Are you Tired of the Same Old Explanations for Kamala’s Loss ?

By

David Gottfried

If you follow politics, you must have seen in excess of 17,000 articles saying that Kamala Harris lost because workers are leaving the Democratic Party. 

Since 1952, political analysts have been telling us that workers are leaving the Democratic Party.   Theodore White wrote that at about 8:30 PM on election day in 1952, as the returns started coming in from working class wards in New Haven, Connecticut, and it was clear that Adlai Stevenson’s (The Democratic nominee for President) totals were way beneath the numbers garnered by FDR and Truman,  the political literati and taking heads pronounced the demise of the old new Deal Coalition.

Of course, those geniuses could not grasp that a smorgasbord of irritating issues ¹  were a powerful stimulant for the Republican Party.  Besides, the Republican nominee was Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander in Western Europe in WW 11, and his smiling, confident countenance was unbeatable. 

But in 1960, when John Kennedy assumed the mantel of the Democratic Party, the ethnics, the unions and the “huddled masses” of urban America delivered a knock- out punch to the Republicans like a Brooklyn Dodger hitting a home run in Ebbets Field and making all the Ralph Cramdens of “The Honeymooners” feel proud. 

In fact, for about 70 years workers have been leaving the Democratic Party and then coming home again.     

On election night in 1968, when Republican Richard Nixon beat Democrat Humbert Humphrey, the word bandied about in the media was “backlash,” and the working class, we were told, was finished with the Democrats, i.e., middle class whites were heaving with hatred toward the excessively rambunctious, disputatious left, toward students, dismissed as  overgrown juvenile delinquents, toward blacks, portrayed as killers out for vengeance against all white men and against intellectuals and critics of the Vietnam War, deemed a criminal gang of gay pinko faggot commies.  

However, in 1976, Jimmy Carter convinced Americans  that he was a down-home sweet country hick, who picked peanuts and loved his mama’s cornbread, and hence was sort of working class and was primed to be a big hit in John Travolta land. Do you remember his acceptance speech at the 1976 Dem Convention ?  He pronounced the word Italian with a long I, i.e., he said EYE talian.  That made television viewers see him as innocent as Opie, the little boy in “The Andy Griffith Show.”  That country bumpkin must have wormed his way into the hearts of welcoming Italian Grandmas faster than a worm crawled into RFK, Jr.’s addled, arrogant and asinine mind.

Furthermore, the organizers of the 76 Dem convention convinced many network anchormen to periodically remind viewers that the Democratic Party had bought Kentucky Fried chicken for all the Democratic delegates. The fried chicken and lots of cutesy Southern bullshit  made   Carter a big hit in “Petticoat Junction” and “Beverly Hillbillies” land and that, basically, comprises about half the electoral votes in the nation.     

Of course, by 1980, everything changed again, and Americans were flooding to Ronald Reagan, and the political science savants came up with the utterly brilliant and novel idea: The working class is leaving the Democratic Party.

We have heard this refrain with such unceasing regularity that it makes me think that my hardline Marxist friends are right:  The media spreads bullshit because they are ruled by their corporate sponsors, and their corporate sponsors want progressives to despair that they are always slated to lose elections.

Why Kamala Lost

About 20 percent of voters have almost no idea what or who they are voting for, and their votes are captured by crooked pols with the most devious ads and messages. They are as easily swayed by the dominant propaganda as a leaf is swayed by the wind.

This is my take on American elections in stark and saddening terms:

A. About 40 percent of voters will consistently vote for liberals and democrats, e.g. the lowest a Dem can get is about 40 percent as Nixon beat Mc Govern by roughly 60 percent to 40 percent

B. About 40 percent of voters will consistently vote for Republicans and conservatives, e.g. the lowest a Republican can get is roughly 40 percent as LBJ beat Goldwater by roughly 60 percent to 40 percent.

C.  About 20 percent of voters have almost no idea  what is going on.  Their votes will go to the man with the best ads, the sexiest scandal impugning his opponent, and the most inventive and degrading bullshit. 

Accordingly, when Trump spread ads, at the end of the campaign ala an October surprise, to the effect that woke teachers were transmaniacs and that students who were boys at nine o’clock were having their periods by three o’clock, the dumb dullards, with carotid arteries that are clogged with lard, flocked to Trump.

