A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up. To everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. — Kamala Harris' concession speech after her defeat to Donald Trump.
The problem with speeches by the losers is, without pointing too fine a point on it, they’re all a bit after the fact, a bit previous. Obviously. The problem with Harris’s words is that it’s all stars, stars in the night sky, stars on the campaign rally stages, stars in their eyes.
It’s a common saying that in politics oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. And surely the Democrats lost this US election, badly. So much for the polling putting it a neck-and-neck contest. Donald Trump blitzed the Democrats and Harris. It’s a remarkable achievement by the Democrats to lose. Four years ago they regained office by kicking Trump out, and here’s America now welcoming him back to the White House.
If ever there was a classic example of a party not reading the room it was the Democrats. Indeed, their performance in this campaign may well enter political science textbooks as the classic failure of policy, personality and understanding how and where to garner the votes to retain office. It shouldn’t have been that hard. After all, they were going up against an ousted, convicted felon. Yet, they lost.
In 2016, the Democrat contender Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump’s supporters living in the so-called ‘rust bucket’ states a ‘basket of deplorables’. In 2024, Joe Biden called them garbage. If nothing else it shows that you can label outsiders anything you like, migrants for example, you can call them rapists, thieves, drug addicts, you can say they’re eating the good people of America’s cats and dogs, but once you label your own in such terms as deplorable and garbage, you’re gone.
The optics also come into play when you drape your rallies in the clothes of celebrities, and music and film superstars. Endorsements from the likes of Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen meant nothing. When Swift announced to the world that she was backing Harris, the media went into a meltdown, the internet almost broke as they say in the clichés. Swift posted on Instagram: ‘I'm voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.’
Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, giving you a hug and a cheer, nothing. Robert De Niro attacking Trump meant nothing, beyond cementing his dislike of the man. These people are hugely popular for their entertainment. They are not popular for their political achievements. And yet there they were, fundamentally telling Americans in the Mid-West, and South, that is away from Hollywood, or the recording studio, that their opinions were something of more worth than anyone else’s, that they were going to make your life better. If nothing else this result showed that of the many cultures flowing through American culture, celebrity, despite its social media shadow, and mania, had zero effect.
'Perhaps the way back for the Democrats is to get in the pickup or SUV and drive into the small towns of middle America, off the media highway, and talk to the people who voted for Trump. Who knows, they may hear a reality they never knew existed.'
A crucial factor in the Democrats’ dismal showing was in leadership. Joe Biden won for them in 2020, yet coming into this campaign it was obvious his facility of going toe to toe with Trump was faltering. Vice president Harris, a woman of colour, was brought in to take on Trump. The first thing she had to do was make herself known, and then she had to make her policies known, and then she had to persuade those ‘‘deplorables’’ that she was different, not from Biden, but from Clinton.
It wasn’t enough to attack Trump for all his faults. To working class Americans, it would appear from the result, that you attack Trump, you attack us, for at least from their perspective he is saying what they want to hear.
It’s going to be a long road back for the Democrats. So now, four years of Trump await the nation and the world. If there is any consolation for the Democrats, that barring a constitutional insurrection by a president become autocrat, it gives them time to assess who they are and how best they can represent the country. And Trump will be gone. Pessimistically, the next four years will divide the united states even further, and there will be no going back.
Perhaps the way back for the Democrats is to get in the pickup or SUV and drive into the small towns of middle America, off the media highway, and talk to the people who voted for Trump. Who knows, they may hear a reality they never knew existed.
Warwick McFadyen is an award-winning journalist. He has won two Walkley Awards and four Quill Awards. He has published several books of poetry. The latest is 21+4 Poems. His prose and poems have also appeared in Quadrant, Overland and Dissent.
Main image: US Vice President Kamala Harris and Oprah. (Getty images)