What Did We Learn?
I Guess We Learned Not To Do It Again
I find history interesting. Maybe you do too. It’s not just the facts though, the analysis is also interesting specifically, how the interpretation of an event changes over time. Historians call it historiography, “the study of history's history, or the history of how historians write about the past.” The Cold War, for example, has many different schools of interpretation including orthodox, revisionist, and post-revisionist, each attempting to explain its origins. The orthodox school, for example, was written by many of those who witnessed its birth (ex. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr.).
The 2024 US election is a little over a month in the past and many are engaged in what could be considered the creation of the orthodox historiography of the event. Interpretations of why Trump won will undergo modifications as time passes, but it is interesting to look at what some pundits are identifying as the “lessons” of the election. Especially when those pundits are on the losing side as it will likely determine how the next election, or at the very least the mid-terms, will be fought.
One of the most vocal pundits on the left is Robert Reich with whom I’ve taken issue in the past (here, here, and here). Reich was kind enough to post “The Lesson” on his Substack shortly after the election outlining why he thinks the Democrats lost the election. The article is too long to fully assess here but we can look at some of the lessons he identifies from the “political disaster.” First, let’s look at what he says wasn’t “The Lesson” of 2024:
It was a total repudiation of the Democratic Party, a major realignment.
He is correct here. Despite the Republicans winning the Presidency, Senate, and House, the popular vote was simply too close for this to be considered a “repudiation of the Democratic Party.”
If the Dems want to win in the future, they have to move to the right. They should stop talking about “democracy,” forget “multiculturalism,” and end their focus on women’s rights, transgender rights, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, and America’s shameful history of racism and genocide. Instead, push to strengthen families, cut taxes, allow school choice and prayer in public schools, reduce immigration, minimize our obligations abroad, and put America and Americans first.
Reich is playing his usual game here, false equivalency. His comments imply two things, 1) people on the right are against individual rights and for racism and genocide, and 2) the Democrats are a center-left party and any move to the right would make them right-wing. Both are obviously false. The Democrats largely handed the reigns of the party to the progressive (far-left) wing shortly after Biden’s 2020 election and suffered for it. How much the party needs to move to the right is debatable but ending its ridiculous stance on transgenderism and identity politics, and taking the border more seriously are clearly lessons that those running the party should see as takeaways from their defeat.
Republicans won because of misinformation and right-wing propaganda. They won over young men because of a vicious alliance between Trump and a vast network of online influencers and podcasts appealing to them. The answer is for Democrats to cultivate an equivalent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built.
He claims this is “partly true.” I’m sure it is. In the same way that many on the left voted for Harris because of the misinformation and left-wing propaganda that came out of the legacy media. His recommendation that people on the left “should use our power as consumers to boycott X and all advertisers on X and on Fox News, mount defamation and other lawsuits against platforms that foment hate, and push for regulations (at least at the state level for now) requiring that all platforms achieve minimum standards of moderation and decency” is nothing short of an authoritarian attempt to suppress speech.
Fortunately, I doubt it would work. Too many people know about the Twitter files for this approach to work very well a second time. The lesson here should be “tell the truth.” Or perhaps, make sure the media does. People are smart enough to notice when the press changes narratives mid-campaign and they’re not going to reward you for it.
Republicans cheated. Trump, Putin, and election deniers at county and precinct levels engaged in a vast conspiracy to suppress votes.
He’s right, this didn’t happen. Give credit where credit is due.
Harris ran a lousy campaign. She wasn’t a good communicator. She fudged and shifted her positions on issues. She was weighed down by Biden and didn’t sufficiently separate herself from him.
Reich is wrong here as these are all definitely lessons the Democrats should take from their defeat. The lesson is pick a better candidate and do it early. The only thing that needs to change for this to happen is for the Democrats to follow their own primary process. They suppressed it when Biden was the candidate and then suppressed it again when they went to Harris. Follow your own rules and let democracy work…you know like its supposed to in a democracy.
Racism and misogyny. Voters were simply not prepared to elect a Black female president.
Again, he claims this is “partly true” and again I’m sure it is. Neither racism nor misogyny has been eliminated from the Earth. However, it works both ways. It is likely that more women voted for Harris because she’s a woman than men voted against her for the same reason. The same applies to race.
So, what does Reich identify as the real reason for the Democratic loss? “The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.”
So close Robert!
The economy was clearly a big issue, but the average person does not care about either corporations or “the super-rich,” they care about inflation and jobs. What’s more, the Left seems selective in its approach to both. Corporations are heroic when they threaten to leave States over abortion laws but evil when they make money. George Soros is a hero when he donates hundreds of millions to get progressive DAs elected while Elon Musk is a far-right radical for buying Twitter and letting free speech reign.
The Democrats have little time to learn from this loss as the mid-terms will come at them fast. Their situation reminds me of a scene from the movie “Burn After Reading” in which two CIA officers try to figure out what went wrong and why.
The Dems may yet learn what went wrong but one gets the opinion that for now the lesson is “not to do it again.”
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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I appreciate the review of Robert Reich’s opinions but I have to ask, What level of following does he have and does anyone even listen to his drivel?