The sorry truth of American politics is this: Our elections are decided by the dullest voters.

E Jean Carroll’s Suit Made Trump, the Man who tried to instigate a coup against America, look like an All American Man being Victimized by a Spoiled, Rich New York Bitch 

I had a professor, who taught criminal law, who continually said, “Keep your eye on the ball.”  Do not be distracted by sexy, sensational “issues” which are, on further examination, tangential or even ephemeral.    All that glitters is not gold.   But sex sells.

Trump is a sordid criminal.  A wealth of evidence suggests that he is an agent of Russia, and his guilt, in trying to steal the election, is incontestable.   The Biden Justice Department should have started, on January 20, 2021, preparing a legal assault against Trump.  However, people were distracted by glittering bullshit and the Carroll suit was soon the rage of the liberal chattering classes.

And when Carroll’s suit began to dominate the news, Trump’s popularity surged.  Middle America reasoned:  The liberals couldn’t get him for Russia and January 6th.  Therefore, they are gonna screw him for sex.    

If I recall correctly, Carroll alleged that she was abused 20 years before she commenced suit.  Generally, statutes of limitations are shorter when Plaintiffs complain of more dastardly deeds. For example, in New York, if one complains of ordinary negligence – essentially just sloppiness, a lack of care – one has 3 years to commence suit.  However, if one complains of an intentional tort, an assault, a battery etc., one has only 1 year to sue.  Why was Carroll afforded 20 years to sue ?

To middle America she was afforded 20 years to sue because she was just another spoiled, obnoxious New York bitch, the sort of feisty, fucking gal, swimming in dollars which she inherited from her Daddy (whom she will refer to, in good Sylvia Plath form, as a fascist who smothered her independence) who is living it up on the upper East Side of Manhattan.  (I fully realize that many women have been unfairly subjugated by men, but the most ardent feminists often seem to have the least to complain of.) 

Well, Ms. Carroll, you ought to take that smile off your face.  Your win is the reason why many women may soon be hurtling back in time, back, back, back to an era when women were chattel and nothing but passive receptacles for penile power.

To the Ordinary, Fat, Stupid voter, the price of Eggs is Always more Important than the Slaughter of the Innocent

America had inflation.  Of course, inflation afflicted much of the world, but don’t count on the ordinary moronic voter to be aware of that.   Of  course, the inflation is easily explained by the Pandemic (Trump, Biden and Congress pumped tons of money into the economy, to prevent a possible Covid-created collapse of the economy, and when more money chases a static amount of goods and services, inflation usually results), but most voters don’t know anything about the economy.   Of course, what happens in the course of a President’s term in not always caused by the President (Germany bombed Britain when Roosevelt was President.  Do you think that Roosevelt made Germany bomb Britain), but try telling that to a consumer of the dumbed-down detritus that is the daily news. 

Ever since Reagan asked, “Are you better off then you were four years ago,” Americans have accepted it as gospel truth that if one has encountered any problems during a President’s term, that President is the big bad bogey man.  It gives them a sort of emotional solace to dump on the incumbent:  They feel powerless, as most people feel powerless, and they imagine they are strong when they piss on the President or his Vice President.

The Biden-Harris Administration was Much More Pro-Worker than either Clinton or Obama, but Harris had the wrong aura, and images and auras are everything in a world where substance doesn’t matter.

Biden and Harris were pro-worker, but Kamala Harris did not look pro-worker.  That may sound like a silly statement, but some people voted against Bill Clinton because they didn’t like Hillary’s hair.

Kamala Harris was a woman, of Indian and African extraction, from San Francisco.

Her race, residence and sex connoted a host of adjectives that were implicitly anti-worker.   When people saw her, they thought of a snide, supercilious woman, in  a café overlooking the Pacific coast, eating very expensive food and drink and passing the time by making sarcastic comments about men who work with their hands.

