By Karen Rubin
In assessing how Kamala Harris lost the election to Donald Trump, Stanley Feldman, a political scientist at Stony Brook, told Reach Out America that the campaigns didn’t matter. Not even the candidates mattered – which is remarkable considering the extraordinary contrast between the most vile, unfit candidate who made clear his indebtedness to billionaires, NeoNazis and Christian Nationalists and the most competent, dedicated, accomplished candidate who made clear her desire to promote an “Opportunity Economy” agenda so that people do not just survive, but thrive.
Sure inflation, immigration, the Israel-Hamas War were factors in depressing turnout among key demographic groups. Also misogyny, racism, four-years worth of voter suppression tactics, not to mention bomb threats to 59 democratic voting places and 2-3 hours-long lines in democratic areas vs. 10 minutes in suburban had to factor in 10 million fewer votes for Harris than Biden received while Trump barely added to his 2020 total.
But the overriding reason Harris lost, Feldman asserted, is Biden’s low approval rating – in the low 40s. No president’s party has won election if the president’s approval rating was below 45.
The question is why was Biden’s approval rating so low?
Biden has been the most transformative president since LBJ, delivering on his promise for a whole-of-government effort toward economic, social, political, environmental, and criminal justice, ending the COVID pandemic, the fastest rebound from the worst recession since the Great Depression, recod job growth (16 million), new businesses, the strongest economy in the world, historic investments in climate action and infrastructure, the first gun control legislation in 30 years, standing up for women’s reproductive freedom, standing firmly against antisemitism and antimuslim hate, standing up for Israel’s defense and for Palestinian human rights; standing up for Ukraine, democracy and international order and the Rule of Law. Didn’t “speak to the working class?” Biden is the most pro-union, pro-worker president in history.
Biden got no credit for getting Americans released from Russia prisons, getting baby formula when a factory was shut, reopening I-95 and the Port of Baltimore in record time, addressing climate disasters, and how in face of rising prices, he addressed affordability (junk fees, student debt relief, capping drug prices) – in fact, a government that actually worked for the very people who said they were disillusioned, and all of which will be reversed by Trump.
The question is why too few voters were even aware of what the Biden-Harris administration accomplished, why they could attach blame for every ill to a vice president who Trump branded “Comrade Kamala”, and why, as a woman voter who supports women’s reproductive rights in the so-called Blue Wall swing state of Pennsylvania who voted for Trump, said, “You can’t change what I believe.”
“When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024. It wasn’t the economy, it was the disinformation about the economy,” writes Joyce White Vance at substack.com. “There was Trump’s persistent lying. There were the highly successful disinformation campaigns by hostile foreign entities. There were billionaire newspaper owners who withheld endorsements the editorial boards wanted to give to Harris, endorsements that would have focused on the strength of her economic policies and the importance of democracy issues. There was Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and converted it from the public square to a mouthpiece for Trump.”
Indeed, data from a Reuters/Ipsos poll in October showed that people who knew the truth about violent crime rates being down, inflation falling to historic averages voted overwhelmingly for Harris by 53 points; those who believed the falsities about illegal aliens invading the southern border voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
An NBC poll showed that Democrats won “highly engaged” voters – Harris was 5 points ahead among those who “follow politics closely” while Trump was 14 points ahead among those who don’t follow politics closely.
This has been a decades-long project of right wing and Christian Nationalists going back to Reagan, beginning with the takeover of talk radio (think Rush Limbaugh). Local news is the most trusted media these days, but are either going out of business or consolidating under the control of right-wing masters like Sinclair Broadcast Group. Meanwhile, mainstream media, so desperate to be free of its branding by the right wing of “liberal bias” and to keep viewers and ad revenue, have followed Trump obsessively for the past four years, ignoring the Biden administration achievements.
Vance’s conclusion, “So we’re going to have to build the accurate information airplane while we’re flying it.”
Jody Kass who leads the resuscitated Great Neck Democratic Club, points to a YouTube discussion between Joe Trippi and Simon Rosenberg: “They make a convincing case that the main reason Harris lost and generally why Democrats lose elections is because the Republicans have been investing for years in an enormous propaganda machine/information ecosystem (e.g., Fox News, Twitter/X, Sinclair local news) that allows them to dominate the Information Arena.
“Democrats are using outdated, ancient communications methods and technology. To compete, Democrats need to create our own information network, and each person in the network is an amplifier – probably starting with the huge number of new donors and other Dems who came out to support Harris, the millions of people in grassroots pro-democracy groups that have sprung up across the nation since 2016, and also I believe, Democratic Clubs, among others. The lack of a robust Information Network – where we are all connected – is an issue for Democrats across the nation, and it’s going to take a very significant investment to build it. And, it needs to be built ASAP. The Democrats must shift or we will continue to lose. The gut-punch we collectively felt and still feel from Trump’s election and his ongoing daily insults create an opportunity to make it happen,” Kass asserted.
Grassroots groups, organizations, community, civic groups will be key, not only for the connections to communicate, to be the stream for truth against an increasingly censored and defensive media, and to rally action – petitions, calling (lobbying, nagging) representatives – but for support: You are not alone.
Groups like Indivisible, Moveon, EarthJustice, National Resources Defense Council, ACLU, Center for Reproductive Rights, Emily’s List, Demand Progress, People for the American Way (pfaw.org), Brennan Center for Justice ; Public Citizen will be the ones to report the impacts of Trump administration (aka Project 2025) actions. Because just as people did not see a robust economy, they will not see the collapse or the suffering, especially since Trump will ride the momentum of Bidenomics for at least two years, likely past the midterms. It will be as Orwell wrote in “1984”: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
It will be up to local Democratic clubs that thankfully have surged over the past year throughout the county, like the Great Neck Democratic Club and Port Washington Democrats and Great Neck-based Reachout America. Sign up to get their newsletters, emails, Facebook and What’s App, sign petitions and call representatives on issues. Counter the mythologies created, hold Trump, Congressional, state and local Republicans to account and do not let them rewrite history or norms. Remember when sexual assault, racism, misogyny, inciting political violence and insurrection were career-killers?
Communication and community-based support and truth-telling will be all the more important since it is very likely that Trump will do what he did before with much greater force and energy: violently put down protest, prosecute or sic the IRS on opponents and activists, intimidate officials, journalists, judges and whistleblowers.
The first task may well be to counter the myth of a Trump “landslide” victory and mandate to destroy democracy and blow up government.