Pinned post
You don't need postmortems on this election, we had ample premorterm: Ruy Teixeira warning about this in books and @TheLibPatriot in considerable depth. For considerable time. He got drummed out of Democratic polite company for his troubles.
@eduwonk I've highlighted the education piece of this repeatedly. Public education touches people's lives directly and is a place Dems have decided to highlight how out of the mainstream they are with no strategy to offset that.
eduwonk.substack.com/p/dems-dial-it…
Elitism, arrogance, and cultural insularity are dooming the Democrats. It used to be Rs needed a great candidate and campaign to win big nationally (eg W. Bush, Reagan) then even that wasn't enough (Romney). Now a good R campaign can overcome a defective candidate (Trump 2x!). And hidden in plain sight was that although the candidate was/is a hot mess, the Trump campaign was pretty good.
Everyone saying it's too early for recriminations is covering their ass. It's the time because elections have consequences and this one will. This was absolutely avoidable, politics isn't the weather, and while Harris wasn't a great candidate, she wasn't awful, and this was winnable in a way that might cause angst on MSNBC, faculty lounges, and with the groups but would have sounded right at home on job sites, in union halls, and bars where Americans go about their business every day without the shibboleths of the left or the hate of the far right.
@eduwonk I've highlighted the education piece of this repeatedly. Public education touches people's lives directly and is a place Dems have decided to highlight how out of the mainstream they are with no strategy to offset that.
eduwonk.substack.com/p/dems-dial-it…
Elitism, arrogance, and cultural insularity are dooming the Democrats. It used to be Rs needed a great candidate and campaign to win big nationally (eg W. Bush, Reagan) then even that wasn't enough (Romney). Now a good R campaign can overcome a defective candidate (Trump 2x!). And hidden in plain sight was that although the candidate was/is a hot mess, the Trump campaign was pretty good.
Everyone saying it's too early for recriminations is covering their ass. It's the time because elections have consequences and this one will. This was absolutely avoidable, politics isn't the weather, and while Harris wasn't a great candidate, she wasn't awful, and this was winnable in a way that might cause angst on MSNBC, faculty lounges, and with the groups but would have sounded right at home on job sites, in union halls, and bars where Americans go about their business every day without the shibboleths of the left or the hate of the far right.