For years, very bright women had no power relative to men who worked with their muscles.  Now, our “information economy” rewards intellect and ridicules physical strength.   Her rise seems to come at the expense of men in manufacturing.  So as a bright woman, and as an Asian and an African, she is viewed as someone who enjoys the eclipse of the white American blue-collar worker.  Honest brawny labor is out.  Snappy, sarcastic summations are the order of the say.   You may remember that Hillary Clinton referred to Middle American voters as “deplorables.”  Consequently, what is going through middle American minds is not mere paranoia.        

Bernie is Right:  The Failure to Adequately Address Income Inequality Dooms Democrats.

I am furious at Bernie Sanders for his harsh criticisms of Israel, but his insights about economics are right on target.

Biden’s tenure witnessed revived government support for labor and working people.  However, what he offered was far from adequate.  Class inequality has become so pronounced that we are beginning to resemble the era of the robber barons, the grotesque gilded age when big business strutted like Egyptian Pharaohs. 

Class inequality is so pronounced that it is even making the poor die at younger and younger ages.   The median life expectancy for white men in the top stanine (ninth) of income is about 16 years greater than the median life expectancy of white men in the bottom ninth of income.   

The pauperization of the working class is also demonstrated by an exploding income chasm within corporations:  Sixty years ago, CEOs on average had incomes 40 times the incomes of personnel on their assembly lines.  Today that ratio has climbed to 500 to 1.  

In large measure, Trump did not win.  Rather, the Democrats lost.  Harris’s vote totals were about 7 million less than Biden’s.

The Democrats need to squelch their emphasis on identity politics, which is now making even male blacks and Latins ill, but they most go full steam ahead on economic justice. Democratic candidates should give us some rootin-tootin, good old-fashioned Harry Truman style Jeremaids on the paragons of privilege.   

The Democrats Will Lose More Votes if they move to the Center and Right

Most often, Clinton is cited as an example of how a candidate can win if he castrates his left-wing nerve.  However, Clinton won because there was a pronounced recession in 1992, and Bush was doing a poor job.  Bush didn’t combat the recession, he literally vomited on the Prime Minister of Japan shortly before the election, women were furious because of the nomination of Clarence Thomas and the treatment of Anita Hill, and gay people were furious because he ignored AIDS.  Furthermore, Ross Perot took many votes out of Bush’s right flank.     

In fact, stirring liberal speech is often the spark that makes a campaign a successful inferno.    In 1948, Harry Truman was expected to lose, but then he thundered that the rich were “bloodsuckers” and “gluttons of privilege,” and he won.

Past elections reveal that when a candidate moderates his point of view, voters think that the candidate does not have the courage of his convictions, is mealy-mouthed and a retiring weak sister. 

For example, in 1936, Alf Landon, the Republican Presidential Candidate, toned down the harsh dog-eat-dog capitalistic rhetoric and suggested that he would emulate Roosevelt.  The electorate reasoned that Landon’s sudden appreciation for Roosevelt indicated that Roosevelt was right all along and decided to vote for the real Roosevelt, not the republican imitation of Roosevelt.   Roosevelt won every state except Vermont and Maine. 

Similarly, when Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination, he appeared, at first, to be poised to demolish Carter as large sections of the Democratic Party venerated the Kennedy family name.  Kennedy’s advisors said that he had one problem:  He might be seen as too liberal. 

Kennedy therefore muted his liberalism.   He become unbearably bland.   His implicit renunciation of his once stirring liberal stance suggested cowardice or contrition for the adamantine liberalism of his storied past.

The voters despised the new, more conservative Kennedy, and he bombed in the early primaries.  However, when he competed in the New York primary, the state that had been represented in the Senate by Bobby Kennedy, everybody remembered Bobby, liberalism swept over us like an irresistible force, and the NY Times reported, on the Saturday immediately before the NY primary, that Kennedy had returned to a platform of “undiluted liberalism.”  Kennedy trounced Carter 59 percent to 41 percent, and I spent election night at the Kennedy victory celebration getting gloriously drunk and dancing till dawn.   

1. Widespread fear about the spread of communism (China and several countries between Russia and Germany had gone communist between 1945 and 1950), the seeming intractability of the Korean War,  pervasive strikes and labor disruptions, hostility to Truman on the part of workers because he ended a railroad strike by threatening to draft all railroad employees and the belief that after Democratic possession of the White House for 20 years the republicans should be up at bat.