The Most Influential Democrats Remain Clueless About Why Donald Trump Won

The more the most visible and well-connected members of the Democratic Party speak out in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, the easier it is to conclude how Donald Trump, despite everything he is and represents, managed to defeat Kamala Harris.

On Tuesday, in a new interview with Pod Save America, hosted by former Barack Obama aides Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, the most senior members of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign offered their assessments on what went wrong.

In short: they don’t seem to know why they lost but are happy to return to familiar tropes instead of any real interrogation of their strategy and the party at large.

I say this after hearing David Plouffe, senior advisor for the Harris/Walz ticket, argue on the podcast that Democrats “have to dominate the moderate vote.”

As Plouffe explained, while in one instance he argues that it’s imperative that Democratic candidates mobilize their base and acknowledges that “we fell a little bit short in Philly and Detroit…that’s not good,” he follows that by stressing that “we must dominate the middle.”

This, despite Democrats losing ground with Black voters in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

To be clear, these very Harris/Walz staffers were warned before Election Day by Black-led organizations that they needed to find more, better ways to reach Black voters. They did not listen. And they lost.

Still, Plouffe says the answer to their defeat is to make better efforts in the future to “dominate the middle.”

How can one dominate the middle if they can’t even energize their core group of supporters?

Does that sound like someone who’s truly done any reflection about how a convicted felon with clear signs of cognitive decline can get reelected president while out on bail?

Unfortunately, Plouffe is not the only person stuck on convenient narratives.

Since Harris conceded the election, there has been a flood of criticism for Democrats that mirrors much of what was said when Trump won in 2016 – notably this notion that Democrats have fallen out of favor with the working-class voter.

As others have noted, the Democratic presidential candidate received a number of labor union endorsements, the majority of the Black vote, the majority of the Latino women vote, and north of 40% of white women voters.

Are Black folks not part of the working class? Do those other demos not count either?

But that has not stopped folks like Sen. Bernie Sanders from blasting Democrats for leaving working-class voters behind while avoiding how much race and gender impact electoral politics.

Or Congressman Seth Moulton, who by way of the New York Times, faulted Democrats’ Election Day performance on the Party’s embrace of identity politics – citing the issue of transgender student-athletes specifically as an example of Democrats being closed off to discussing different points of view.

Moulton’s take, which he defended in a subsequent interview, is especially hollow given how identity politics, i.e. “Make America Great Again,” worked just fine for Trump.

As for his gains with non-white voters, much of that can be chalked up to the powers of misogyny and owning media.

Even so, Adam Jentleson, former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman and ex-deputy chief of staff to former Sen. Harry Reid, echoed the ongoing criticism in a piece that claimed left-leaning special interest groups are making it too hard for Democrats to get elected by coercing them into unpopular policy positions.

I’ve enjoyed some of Jentleson’s musings before. But in this instance, he predictably chose groups that advocate for climate change and civil rights rather than ones advocating unpopular wars that the international community has condemned for genocide to justify a flawed argument some want to believe.

Some including one of the Pod Save America hosts, Jon Favreau, tweeted in response to Jentleson’s piece: “I’m quite comfortable – morally and politically – with the position that Dem presidential candidates shouldn’t let voters believe they want to defund the police, abolish ICE, decriminalize border crossings, or provide transition surgeries for undocumented immigrants in prison.”

With comments like that, it’s no wonder how PSA got the “EXCLUSIVE” from David Plouffe decrying the need to “dominate the moderate vote.”

Their lingering obsession with “moderate” voters, disaffected Republicans, and whatever other descriptor used to categorize right-wing leaning white voters that more often than not vote for the GOP is one of many reasons why Trump has ascended again.

But instead of introspection, they all seek scapegoats.

Nowhere in any of these diatribes about Kamala Harris’ defeat is the admission that there was no coordinated response to the Trump campaign’s transphobic ads that blanketed the airwaves.

Or that Kamala Harris talking about fighting price gouging on the campaign trail was a much better image for her chances than talking about Democracy every five minutes while holding the hand of Liz Cheney.

There is also the matter of Harris inheriting Joe Biden’s campaign staff – some of whom were apparently known to be critical of her behind the scenes.

She was left with a dying campaign and was only given a little over 100 days to fix everything. It was a herculean task further complicated by bad strategy from overpaid and outplayed political consultants.

To dismiss all of these factors is to do a disservice to not only Kamala Harris’ campaign but to her most vulnerable supporters who right about now could use public support rather than blame.

According to Politico, Kamala Harris is telling allies that she plans to “stay in the fight” and keep her options open – including a possible gubernatorial run in 2026 or another presidential bid in 2028.

I hope she does stay in the fight, but I also hope that in the future will employ professionals with a clue about what country they live in and who in the electorate is more likely to support her vision.

Hint: it will never be the “moderate” voter.

Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, “I Finally Bought Some Jordans,” was published in March.

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