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The Democratic Blind Spot That Wrecked 2024
The New York Times ^ | Nov. 10, 2024 | Ezra Klein

Posted on 11/10/2024 12:12:58 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

The 2022 election went better than Democrats could have hoped. The party picked up governor’s mansions and state legislatures and expanded their Senate majority. It held down losses in the House. The promised “red wave” never crashed ashore. Perhaps it would have been better if it had.

Looking back, the seeds of Democrats’ 2024 wipeout were planted in the quasi-victory of 2022. Three things happened in the aftermath. The pressure on President Biden not to run for re-election, and the possibility of a serious primary challenge if he did run, evaporated. Democrats persuaded themselves of a theory of the electorate that proved mistaken. And as a result, the Biden-Harris administration avoided the kind of hard, post-defeat pivot that both the Clinton and Obama administrations were forced to make after the midterm defeats of 1994 and 2010.

In 2020, Democrats had worried over Biden’s age, but were comforted, in part, by the soft signals he sent that he would serve only one term. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” he said in 2020. By mid-2022, as Biden signaled his intention to run again, the party was growing alarmed. In June of that year, The Times interviewed nearly 50 Democratic officials and found that among “nearly all the Democrats interviewed, the president’s age — 79 now, 82 by the time the winner of the 2024 election is inaugurated — is a deep concern about his political viability.”

Nor was the public thrilled about the results the Biden administration was delivering. In October of 2022, amid widespread anger over inflation, the Times-Siena poll found Biden with a 38 percent job approval rating and trailing Trump in a hypothetical rematch.

If Democrats had been wiped out in the midterms, the pressure on Biden to be the transitional...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dcircularfiringsquad; democrats; loss
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1 posted on 11/10/2024 12:12:58 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Good analysis. The Pyrrhic victory of 2022 doomed them.


2 posted on 11/10/2024 12:15:26 PM PST by nwrep
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The RATS should have sent somebody down to the border to check what the hell was going on there and report back to Biden and Harriz.


3 posted on 11/10/2024 12:16:57 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Have the ballot counters in Maricopa County and Las Vegas sobered up yet?)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; nwrep

It (2022 midterms) worked out for Republicans’ good too in terms of further siphoning off the Old Guard GOP and Neoconservative grasp of the party.

Praise God.


4 posted on 11/10/2024 12:17:09 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” - Saul Bellow

These postmortems are not willing to address the fact that Kamala was the ultimate empty suit. Nothing about her expressed leadership. She was the ultimate defective candidate, only placed in that position by race and gender.

It’s not strategy, it’s not Biden, it’s not the timeline. It’s the candidate.


5 posted on 11/10/2024 12:20:22 PM PST by Wally_Kalbacken (uely)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
“the Times-Siena poll found Biden with a 38 percent job approval rating and trailing Trump in a hypothetical rematch.”

Well Kamala was at 28% approval then, so why did they chose the cackler without any primaries?
so what you will, Biden went through the primaries twice and won both times.
No surprise Biden sabotaged Harris including putting on a MAGA hat at one time.

6 posted on 11/10/2024 12:21:54 PM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Ronna McDaniel certainly helped Democrats in 2022.


7 posted on 11/10/2024 12:23:43 PM PST by Obadiah
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I would suggest the “Taranto Effect”, a term coined by Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto, played a part. He argued that the sycophantic media echo chamber blinded the left to their weak spots and actually created an arrogance that led to (for them) confusing failures. Such is the case this time: they’re utterly unwilling to face the fact that it may be their worldview and policies that are true failures.

Two other thoughts: Limbaugh always said that Marxism could never win in the marketplace of ideas because it is so obviously flawed. They have to hide it, which is impossible if you have a bomb thrower like Trump who calls out every instance. That’s a lesson for all of us. Never miss an opportunity to call out Marxism. Stamp it out at every turn.

And finally, I wouldn’t mind it if somebody smart and well-connected followed this missing 11 million votes thing, because the truth might jar some of these liberal nut jobs into actual reality.


8 posted on 11/10/2024 12:24:53 PM PST by IncPen ("Inside of every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out" ~ David Horowitz)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

9 posted on 11/10/2024 12:26:55 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Everybody on the left is studying to figure out what they did wrong. I guess I will have to inform them: Incompetent person with a failing record espousing insane beliefs.

And behind her is the democrat party with a record of stupid beliefs busily dismantling the country.


10 posted on 11/10/2024 12:34:36 PM PST by odawg
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To: Wally_Kalbacken
... Kamala was the ultimate empty suit. It’s not strategy, it’s not Biden, it’s not the timeline. It’s the candidate.

Bingo! But she was more than an empty suit, she always wore a very ugly suit.

Many average Americans recognized her and rejected her from the outset based on her "work" record in both CA and the WH, and her lifetime of leftist political connections including her father, as a Marxist-inclined authoritarian.

11 posted on 11/10/2024 12:36:32 PM PST by frog in a pot (If close to 1/2 of American voters will vote for Kamala, we have problems geater than any election.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“The Times interviewed nearly 50 Democratic officials and found that among “nearly all the Democrats interviewed, the president’s age — 79 now, 82 by the time the winner of the 2024 election is inaugurated — is a deep concern about his political viability.”

During the 2020 election it was clear Biden had dementia. Covid was just an excuse for campaigning from the basement. Every Democrat politician and the mainstream media knew in 2021 he was a puppet. Once again the Times fails to tell the true story.


12 posted on 11/10/2024 12:36:45 PM PST by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: odawg
Everybody on the left is studying to figure out what they did wrong.

This is what they did wrong.


13 posted on 11/10/2024 12:37:21 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This is a lesson for Republicans too. Trump and the GOP need to focus on keeping the country out of war, closing the border and getting the economy back on track. The next four years can’t look like a soap opera.


14 posted on 11/10/2024 12:37:42 PM PST by Opinionated Blowhard (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The Democrats think they can just claim to be moderates and move to the center for 2026 and beyond.

Nope, that won’t fly. They have way too many people in their ranks who have drank the far left kool-aid. They will not budge on their extreme views on abortion and LGBT issues, which the Democrats will have to “moderate” to be viewed as a mainstream party by the electorate.


15 posted on 11/10/2024 12:37:46 PM PST by dowcaet
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Truth doomed them.


16 posted on 11/10/2024 12:38:21 PM PST by WeaslesRippedMyFlesh
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To: dowcaet
The Democrats think they can just claim to be moderates and move to the center for 2026 and beyond.

Any suggestion that they are not moderates is disinformation and anyone saying it should be reeducated.

17 posted on 11/10/2024 12:39:07 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: Wally_Kalbacken

It’s not the arrow, it’s the Indian.


18 posted on 11/10/2024 12:40:12 PM PST by HIDEK6 (God bless Donald Trump)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

“This is a lesson for Republicans too. Trump and the GOP need to focus on keeping the country out of war, closing the border and getting the economy back on track. The next four years can’t look like a soap opera.”

The downside is we’re still stuck with most Republicans. Mike “No Johnson” Johnson comes to mind.


19 posted on 11/10/2024 12:42:09 PM PST by KamperKen (u)
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To: SmokingJoe
Well Kamala was at 28% approval then, so why did they chose the cackler without any primaries?

Intimidated by the Democrat matriarchy and the queer lobby.

YOU WILL LET HER CUT IN LINE OR ELSE! “

20 posted on 11/10/2024 12:42:50 PM PST by atc23 (I voted early for TRUMP)
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