At Least Us Democrats Went Down Fighting Harder Than We Normally Do
It is a gloomy moment in American history. Kamala Harris has lost the election. Donald Trump and his radical right-wing henchman will soon be the most powerful people on earth. Still, we Democrats can rest easy, knowing that we did a few of the things in our power to stop them.
Hey, “a few things” is a lot more things than we normally do. What exactly did you expect from us here? Iconic media moments? A clear vision for the future? This is the 2024 Democratic Party, pal. The best you’re going to get is the worst debate performance by a standing president of all time and a few shifts to the right on immigration.
Honestly, you should be happy with the mildly effective machine we’ve turned the party into. Back in 2016, we just assumed our candidate was a lock and straight up didn’t give a shit about campaigning in the swing states. This time around? We assumed Trump would eventually self-implode, so we figured we could coast on through with a rapidly aging candidate. I, for one, will find solace in that level of effort as Trump sends out federal agencies to terrorize me.
While people’s health care coverage gets decimated and RFK Jr. fucks around with the water, I’ll remember how Democrats came together, sat around, and waited for Trump to make Joe Biden look like young Kennedy by comparison.
And I’ll remember how we sprang into action when Joe Biden somehow made Trump look like young Kennedy by comparison.
In a different time, we might have just hidden under a table and focus-grouped some contrived talking points that could get us out of this. In 2024? We got off our asses and blamed the media for everything that was happening, then forced out Biden at the last possible second.
But we didn’t stop there. We swapped Biden out with the only candidate who could possibly usher in a fresh new era of Democratic politics: the person who had been standing right next to him for all four years of his wildly unpopular presidency.
And after we put Kamala Harris in that impossible situation? We did what Democrats do best: watered down every idea we had in a feeble, patronizing attempt to appeal to people who hate us.
It paid off big time—the coveted Dick Cheney endorsement was finally ours, and the most trustworthy and universally liked man in America led us to a critical +0.00340996 boost with Republicans on one street in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Really, you’re lucky any of the Harris stuff happened at all. We were pretty much dead set on running Joe Biden’s horrific ass and blaming Bernie Sanders or Russia or something when he lost.
But this is the 2024 Democratic Party we’re talking about here. We weren’t just gonna stand there and let MAGA extremists waltz right into the White House. We were going to at least throw a warm body in there and try some shit that worked for Bill Clinton in 1996.
Look, can you please just be thankful we put up a fairly long, hard-ish fight? I know Trump is about to tariff the shit out of everything we buy and haphazardly round up millions of brown people, but I’ll always be proud that we offered a lukewarm alternative to those things during a town hall on a TV network most people don’t watch.
Still, I wouldn’t count on us to rethink anything we do anytime soon. As long as MAGA rules the Republican party, the Democratic party will continue to scream about their threat to democracy and fight that threat with half-hearted centrism, spammy fundraising emails, and zero ideas on how to fix our clearly broken system.
