Where Do We Go From Here?
The New Republic
November 17, 2024
It is tempting, and perhaps correct, to be fatalistic about Donald Trump's catastrophic reelection.
The simplest, clearest explanation is that he did not win the presidency so much as Democrats lost it, and perhaps a long time ago.
Across the globe, incumbent parties have been defeated thanks to outrage over high inflation.
The Biden administration not only delivered rising wages and full employment; it was more successful at fighting rising prices than any other G-7 nation and perhaps any government in the world.
It didn't matter.
Voters hated rising prices more than they liked President Joe Biden's successful economic policies and responded the same way people have pretty much everywhere: by voting out the sitting party.
At the same time, it is increasingly clear that Biden's decision to run for reelection was disastrous.
Had he announced he was stepping side after the Democrats, energized by female voters turning out post-Dobbs, overperformed in the 2022 midterm elections -- and when it was already clear that voters thought that he would be too old for a second term -- it is possible that the party could have nominated a candidate who might have created more distance between themselves and his increasingly unpopular administration.
By the time Biden dropped out on July 21, however, his vice president was the only plausible choice to succeed him.
Voters hated Biden, and they punished Kamala Harris for her closeness to him.
Ironically, the benefits of the Biden economy, so slow to manifest, are starting to appear.
Inflation has cooled, interest rates have come down, and the cost of prescription drugs has been dramatically reduced.
It was all too late.
The 2024 election was a stunning rebuke to Democratic governance.
Donald Trump won every swing state and the popular vote; his party will hold the presidency and, it appears, both houses of Congress.
That victory reflected the most troubling conclusion from the 2024 election: this was a widespread, though not quite total, rejection of the Democratic Party and it's approach to politics.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/188425/2024-trump-win-where-democrats-go-here
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