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What did Democrats do wrong?

What did Democrats do wrong?

  • Didn't fight inflation enough.

    Votes: 12 15.2%

  • Didn't fight illegal immigration enough.

    Votes: 22 27.8%

  • Too much focus on abortion.

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Too much transgender stuff.

    Votes: 28 35.4%

  • America not ready for Progressive women leader.

    Votes: 26 32.9%

  • Should have kept Joe.

    Votes: 3 3.8%

  • Not enough focus on new jobs.

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Nothing, Trump cheated & played dirty!

    Votes: 14 17.7%

  • Didn't stop Gaza War.

    Votes: 8 10.1%

  • I can be Agent M.

    Votes: 6 7.6%
  • Total voters
    79
In answer to the OP: what did the democrats do wrong?

  • They failed to realise that they were trying to play chess against a pigeon. An apparently senile, narcissistic, sociopathic, vainglorious, vindictive, vengeful, pettty and stupid pigeon.
  • They overestimated the empathy and thinkiness of a big chunk of the electorate.
  • They jettisoned Biden too late.
 
junkshop said:
In answer to the OP: what did the democrats do wrong?

  • They failed to realise that they were trying to play chess against a pigeon. An apparently senile, narcissistic, sociopathic, vainglorious, vindictive, vengeful, pettty and stupid pigeon.
  • They overestimated the empathy and thinkiness of a big chunk of the electorate.
  • They jettisoned Biden too late.
Click to expand...
Definitely agree on the last two points. On the first, I wouldn't agree they didn't realize that they were playing chess against a pigeon. I think the problem was that they overestimated their ability to refute the Pigeon Gambit with orthodox chess moves.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
So... let's take a step back here. Not everything Harris did was progressive... but there were several things they did that failed to resonate with moderate liberals - those who actually comprise the majority of the Dem base voters, as well as the left-leaning independents. Harris managed to be simultaneously too progressive *and* too conservative for the base, which is a testament to their ability to royally ◊◊◊◊ it up, I guess.

Several of Harris' prior views, as well as their voting record, are quite progressive in ways that a lot of average Dems aren't crazy about. Some of their campaigning tried to "reach across the aisle" and appeal to Republican voters... but they were topics that the average Dem also isn't crazy about.
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Well based on all of your specific examples...lol
 
It was awkward for Harris to talk about "fixing" things when she and Biden had been in charge for the previous four years. Then, incredibly, when she was asked in a TV interview what she would do different from what Biden had done, she replied that she couldn't think of anything. Uh, well, okay. And you're surprised you lost?

She blundered badly when she kept claiming that only congressional legislation could fix the border and immigration, when she and Biden were the ones who dismantled Trump's 27-point security network at the border, instituted the insane policy of catch-and-release, and refused to act decisively against known illegal-immigrant gangs in the U.S. Trump quickly proved that we didn't need new legislation to fix the border--we just needed a new president.
 
mikegriffith1 said:
It was awkward for Harris to talk about "fixing" things when she and Biden had been in charge for the previous four years. Then, incredibly, when she was asked in a TV interview what she would do different from what Biden had done, she replied that she couldn't think of anything. Uh, well, okay. And you're surprised you lost?

She blundered badly when she kept claiming that only congressional legislation could fix the border and immigration, when she and Biden were the ones who dismantled Trump's 27-point security network at the border, instituted the insane policy of catch-and-release, and refused to act decisively against known illegal-immigrant gangs in the U.S. Trump quickly proved that we didn't need new legislation to fix the border--we just needed a new president.
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Trump’s Immigration Policies Made America Less Safe.

What Democrats did wrong was not find a way to convince people who have dedicated themselves to a vibes-based world view that facts and reality are things.
 
mikegriffith1 said:
...She blundered badly when she kept claiming that only congressional legislation could fix the border and immigration, when she and Biden were the ones who dismantled Trump's 27-point security network at the border, instituted the insane policy of catch-and-release....
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Pure ignorance. Catch & Release has been going on for decades. The only solution would be to hire tens of thousands of more immigration judges OR house hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in detention centers, pending immigration hearing.
 
Emily's Cat said:
The private sector isn't as efficient as possible, but in most cases, it is less inefficient than the government. There are incentives for efficiency in the private sector, and virtually no incentives for efficiency in the public sector. Not all inefficiencies within the government are the result of bad actors, but there still ends up being a lot of things that never get addressed.

Here's a single instance:

Fiscal Year 2024 Improper Payments Fact Sheet | CMS

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is committed to being a responsible steward of public funds and to promoting the sustainability of its programs for future generations. While CMS’ improper payments reporting programs are designed to protect the integrity of CMS programs, it is...
www.cms.gov www.cms.gov


Now, CMS has improved FFS Medicare substantially to get it under 10%. In the early 2010s, it was in the mid teens for improper payments (which is a broader category than fraud, waste, and abuse).
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That is putting it mildly. Your own source notes that more than three-quarters of improper payments result from administrative omissions on the part of third parties, such as state governments and contractors. This suggests that anyone looking for fraud, waste, and abuse here by "draining the swamp" is looking in the wrong place.

The factsheet further identifies one of the main factors in the improvement from the early 2010s as being improved compliance from state governments. Let's see, was there anything going on politically in the early 2010s that might have contributed to poor state compliance with federal healthcare policy? Perhaps something that rhymes with "refund Osama dare"?

