The Post-Election Pundit Panic

Donald Trump won the 2024 American presidential election four years ago when he lost the 2020 election, casting himself as a martyr, a victim of a conspiracy to steal the election. That belief remained fully intact among a core of zealots.

None of the outrageous things Donald Trump did or said during this campaign could sway this electorate in 2024: felony convictions, obscene gestures with a microphone, awful debate performance – none mattered. Ukraine, Putin, Gaza – minor background issues.

Some analysts are using this victory as proof that 2020 was a corrupt election. Look at the results across time. 2020 was an outlier, clearly won through cheating.

Myth-Making in the Post-Truth Era

Donald Trump represents something to his followers that transcends the normal boundaries of presidential decorum. They do not judge his statements by the common understanding of truth and fact.

He has become a mythological figure, a Statesman-Warrior, weaving into the national consciousness a warrior’s myth of courageous battle and triumph over Evil Empires. When he says immigrants are eating cats and dogs, it’s not a question of whether that is happening. His mention of rapists in your kitchen and foreign countries flying the insane and violent to our borders is not meant to be taken as reality. He is putting national fears into a story context that reflects the shared psychological experience of a majority of voters. Myths reflect a deeper “truth,” and become the basis for the new reality: the election of the myth-maker to the most powerful position on the planet.

 Shallow Insight and Poor Logic

The clichéd reasoning and statements about Kamala Harris’ and the Democratic Party’s failure emerged as soon as the election results became apparent:

• She was a “flawed” candidate, selected without a “legitimate process.”
• Harris was inarticulate, unprepared, did not differentiate from Biden.
• She was “burdened with the failures of her administration” and “couldn’t decide who she was” according to other lines of thought.
• The campaign staff grafted Obama advisors on to Biden operatives who “never quite jelled.”

Prior to the election, she was portrayed as focused, joyful, practical, inclusive. She had developed a world-class “ground game” with tens of thousands of willing, skilled volunteers. While she was plagued by some impressions that she “lacked policy specifics,” or “couldn’t think of how she would differ from Biden,” the general portrayal of her was of an on-message, disciplined candidate who was having the time of her life.

If these were the main criticisms of her, how do they compare to Donald Trump’s delusions about pet-kidnapping, or public discussions of Arnold Palmer’s physical endowment? The election was not lost on detailed policy points.

But with the loss, the second-guessing began. The analysis that focuses on strategy and minutiae, that blames the short campaign and the timing of Biden’s withdrawal, misses the point. The creation of myth wipes this out.

When a few pundits began attributing the Democrats’ loss to a Trump “ground game”, it was clear these types of ideas had lost all significance. The Republicans throughout the campaign were criticized for a lack of grassroots organizing. The analysis had shifted 180 degrees, and no one seemed to realize the inconsistency.

“Problem-solving requires a correct diagnosis. A misdiagnosis sets off on the wrong track and leads to engaging peripheral issues. There may even be a bit of success, but the original problem is still festering and only the rare observer harkens back and asks, Why is Problem X still happening?”

The Failure of Pollsters

Leading up to the election, Donald Trump was reported to be:

• vulgar, profane, unfocused, self-sabotaging
• losing his mental faculties, filled with bitterness and obsessed with revenge
• leading a movement based on racism, hate, and sexism in which numerous aides are serving prison sentences
• spouting implausible political ideas: import tariffs, mass deportations, immediate results in Gaza and Ukraine
• convicted of 34 felonies and facing three other indictments
• guilty in civil court of sexual assault and harassment
• threatening to bypass the U. S. Constitution

He was seemingly immune to the public outcry that would have accompanied these actions had another public figure been branded with them.

Each new incident or revelation and the response strengthened the loyalty of his tribe. New converts overlooked these issues. ‘I’m not choosing him as my daughter’s next date,’ one respondent offered. ‘That testosterone is an asset against Putin and other crazy leaders.’

The polls were way off again.

Prior to the election, it was considered a virtual lock that Harris would win the popular vote; Trump won it by 3%. That’s a swing of 9 million votes. The pollsters — almost all of them — somehow missed 9 million votes.

