What did Democrats do wrong?

[d4m10n]

I highlighted the relevant parts of all that.

Evasion noted.

But you seem to miss the point.

Apparently so.

Let's have a nuanced discussion where policy wonks weigh the pros and cons of each action with the proper historical context.

No clue why you think this an idea worthy of sarcastigation.

Are they failing to mitigate the issue, or failing to mitigate the perception?

If only there was some sort of an NYT explainer on recent trends in immigration which made it abundantly clear whether there is a substantive issue underlying the perception problem.

 

[d4m10n]

For anyone still interested in the OP topic, I happened to come across an interesting short note on Substack this a.m.

MBD (@mbd12)

Since the Democratic Party is unable to produce a coherent autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 election, I will help them out: Biden was too old to run, which became blindingly obvious during the debate, but was concerning to many Americans years prior National Democrats did not...

substack.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/2060899124426285553

 

[Donal]

Evasion noted.

So, you don't like derails but you want to talk about things that aren't the point?

Apparently so.

No clue why you think this an idea worthy of sarcastigation.

Because I've explained the problem over and ver.

If only there was some sort of an NYT explainer on recent trends in immigration which made it abundantly clear whether there is a substantive issue underlying the perception problem.

If only we already agreed this issue is far more complicated than the usual right-wing talking points of "scaree brown people takin our jerbs!". A US presidential election is binary choice. Whatever criticisms one may have of how Biden handled it, no serious adult who has spent more than 5 minutes learning about the issue think Donald ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ Trump would be anyway better.

 

[Tero]

Got it. Democrats too old: don't run. Republicans (Reagan, Trump): no problem.

 

[d4m10n]

So, you don't like derails but you want to talk about things that aren't the point?

The progressive vision of treating healthcare as a human right entails that anyone ranting about "illegals getting free healthcare" is making a point which the Democratic Party has to address one way or another, either upsetting progressive activists by rejecting their stated goal or else alienating swing voters by giving away healthcare to newcomers regardless of immigration status. Since this framing of the issue ropes in both (expanded) immigration and (socialized) health care, it is about as far from a derail as it is possible to get, given that healthcare affordability and immigration impacts have both rated highly in voter surveys in the last several cycles.

Because I've explained the problem over and ver.

Poorly and wrongly, but repeatedly.

If only we already agreed this issue is far more complicated than the usual right-wing talking points of "scaree brown people takin our jerbs!".

No idea why you seem to believe I am trying to simplify rather than complexify this issue, but thanks for demonstrating once again how cheap and easy it is to mock your opposition in lieu of making an argument.

Whatever criticisms one may have of how Biden handled it, no serious adult who has spent more than 5 minutes learning about the issue think Donald ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ Trump would be anyway better.

If a voter wanted first and foremost to see immigration numbers go down, Biden/Harris was the wrong choice for them in both 2020 and 2024.

Seriously, just read the article.

 

[d4m10n]

Republicans (Reagan, Trump): no problem.

Are you seriously arguing that neither of these men faced cognitive impairments due to senescence during their second term?

Or, are you just trying to (once again) change the subject from what Democrats did wrong to a similar mistake from the other side of the aisle?

 

[Tero]

Are you seriously arguing that neither of these men faced cognitive impairments due to senescence during their second term?

Or, are you just trying to (once again) change the subject from what Democrats did wrong to a similar mistake from the other side of the aisle?

The voters saw no problem whatsoever with senile Reagan. Mostly because he was an actor and could still read a speech. The tiniest fault derails a Democrat: Harris had a cackle. Or "she does not mean it, she is fake."

 

[The Atheist]

The voters saw no problem whatsoever with senile Reagan. Mostly because he was an actor and could still read a speech. The tiniest fault derails a Democrat: Harris had a cackle. Or "she does not mean it, she is fake."

Mah, I'd say two things far outweighed that. Her cackle might be embarrassing, but so is Trump's "dance".

She's a DEI hire

She stands for they/them, Donald stands for you (The guy who thought that one up should definitely have got a bonus)

 

[Donal]

The progressive vision of treating healthcare as a human right entails that anyone ranting about "illegals getting free healthcare" is making a point which the Democratic Party has to address one way or another,

You don't address a racist lie by treating as a factually supported argument

either upsetting progressive activists by rejecting their stated goal or else alienating swing voters by giving away healthcare to newcomers regardless of immigration status.

Ah, yes, do we screw over progressives or stop surrendering to right-wingers. Always a tough decision

Since this framing of the issue ropes in both (expanded) immigration and (socialized) health care, it is about as far from a derail as it is possible to get, given that healthcare affordability and immigration impacts have both rated highly in voter surveys in the last several cycles.

Those aren't illegal immigration issues, though. those are wealth inequality (and a dose of racism) issues.

Poorly and wrongly, but repeatedly.

yet somehow, you keep missing them

No idea why you seem to believe I am trying to simplify rather than complexify this issue, but thanks for demonstrating once again how cheap and easy it is to mock your opposition in lieu of making an argument.

I'm pointing out that the people you want democrats to mimic are over simplifying the issue.

If a voter wanted first and foremost to see immigration numbers go down, Biden/Harris was the wrong choice for them in both 2020 and 2024.

I thought it was illegal immigration? Funny how that keeps changing.

Seriously, just read the article.

I have read it. There's some post hoc reasoning in there. They don't account for the fact that border crossings increased because COVID restrictions were lifted early in Biden's term. They just attribute that to Biden's "welcoming immigration policy" which they can't even define outside of "not bullhorn racism". Biden's immigration policies seemed pretty inline with what we had before Trump. funny how the one graph addressing border encounters only goes back to 2018.

