How liberals lost America
Donald Trump’s return to power is due to Democrats’ embrace of both moral neutrality and moral preachiness
WHO “lost” the 2024 United States presidential election? How could Donald Trump receive 77 million votes and easily capture a majority of the Electoral College? Those questions will haunt the Democratic Party – and liberals everywhere – for a long time.
Some centrists in the Democratic party argue that it was all about “wokeness”. By focusing on trans rights, preferred pronouns and unpopular ideas like “defund the police”, left-wing Democrats alienated the white working class that had once voted reliably Democratic. One particularly effective Republican ad, repeated incessantly across traditional and social media, proclaimed “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you”. According to the centrist argument, Democrats waged a culture war – and got beaten.
Not so fast, say Democratic progressives. The election was not about a culture war but, instead, a class war. Working Americans resented the high cost of groceries and healthcare and the loss of jobs to China. Had Democrats embraced “economic populism”, they would have beaten Trump.
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