US Elections #5: Finger-Pointing & the ‘Wokeness Controversy’: are Democrats Losing the ‘Blame Game’ as well?
In this series of articles about the US elections, we cover the American general elections which have taken place on November 5 by looking into both candidates, their campaigns, platforms, and policy proposals. The results are subsequently being analyzed, as well as their impacts. Finally, conferences, speeches and other important events are being covered.
In this op-ed, the author analyzes the Democrats’ campaign, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses while also assessing their potential for self-evaluation and learning from past mistakes, ultimately leaving us with a thought-provoking question: are the Democrats losing the ‘blame game’ as well?
Author: Laura Schneider
Photo credits: Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney participate in a town hall campaign event moderated by political commentator Sarah Longwell at The People’s Light in Malvern, Pennsylvania, October 21, 2024. (Eric Elofson/Harris for President)
As very opinionated American citizens living apart, my father and I had intensified our exchange of emails – yes, we are old fashioned too – in the weeks leading up to the US elections. On November 6th, with Trump’s win came my father’s final dejected email, which included a series of reflections in an attempt to make sense of the jarring news. How was it possible for such a clearly disqualified candidate – convicted felon, insurrectionist and serial liar – to be reelected, and with even greater consensus than the last time? This was the main question for which we have been trying to find an answer.
Like us, millions of people are now left grappling with the aftermath of Kamala Harris’s (disastrous) campaign. The turmoil provoked by the election results has seen countless experts and analysts from all sides of the political spectrum come forward to weigh in on the Republican victory.
While it is easy to point an accusing finger at third-party voters or to label the entirety of Trump’s supporters as racist white suprematists, this elections’ failure can only be attributed to the Democratic Party and its strategies.
After the initial surge of enthusiasm that followed Biden’s (albeit very late) withdrawal from the presidential race, Kamala Harris’s campaign took a grim turn: she decided to seek moderate Republicans’ votes and, with the exception of women’s rights, basically ignored her progressive base. While refusing to distance herself from Biden on key issues such as the genocide in Gaza and struggling to connect with minorities, Harris chose to campaign with Liz Cheney, an anti-Trump but hardcore Republican. She took the votes of her own electoral base for granted by not offering a decisive alternative to Trump’s policies, at a time when it was most needed. As she tried to appeal to supposedly ‘persuasable’ Republicans, she lost the support of many progressives who, in fact, failed to turn out to vote at the rate they had for Biden four years ago.
However, many Democrats who have been voicing their discontent on social media platforms such as X (former Twitter) seem to have a different view. These people have somehow come to the conclusion that it was the ‘wokeness’ of the Democratic campaign that cost them the election. This is a dangerous claim for several reasons. It undermines the Democratic Party’s core principles and risks alienating even further those minority groups and progressive supporters who make up a large part of the Democratic base and are already disillusioned. But most importantly, it is unfounded: most campaign ads made in support of Democratic candidates could be easily mistaken for Republican ads. Their content ranged from border control to the economic war with China and the right to own guns: this supposed wokeness everybody is raging about on social media is nowhere to be found. Overall, the divisiveness caused by this claim could also undermine the Democratic Party, right when building momentum for resistance in the face of Trump’s future policies should be its top priority.
In an electoral system as complex and nuanced as the American one there can be many reasons for a party’s defeat, but it is important to point out that, as the Democrats look back on their campaign, their focus is extremely misplaced. If there is a major takeaway for the Democratic Party from this election, it is that disregarding the progressive values that should be at its core was a move that ended up backfiring on them.
All of this is not to say that people should stop analyzing Trump’s win or that the Democratic Party and its supporters should not engage in self-reflection. But self-reflection can only work if it includes the openness to admit to one’s shortcomings and the willingness to fix one’s issues.
If key figures such as Nancy Pelosi keep opposing the idea that these elections represent a rejection of the Democratic Party and keep blaming Harris’s defeat on a supposed ‘cultural war’, in what is frankly an appalling lack of self-awareness, it is obvious that self-reflection for the Democrats is not working at all.
The Democratic Party needs to acknowledge that it was indeed rejected by the American people, not for its wokeness but for its lack of identity. As the old saying goes, ‘rejection is redirection’ and this recognition must be the first step in order for the Party to move forward.
One can only hope that the Democrats become ‘woke’ enough to realign with their values and reconnect with their base, so that four years from now the tone of my father’s emails will be much more positive.