Emily's Cat said:
Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) has *never* operated with improper payment rates that high. Because MA is privately administered,
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Is that what your source claims, or did you make that bit up?

The improper payment rate noted in the factsheet for Medicaid is even lower than that of Medicare Part C. Is that because it's even more privately administered?
 
Hercules56:

Pure ignorance. Catch & Release has been going on for decades.
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Pure ignorance indeed. No, catch-and-release was never done under Trump the way that Biden-Harris did it. Under previous policy, illegals were detained until their hearing and only released if their hearing determined they deserved asylum; otherwise, they were sent back. But Biden-Harris changed that wise policy and ordered that illegals be released until their hearing. Naturally, many of them disappeared into the U.S. and never bothered to attend their hearing.

oversight.house.gov

Hearing Wrap Up: Biden Administration’s Catch and Release Operation Has Inflamed the Raging Crisis at the Southern Border - United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
oversight.house.gov oversight.house.gov

Anyway, there have been many Democrats, such as James Carville and Bill Maher, to name just a few, who have frankly admitted that Harris ran an inept campaign. Leaving aside her radical views and record, she just did a poor job of running her campaign, starting with her selection of such a goofball and phony as Tim Walz as her running mate.

And here's an interesting tidbit of information: Do you remember that devastating Trump ad that showed Harris endorsing the idea of using taxpayer dollars to pay for sex changes for convicts? Did you know that the Harris campaign actually paid for a response ad? Yeap, but they decided not to run the ad because it was rated so poorly by focus groups.

You see, campaigns will usually screen ads with focus groups before they put the ads on TV. The Harris-Walz response ad on taxpayer-funded sex changes for inmates received such a negative response when it was focus-grouped that they decided not to run the ad.
 
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mikegriffith1 said:
Pure ignorance indeed. No, catch-and-release was never done under Trump the way that Biden-Harris did it. Under previous policy, illegals were detained until their hearing and only released if their hearing determined they deserved asylum; otherwise, they were sent back. But Biden-Harris changed that wise policy and ordered that illegals be released until their hearing. Naturally, many of them disappeared into the U.S. and never bothered to attend their hearing.

oversight.house.gov

Hearing Wrap Up: Biden Administration’s Catch and Release Operation Has Inflamed the Raging Crisis at the Southern Border - United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
oversight.house.gov oversight.house.gov

Anyway, there have been many Democrats, such as James Carville and Bill Maher, to name just a few, who have frankly admitted that Harris ran an inept campaign. Leaving aside her radical views and record, she just did a poor job of running her campaign, starting with her selection of such a goofball and phony as Tim Walz as her running mate.

And here's an interesting tidbit of information: Do you remember that devastating Trump ad that showed Harris endorsing the idea of using taxpayer dollars to pay for sex changes for convicts? Did you know that the Harris campaign actually paid for a response ad? Yeap, but they decided not to run the ad because it was rated so poorly by focus groups.

You see, campaigns will usually screen ads with focus groups before they put the ads on TV. The Harris-Walz response ad on taxpayer-funded sex changes for inmates received such a negative response when it was focus-grouped that they decided not to run the ad.
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While Trump is failing on all the meaningful issues his supporters claim are the reason they voted for him, it always comes back to the trans issue. With each passing day, it becomes more clear that bigotry was the driving motivation for these people.
 
johnny karate said:
While Trump is failing on all the meaningful issues his supporters claim are the reason they voted for him, it always comes back to the trans issue. With each passing day, it becomes more clear that bigotry was the driving motivation for these people.
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12 million voters didn't show up for the Democrats in this election as compared to last - are you telling me people are so driven by bigotry they just stayed at home?
 
Belgian thought said:
An interesting take on BBC's Americast with an interview with Seth Moulton. It starts with a short preamble from 22:09 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0028v55. Would be interesting to hear what US forum members think of this segment.
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I was struck by his comment that people asked him if he was still a Democrat anymore after his apostasy on transwomen in women's sports. Turning this issue into a litmus test when about 80% of the population is on the other side strikes me as political suicide. And the irony is that Democrats desperately don't want to debate this issue, so they can't even claim they are in the process of educating the public and bringing them around to their side. There are some interesting parallels with this forum; note the siloed discussion of most trans issues to "the thread that shall not be named."
 
You've got a broken leg and you have a choice of two surgeons.

One says, "I won't touch your leg because that would hurt a lot and you might not like me any more, but the growing community of people living with untreated broken legs knows they can count on my moral support."

The other says, "I'll grab your broken leg and pull and twist because I enjoy hurting you. It might help fix your leg and it might not; I don't know or care which."

I appreciate a certain moral duty to choose the first, to stop the second from grabbing and twisting not only one's own broken leg but others' too. But when the first keeps interpreting that choice as affirming the success of the leaving-legs-broken policy, even I'm sometimes tempted to choose the second and expect a lot of pain. Maybe, just maybe, he'll twist the right way and I can handle the rest myself.

Unfortunately there's no other option. No matter how irreconcilably divided the two surgeons pretend to be, they and the entire hospital staff and all their devoted supporters are in perfect agreement that anyone proposing to set bones carefully despite the pain is a dangerous radical.
 
johnny karate said:
While Trump is failing on all the meaningful issues his supporters claim are the reason they voted for him, it always comes back to the trans issue. With each passing day, it becomes more clear that bigotry was the driving motivation for these people.
Click to expand...
For many of us, it was clear since he campaigned the first time. I also think it was clear to everyone else, they just wanted to deny it.
 
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