Pull Up Your Shirt, It's Time To Reflect

Why and how did we lose so badly and how must we change? Join me for some intense navel gazing.

Hi friends,

Thank you for being here. I realize there are so many demands on your time and attention and I’m truly honored that you’ve stopped by.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

You’ve probably seen this quote on a mug or poster attributed to Albert Einstein but it’s actually from the book Sudden Death by civil rights campaigner and feminist writer Rita Mae Brown—yet another example of a man being given credit for something done by a woman. I fixed it below.

Pervasive societal sexism aside, Brown’s words are important to remember right now because the stakes are far too high for people like us who respect democracy and the rights of Americans to get this wrong again.

We all knew it would be a close race but I’m still gobsmacked that Trump actually won the popular vote and that Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress. WTF?!

It’s time for us to pull up our shirts and do some serious navel gazing.

I am (thankfully) not a pundit, and I don’t have a crystal ball, but here are some of the factors that I think played a role in Harris’s defeat and the Democrats losing control of Congress.

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💲Inflation. Last week, The New York Times’ The Morning newsletter featured an interesting piece on inflation’s impacts and the rage it creates in voters which is always associated with whoever is in power when the inflation occurs. I’m sure you know the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” But although the economy has actually been doing well under Biden, it doesn’t necessarily feel that way to voters because prices for food, gas, and other consumer goods are still high which leads to feelings of impotence and anger. As the NY Times points, out this same trend threatens the political futures of leaders in Canada, France, German, Japan, Italy, Australia and India.

😡Deep mistrust and hatred of our government and politicians. This cannot be ignored. Trump campaigned successfully on the idea that he is an “outsider” who wants to “drain the swamp”. Although Trump IS the swampiest of swamp monsters, his lack of previous political experience and promises to gut government agencies, fire employees, and more or less burn it all down, are clearly very appealing to many Americans. This thread by Andy Kim, a New Jersey Congressperson who just won his bid for Senate sums it up nicely.

This hatred of our government has been fed for decades by the boldfaced lies of “fair and balanced” Fox News and others of its ilk.

💉COVID Vaccination Polarization. The government’s COVID restrictions and vaccination requirements dramatically increased the existing mistrust and hatred and attracted a whole bunch of new, more formerly lefty people to join in it. I’ve watched this happen in my hippie town where people who were a bit on the fringe, more focused on yoga and whole grains and alternative medicine, may now have voted for Trump because of vaccine mandates. The RFK, Jr. faction, if you will. For the record, since I know this is a hot button issue for many people and I respect everyone’s feeling about it, I do feel that there was some overreaction/overreach in requiring COVID vaccinations (which I feel was entirely well-intentioned if not yet fully informed) that if one could rewind time, and I was somehow in charge of those decisions, I would undo.

🥱Apathy. For everyone who hates (or loves) our government and its employees, there are a whole lot of people who really don’t care and are not paying attention. I met a few people who fall into this category when I was out canvassing before the election. One young parent of two who had a nice house and two fairly expensive looking cars and a dog told me, “I don’t like either of them.” And my husband heard the same thing from our electrician who is a good guy. Man of these folks may have sat the election out.

⏱️The extreme brevity of the Harris-Walz campaign. Perhaps if President Biden had stepped back early enough for the party to hold a real primary, we’d have either gotten a different candidate or Harris would’ve had a lot more time to garner support and win over the blue collar voters she failed to connect with. This NYTimes piece explores the possible impact of the super short campaign following Biden’s very late decision to drop out of the race.

🧱Humans’ tendency to embrace autocratic leaders who erect walls and blame a specific group for all their problems in times of crisis. Whether people admit it or not, our climate has changed and continues to change for the worse. More pandemics will occur. Factory jobs, toll takers and other steady blue collar jobs are gone, replaced by machines. Fear is in the air and ours is far from the only country who is electing madmen as a very misguided and tragic way of dealing with it. Citizens in many EU countries—Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic —are also increasingly embracing far right nationalist parties and politicans. Far-right parties are also making significant strides in Austria and Germany with the potential pull EU policies to the right. French president Emanuel Macron has thus far managed to cling to power despite remarkably low approval ratings as far right nationalists like Marine Le Pen gain support. Note: You may want to think twice about trying to move to any of those countries if/when the shit hits the fan here during Trump’s second term.