What you posted even mentions what I've been saying

Some Republican politicians, including Mr. Trump, have spread falsehoods about recent immigrants, claiming that they have caused a crime wave. In truth, immigrants have historically committed crime at lower rates than native-born Americans, and crime fell nationwide over the past few years as immigration levels spiked.

And it doesn't address that Democrats gave Republicans everything they wanted on "border security" in a bill written by Ray Lankford, the republican Senator from Oklahoma, and...remind me what happened again to that bill.

 

[d4m10n]

You don't address a racist lie by treating as a factually supported argument

You completely dodged the part where I carefully explained various situations in which immigrants receive taxpayer-supported healthcare in the U.S. (regardless of documentation status) and now you are pretending that it was all a racist lie. I will not address the rest of your post, since you seem to prefer hurling accusations at your opponents to considering the facts on the ground. Thank you for playing, but I'm not here for that game.

 

[d4m10n]

The voters saw no problem whatsoever with senile Reagan

Were those voters right or wrong to overlook his creeping senility, in your view?

 

[Tero]

Were those voters right or wrong to overlook his creeping senility, in your view?

Well, it was similar to now. We have a president who thinks we can reduce drug prices 600%. The voters were wrong to vote reagan the second time, as he was not in charge the last year. it was people like nancy reaagans astrologer. If they were voting for policy, then that would stay the same under the VP when the VP took over. But the voters really should not vote for a unstable candidate. Pick someone else. In the PRIMARY! They could have had DeSantis and we would have been done by now. He would have failed faster than Trump. Lame duck for most of his term.

 

[d4m10n]

But the voters really should not vote for a unstable candidate.

Agreed! I would add only that it was a major mistake for the Democratic Party to put forward an unstable candidate who was in obvious mental decline in 2024.

Pick someone else. In the PRIMARY!

Agreed once again! I would add only that the Dems failed to exercise this option in 2024.

 

[Tero]

Agreed! I would add only that it was a major mistake for the Democratic Party to put forward an unstable candidate who was in obvious mental decline in 2024.
Agreed once again! I would add only that the Dems failed to exercise this option in 2024.

I forget what was on our ballot, it was late in the season. But I did not vote Biden in the primary.

 

[Tero]

Sort of related to this. The right wing and working class people are mad at money "going to someone else." It may be, and they may get some satisfaction of killing people in Africa so the eggs cans...maybe..be cheaper.

What I am wondering is has anyone ever doen a proper study of how much people, right and left, actually understand politics? Do they have the data even, since half of them get Fox News which is not data, it is story telling.

 

[dann]

Well, it was similar to now. We have a president who thinks we can reduce drug prices 600%. The voters were wrong to vote reagan the second time, as he was not in charge the last year. it was people like nancy reaagans astrologer. If they were voting for policy, then that would stay the same under the VP when the VP took over. But the voters really should not vote for an unstable candidate. Pick someone else. In the PRIMARY! They could have had DeSantis and we would have been done by now. He would have failed faster than Trump. Lame duck for most of his term.

The voters were wrong to vote Reagan!!!
Is there any reason to assume that Nancy Reagan's astrologer did a worse job than Reagan would have done?

 

[Tero]

Democrats have twisted democracy into some kind of Europan woke thing!

The Voters Who Believe That Trump Defends Their Values

Why calls to “save democracy” don’t work

www.theatlantic.com

"Yet this strategy has largely fallen flat. Why? The consulting and pro-democracy organizations where we work have spent the past few months with conservative Trump voters across three counties in Wyoming, Michigan, and South Carolina. We learned that many do indeed revere America’s founding design, including the Constitution, free and fair elections, the Electoral College, and the rule of law. But these voters feel that government institutions have drifted from their founding values and priorities, which they classify as faith, or the belief that moral authority precedes political authority; family, the primary unit of social life and obligation; freedom, mainly from government overreach; and place, or the importance of local community over national abstraction."

“We learned that the central question for the conservatives we met is not “Should America be a democracy?” Instead it is: “Has American democracy remained faithful to what makes it legitimate?” Democratic institutions are legitimate, in the view of conservatives, when they honor and protect the faith, freedom, families, and communities of their constituents. When institutions and the politicians who inhabit them fail to appreciate the centrality of these core values, they become illegitimate.”

 

[johnny karate]

It’s Democrats’s fault that they couldn’t reach these absolutely brain-cooked people.

 

[dann]

What the Democrats are still doing wrong

Pandemic Index on bsky, June 17, 2026
Ezra Klein is a major influence on the Democrat Party, and in his Abundance book claims masks & NPIs don't work, the NIH should be run like a business, and cites Jay Bhattacharya as an "expert" - billions are being spent lobbying the Democrats to embrace the "Abundance" brand.

Michael E. Mann on bsky, June 16, 2026
Funny that some people are surprised Ezra Klein is on this list. I, myself, am not: (h/t
@capitolhunters.bsky.social)

Yeah, all that talk about climate change is much too woke for the Democratic Party!

RNC --> MAGA
DNC --> MAGA Light

ETA:

Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society (Wired, June 16, 2026)
More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated map offers matchmaking.

 

[d4m10n]

Yeah, all that talk about climate change is much too woke for the Democratic Party!

I know that you aren't really into reading the sources that you critique (as evidenced by confusing Klein with Huber in this particular case) but for anyone else reading along, here is a gift link.