The battleground states went 7–0 for Trump, all 93 electoral votes going into his column for the final total of 312–226. Pollsters are charged with a single responsibility, to give us accurate information about the public will. They failed in some cases and abdicated in others, misinforming the public and the campaigns. In the end they admitted the race was ‘too close to call.’ All that sound and fury, only to proclaim they didn’t know anything.

Forty-three states plus D.C. were either blue or red when the campaign began and stayed that way. With only 7 states occupying their attention, pollsters were unable to spot a trend that is now fairly obvious. The explanation that the polls are skewed because Democrats are more likely to answer polls makes sense, but with all their experience that wasn’t known already?

The pollsters blew it, so they should be humble and say they blew it in the past three presidential elections. They need to revamp their whole approach.

Instead, an air of pompous self-importance came from polling organizations that have missed the same bloc of voters — Trump loyalists, undercounted in 2016, 2020 and 2024. In other fields, that would be cause for dismissal. What adjustments were made?

The crystal balls of predictors Allan Lichtman (13 prediction points) and Nate Silver (the whiz kid who initiated 538) got awfully cloudy at election time, and both seem a bit defensive about their performance in this election.

They should be. Sticking to the orthodoxy of their models, they missed other cues that could have led toward a better understanding of the Donald Trump phenomenon. Armed with more accurate information, would Kamala Harris have altered her campaign strategy? Possibly.

It is difficult to consider the pollsters as having a major effect on the outcome of a presidential election. They are not supposed to be the story. Donald Trump probably had this one in the bag anyway, but it is embarrassing now to read the pre-election surveys and the punditry.

The Future for Election Losers

Kamala Harris ran an inspired campaign, based on her authenticity, skills and experience. Second-guessing is revisionist history and will do the Democratic Party no good in trying to devise a future plan for electoral success. I don’t fully buy the current panicked narrative that they have become the party of the elite and the ultra-liberal. Harris ran on a very practical, centrist platform. The fervent patriotism of the MAGA movement was simply too much to overcome.

Candidates rarely get a second chance after losing a presidential election; history is littered with the names of those who lost in their only shot at the big job: Goldwater, Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Dole, McCain, Romney, H. Clinton. I would hate to think that the shortsighted leaders will just move on from Kamala Harris. She has a future and I believe would have made an outstanding President.

It would be a grave disappointment if we never saw Kamala Harris again in presidential politics. She needed to take the opportunity when Biden stepped down, and she seized it masterfully, knowing the risks. She ran into the buzzsaw that is Donald Trump: the disaffection he personifies and the blind loyalty he exploits.

What the Democratic Party does from here is unclear, but the first order of business for its leadership is to diagnose their troubles correctly. The finger-pointing and shallow thinking currently dominating the aftermath of the election is not encouraging. Follow the wrong path, and it can be years of pursuing misguided solutions that don’t get at the core issues.

The Loyal Opposition

We need to accept that the juggernaut of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement won this election. Despite every conceivable disqualifier — felony convictions, additional federal and state indictments, obscene gestures and inferences, racial insults, sexual misbehavior, two impeachments, a terrible debate performance, renunciation from former high-ranking members of his inner circle, other Republican defections, a disciplined and skilled opponent— the man won a 312–226 Electoral College victory and held a 3% popular vote advantage.

How could this be?

There is one coherent explanation: Donald Trump wove a myth of a discontented America finding its true voice in him. The other factors were inconsequential.

Democrats asked the Republicans to accept their 2020 loss, which to a large degree they did not, and still do not. Nevertheless, Democrats in good faith need to accept this 2024 loss. Yesterday I received a text asking me to sign a petition that would “disqualify” Donald Trump from the Presidency based on his felony convictions. That was destined to go nowhere, an empty and spiteful gesture born of frustration, without legal or statutory status.

I declined to sign and asked them to cease and desist the passive-aggressive tactics. I am certain Kamala Harris would not endorse this type of ungracious, desperate move. Harris ran an ethical, joyous campaign few candidates, winners or losers, could claim. She created excitement and optimism, dealt in truth and unity, and lost because there were more people on the other side in 2024. It was not a question of tactics or missed opportunities.

This is their time, and the loyal opposition needs to follow Kamala Harris’ lead, hold the line where the Trump machine attempts to go too far, and plan for the next ascension to power. Keep up the fight, she urged us in her eloquent concession speech.

 Let’s be sure to fight fair. Someone has to set the example.