🤷💬Dems’ continuing failure to provide a clear and compelling message that resonates with a wide variety of Americans of all genders, classes, and colors. You know how people always say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Well, that’s not this. It is broken and we MUST fix it. I don’t know what the message(s) should be, but it’s crystal clear that we’re doing it wrong. That said, we absolutely cannot and will not stoop to using fear and hatred to win Americans to our side like our opposition does. Not an option!

👨🏽‍🏭Dems’ continuing failure to reach blue collar voters of all races. Many of us on the left have alienated and failed to consider/prioritize the perspective and needs of blue collar Americans. Earlier this fall, my friend, Dan Kaufman, wrote this great piece for the New York Times Magazine: How NAFTA Broke American Politics. The Daily devoted a whole episode to it that is well worth a listen. I’ve personally come to realize how blind I (and the vast majority of my college-educated friends and family living on the coasts) have been to the reality of what life is like for folks in the Rust Belt.

😞Lack of investment in longterm progressive movement building. The progressive ecosystem’s ongoing failure to invest in movement building not only during but also BETWEEN election cycles has dramatically handicapped its progress. In contrast, conservatives have consciously been building power at the local, county, state, and federal level for many decades. And I gotta say, it’s really working for them. Conservatives are in positions of power at all levels of government in communities and states across the country. And as we witnessed in the infamous Florida recount of Bush v Gore in 2000, having friends in high (and low and medium) places helps.

👎We lamed out. In the months and weeks leading up to the election, my family and friends had to listen to me anxiously ranting about the fact that far too few people on the left seemed to be feeling a sense of urgency. And, oh, how I wish I’d been proven wrong. Democracy is not a sprint, it’s an ongoing process in which people who care about rights and representation and promoting progressive values need to consistently show up and do the work at all levels of society as citizens, volunteers, civil servants, judges, and elected officials. Unfortunately, democracy is not something you can just donate to every two (or four) years and hope that all goes well. As we’re seeing, if we on the left don’t put in the same level of effort and money and dedication as the folks on the right, we’re all going to be completely screwed.

The good news is that we can do this!

It will take time, effort, money, and stick-to-it-iveness but it can be done. Here’s an example: in those bleary living nightmare days after Trump was elected in 2016, my wonderful friend, Deborah, left her job as an attorney, and started an organization called New Left Accelerator. She’s been working her butt off ever since to fill some massive holes in the progressive infrastructure by supporting organizations (c3s and c4s) who are building the New American Majority. Although far too many philanthropists and donors haven’t yet caught on to the fact that funding must last longer than one electoral cycle in order to be effective, Deb and her colleagues do this work, year in and year out to ensure that peoples’ rights are protected, their voices are heard, and that this larger, more ethnically, economically, and age-diverse base of engaged Americans will be there when threat to our democracy arise. More good news for you—you don’t have to quit your job and devote your life to starting a new organization like Deb did although I give major props to her and others like her who have. There’s a middle ground of civic engagement out there that I’ll delve into in a future post.

Blanca, a community organizer with Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) which was part of New Left Accelerator’s state pilot program in 2020.

♀️❌Last, but definitely not least, MISOGYNY. We have to consider the role that misogyny played in both Kamala Harris and Hilary Clinton’s defeats. Racism may also have been a factor, although, thanks to former two-term President Barack Obama, we have definitive proof that Americans are willing to elect a person of color to the Presidency. The same cannot be said for electing a woman Commander In Chief.

❓WHAT ELSE? What are your thoughts and theories? Leave me a comment to tell me what you agree with and/or what you think I’m overlooking, oversimplifying, etc.

I hope that you have a good, healing, connected, restorative weekend. Remember to breathe something that I frequently forget to do, hug the people you love and tell them how you feel, spend time outside, make and eat good food, and get lots of sleep. Next week, I’ll dive into resources to help us through these scary times and begin to make positive action in our communities.