinstein. Not ensuring that there’s always a rotation of politicians within all branches of government (ESPECIALLY THE SUPREME COURT) has also greatly participated in what we’re seeing today. The Democratic Party of the 20th century of course is very different from what it is today, but either way they never cashed in on such an opportunity as they rode of FDR popularity all the way to the 1950s era of Eisenhower.
But imagine a third term of Eisenhower, imagine a third Bill Clinton term, imagine if Obama had been allowed to run against Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. I’m not saying they should be president forever if voters desired, but part of what harms these administrations (on BOTH sides) is the strategies of the House and Senate members trying their damndest to outlast the president’s term by stonewalling and tossing political obstacles while hoping all the inaction will turn the political tides on their favor. But if everyone had term limits and the president had the longest allowed time to serve, then you’ll see fewer old guards doing basically nothing while collecting checks and while the American people suffer.
3) Citizen’s United
Bernie Sanders has constantly screamed about how this is likely the biggest game-changer in American politics today. I feel like we have completely forgotten about the Colbert Report shenanigans that revealed how dangerous and how ridiculous this all is. Unlimited money poisoning the political process has definitely been the linchpin to necessary change desperately needed in the election systems. The superpacs, the giant corporate donations, the billionaires pulling the strings has screwed us all, and will continue screwing us all for as long as the citizen’s united decision continues existing.
The Democratic Party’s catastrophic 2024 loss can actually be directly traced to this decision, as multiple times Big Money tossed their influence in Democratic primaries involving progressives trying to stop Israeli government’s ongoing war crimes and even had a hand in kicking out Biden after the awful debate performance.
Of course the Democratic Party doesn’t have to rely on big donors to make decisions or fund their campaigns, instead relying on the progressive strategy of accepting donations from everyday Americans, or at the very least they could have limited the amount they’re willing to accept from anyone willing to give them funds. Bernie Sanders in 2015 infamously turned down the donation of a CEO that wanted to obstruct his efforts to lower drug prices. But Big Money will always come out on top, it has become hard to find loyalty when millions are being waved in front of your face.
The funny thing about loyalty is that those with the most money will also have the worst loyalty when their bottom line suddenly is being threatened to start decreasing ever so slightly. Joe Biden will learn this lesson the hard way in 2024. But first we have to discuss other moments leading up to the 2020 election that shaped the Democratic Party’s inner turmoil and controversies and questionable decisions that would lead them down a dark path they didn’t realize would doom them badly.
So yea, to be continued——————-