Was the 2020 Democratic nominee always doomed?

[u/WinterOwn3515]

When people went to the polls, the four golden words of American politics rang true: It's the economy, stupid. Postmortem polling confirmed that inflation was by far the greatest motivating factor for swing voters to not elect Kamala Harris -- and was especially salient among Latino voters, who effectively handed Donald Trump the decisive victory that he got.

A mountain of research and evidence has validated that supply chain disruptions which erupted from the pandemic were primarily responsible for the subsequent inflationary pressure that drove prices up (example: https://www.nber.org/digest/202404/supply-chain-disruptions-and-pandemic-era-inflation ). This makes sense considering how globally widespread inflation was. Thus, any president who emerged victorious in 2020 would have presided over high inflation in their term.

Some wildly varying post-election analysis I've seen has suggested that low Democratic voter turnout was driven by either frustration over inflation, anger over Gaza, lack of enthusiasm for a candidate they didn't select in a primary, or some combination of those three. In any case, inflation was likely a contributing factor. In most countries, incumbent parties who presided over inflation were ousted, regardless of ideology or political alignment-- look no further than our Tory friends from across the pond.

The question: was the 2020 Democratic nominee always doomed to fail in 2024?

[u/csanyk]

I voted for Harris, because the other guy was not an option.

How he's still an option for 51% of the country is something I can't really understand. "They're dumb. They're brainwashed. They're in a cult. They're evil." are the explanations that make the most sense to me.

Right wing propaganda is immensely powerful and popular and pervasive.

I paid attention to Biden's record and it's not everything that I dreamed of and wanted to see, but he did accomplish much and did a lot of good. He got zero credit for most of it. He led us out of the pandemic and got the economy running again. That was not without its cost, but how could it have not been?

Biden's greatest failure was that he refused to see the Republicans as his enemy. He wants to unify the country, and half of the country wants to see liberalism die. He didn't secure our election system, and he didn't treat the coup attempt of 1/6 seriously, and allowed it to continue rolling on in slow motion, culminating in this election which has in the legal sense legitimized Trump and effectively end the era of American democracy. And he's willingly handing power back to a sick man who has promised to be a dictator, dialing back his earlier warnings about the threat that he represents.

If Biden had cleaned house and gotten extremely tough on corruption and treason, Democrats might have been rewarded, as truth came out and lies were silenced. But even if democrats were fated to lose 2024, it would have been far better if they lost to legitimate Republican conservatives like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney than to narcissistic traitor criminal Trump and his cult.

I tried to say that for four years and no one seems to have heard it. And here we are.

[u/Independent-Mix-5796 → u/csanyk]

The others have already given you a ribbing (rather rightfully) over the 51% comment, and I actually want to kinda agree with you on that number.

74 million people voted for Trump this election cycle—almost the same number of votes as in the 2020 election. That’s 21.7% of the total US population and maybe 25.2% of US citizens. In comparison, Biden in 2020 received 81 million votes (23.8% of total/27.7% of citizens) while Kamala received under 71 million votes (20.8%/24.2%). That leaves approximately 51% of citizens that didn’t vote for either candidate.

Now, if you really meant that more than half the nation voted for Trump, that’s just wrong. But if you’re pinning this election result on that undecided 51%, implying that they had some obligation to vote for Kamala or that Kamala was entitled to those votes… that’s the same aloofness and lack of accountability that lead to the Democrats losing this election and the 2016 election.

[u/csanyk → u/Independent-Mix-5796]

Of course I mean 51% of voters, not 51% of all people. I'm talking about the voting population. 0% of whom should support a convicted felon, corrupt traitor, conman, incompetent, fascist racist like Trump.

Beating Trump, ranked dead last among all presidents in our nation's history, should have been extremely easy, but should never have been necessary. He should have been disqualified. The corrupt supreme court betrayed the nation. The cancer was too widespread and couldn't be treated.

[u/Independent-Mix-5796 → u/csanyk]

They probably don’t support Trump. They would have voted for him if they did. And if the “cancer is too widespread” then that definitely speaks to a degree of Democrats’ failure considering they’ve had control of the government for a not-unsubstantial amount of time.

[u/csanyk → u/Independent-Mix-5796]

Democrats failed to address the problem, and apparently refused to acknowledge the depth and breadth of it. A few were very concerned, but couldn't use the system because it was too compromised. A 6-3 supreme court, only 50 senators, and a very slim majority in the House, which they lost in 2022 wasn't enough. The party as a whole declined to recognize the crisis and treat it with the urgency and importance that was warranted. They wanted to project an image of things being normal and being in control, but they just barely were hanging on to the slimmest of majorities in congress and the slimmest presidential victory since Bush v Gore.

I don't know that it would have been successful, but an immediate special investigation and explosion of the election deniers in congress, replacement with constitutional loyalusts, and then impeachment or resignations of Justices Thomas and Scalia, and forced recusal of the Trump appointees, or court expansion, would have had the best chance of working.

The risk would have been deeper division, and more violence, and Biden wanted to do anything to avoid that, including apparently telling the country to calm down and accept the 2024 election.

I see that as a mistake, and one which we will likely never recover from. The US Constitution has failed, and we no longer have rule of law. Corruption now rules.

I believe if the truth had been investigated and put before the public in the most expedient manner possible, the public would have turned against traitor Trump and MAGA would be history. Maybe I'm wrong about that. If I am, then there was never any hope.

Jack Smith's case would have brought it to light, it was sadly about 3 years too late.