If only Democrats had calibrated their messaging people wouldn't have voted for this very predicatable thing that they were repeatedly warned about.
Problem is they repeatedly warned about what would happen under Trump, but didn't acknowledge that things weren't that great under Biden either. The economy was doing 'great' but the average person couldn't see how they were benefiting.
Yes, Biden had managed to get inflation under control. But prices remained high. To bring them down would require
deflation, which everyone agrees is a Bad Thing. The only other logical solution is to raise incomes, but that wasn't pushed because it would increase inflation!
The truth is, the economy wasn't doing quite as well as the published figures indicated. Other indicators suggest it was headed towards stagnation, which nobody wants. So some people voted for the candidate who offered a crazy solution that just might work (fat chance, but Trump was
so sure of himself...).
Dems should indeed have 'calibrated' their message. You don't tell people who are hurting that everythings's fine - you tell them how your
new policies are going to make it better.
Then you tell them how the opposition's policies will scupper that initative to make everything worse. But it's difficult to argue that tariffs are bad when Biden is already putting traiffs on China.
One thing a lot of people got stuck on was the price of eggs. Dems should have explained
why egg prices were high
and what they were going to do about it. The truth is, the Biden administration was not doing enough and the situation was out of control.
It's easier to point out that mass deportations are bad if you front up to the number you are already deporting. Dems failed to counter the lie that they were for wide open borders, which seems perplexing because they had the evidence to prove it was a lie but didn't use it. The reason of course is that they didn't want to upset
their base - which is stupid because they would vote Democrat anyway.
Dems also made a big deal about LGBT when only a tiny fraction of voters are in that demographic. They should have calibrated their message to 'everybody gets treated the same without any favoritism' ie. the same message but with a different slant that appeals more to the majority. Dems also got upset about people being labeled 'DEI'. They should have used the same tactic on that one too. For example, air traffic controllers were in short supply in part because many applicants were being turned away for suspicious reasons. Dems could have made a big deal about how they were going to fix that.
Another thing they should have done was show how their climate change mitigation policies were making it better for
individuals, not just 'the planet'. Or if they weren't, what
new policies they had which would. Most people vote for themselves first. If you want their vote you need to show how you will benefit them personally.
Finally, Dems should have acknowledged than Biden's policies were blowing out the national debt, and they should have had a plan in place to 'fix' it. Their own DOGE, if you will (it might be just as symbolic and ineffective, but a lot less traumatic because it would have actual experts running it). Now you might point out that they actually
did have a department which was doing just that, but who knew?
In short, Dems continued to run on 'orange man bad' without showing what they were going to do improve the average citizen's lot. And 'same as we are already doing' wouldn't cut it.
Another thing Harris should have done was not concentrate on rallies. They were a waste of time and money because only the faithful attended. Trump figured that out when he couldn't get the same numbers. The rallies only made it worse because while Dems were patting themselves on the back for being so popular, the rest of the population was watching TV or social media and seeing Trump offer more actual policies that would (purportedly) benefit
them. This amplified the feeling that Democrats were 'out of touch'.
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