Is this really what a tarnished Democratic brand looks like?

[GALeftist]

So, barring a miracle, we now know what the election results were. Trump won the NPV by ~1.5%, sweeping the swing states. Meanwhile, Republicans flipped the three red state seats in the Senate plus Pennsylvania for a 53-47 majority. Barring some sort of miracle, the House will be 220-215 not counting vacancies.

A lot of ink has been spilled over how the Democrats need to rebrand to come back from this. But my question is this: does the *Democratic Party* really even have this issue? Because it sure seems like the issue for swing seat candidates was not that the party's brand was tarnished when Democratic candidates are winning in Trump+5 states, knocking off incumbents in Trump-won districts, and weakening the GOP's hold on North Carolina.

I think a lot of college-educated observers, myself included, see Trump as beyond the pale, and therefore think that any party that manages to lose to the likes of him is inherently incompetent or tarnished or whatever. But, honestly, I don't know that the facts support this narrative. Let me offer another possibility: barring negative trends with Hispanics or New Yorkers or whatnot, the Democratic brand itself is doing fine. People still believe that Democrats are generally for the little guy, despite their flaws, which gives them an advantage. At the same time, the Biden administration is tremendously unpopular, and many voters have fond memories of the Trump economy. Put simply, they like Trump and what he's selling, and that's what doomed the Democrats. You can only swim upstream so far. I realize this might be kind of a pessimistic take, in all honesty, because it suggests some version of Trumpism is likely to resurface, but that's what it seems like happened in my opinion.

[GAinDC]

I agree with this. I mean, we beat him in 2020 but I guess with time he was able to rehabilitate his image. A lot of people are deeply invested in him, and that’s always hard to cut through

[AltWorlder]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

[GAinDC]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

I think in the grand scheme of things, Trump will probably go down in history like one of the gilded age presidents — important in his time but largely inconsequential and ineffective. I do think that America is due for a true realigning election in the next few years, but it will be somebody who comes into office with larger majorities and a true vision.

[AltWorlder]

My theory is if Harris had somehow won she would have been a one-termer, on the basis that we are in an Gilded Era era of mediocrities yeah

[wbrocks67]

This is why I really wish Dems eked out the House because it would've made the "Democrats are in the wilderness, need a total overhaul, need soul searching, etc." takes prove to be so overly dramatic.

It's also why Dems really may learn all the wrong lessons from this depending on what they take away. The fact that Democrats across the board outside of the presidential race appeared to be pretty strong feels like something completely missing from the analysis.

[GAinDC]

This is why I really wish Dems eked out the House because it would've made the "Democrats are in the wilderness, need a total overhaul, need soul searching, etc." takes prove to be so overly dramatic.

It's also why Dems really may learn all the wrong lessons from this depending on what they take away. The fact that Democrats across the board outside of the presidential race appeared to be pretty strong feels like something completely missing from the analysis.

We propped up an old guy and then switched him out with the VP at the last minute.  Not hard to see why that didn’t sit well with many voters but didn’t translate as much to Dems down ballot.

[jojoju1998]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

I think in the grand scheme of things, Trump will probably go down in history like one of the gilded age presidents — important in his time but largely inconsequential and ineffective. I do think that America is due for a true realigning election in the next few years, but it will be somebody who comes into office with larger majorities and a true vision.

Democrats lack a visionary, experienced, and charismatic leader who's able to use the full scale of the federal government to his or her advantage.


Who is the modern day FDR ? Or even LBJ ?

[GAinDC]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

I think in the grand scheme of things, Trump will probably go down in history like one of the gilded age presidents — important in his time but largely inconsequential and ineffective. I do think that America is due for a true realigning election in the next few years, but it will be somebody who comes into office with larger majorities and a true vision.

Democrats lack a visionary, experienced, and charismatic leader who's able to use the full scale of the federal government to his or her advantage.


Who is the modern day FDR ? Or even LBJ ?

I'm not even saying it will be a Dem. It could be a post-Trump Republican

But I think most leaders are not great from the start -- they have greatness thrust upon them. FDR was the 1920 VP pick for a losing Dem that nobody even remembers. He was damaged goods, but then a series of personal struggles and subsequent political victories led to his winning 1932 campaign.

Reagan also lost to Ford in the GOP primaries in 1976, only to come back stronger in 1980.

LBJ was called "Landslide Lyndon" because his first Senate primary was won by a painfully small margin.

So, if there is a Dem out there poised to become the next FDR, it might be somebody we all know but would never suspect.

[AltWorlder]

Beto will be the Lincoln of our time, just you wait

[New World Man]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

I think in the grand scheme of things, Trump will probably go down in history like one of the gilded age presidents — important in his time but largely inconsequential and ineffective. I do think that America is due for a true realigning election in the next few years, but it will be somebody who comes into office with larger majorities and a true vision.

Democrats lack a visionary, experienced, and charismatic leader who's able to use the full scale of the federal government to his or her advantage.


Who is the modern day FDR ? Or even LBJ ?

I'm not even saying it will be a Dem. It could be a post-Trump Republican

But I think most leaders are not great from the start -- they have greatness thrust upon them. FDR was the 1920 VP pick for a losing Dem that nobody even remembers. He was damaged goods, but then a series of personal struggles and subsequent political victories led to his winning 1932 campaign.

Reagan also lost to Ford in the GOP primaries in 1976, only to come back stronger in 1980.

LBJ was called "Landslide Lyndon" because his first Senate primary was won by a painfully small margin.

So, if there is a Dem out there poised to become the next FDR, it might be somebody we all know but would never suspect.

Trump has greatness? He lost 2 popular votes and in 2020 lost by 4 points. He's just incredibly lucky,luck Reagan,Clinton and Obama.

[GAinDC]

Honestly, maybe 2020 and 2024 are both abnormal and extraordinary elections made in the shadow of a global pandemic. (Inflation should count as a lingering effect of the pandemic, which much like the War on Terror which just sort of fell off, was just one of those national traumatic experiences that we as a society has insisted on pretending never happened.)

I think in the grand scheme of things, Trump will probably go down in history like one of the gilded age presidents — important in his time but largely inconsequential and ineffective. I do think that America is due for a true realigning election in the next few years, but it will be somebody who comes into office with larger majorities and a true vision.

Democrats lack a visionary, experienced, and charismatic leader who's able to use the full scale of the federal government to his or her advantage.


Who is the modern day FDR ? Or even LBJ ?

I'm not even saying it will be a Dem. It could be a post-Trump Republican

But I think most leaders are not great from the start -- they have greatness thrust upon them. FDR was the 1920 VP pick for a losing Dem that nobody even remembers. He was damaged goods, but then a series of personal struggles and subsequent political victories led to his winning 1932 campaign.

Reagan also lost to Ford in the GOP primaries in 1976, only to come back stronger in 1980.

LBJ was called "Landslide Lyndon" because his first Senate primary was won by a painfully small margin.

So, if there is a Dem out there poised to become the next FDR, it might be somebody we all know but would never suspect.

Trump has greatness? He lost 2 popular votes and in 2020 lost by 4 points. He's just incredibly lucky,luck Reagan,Clinton and Obama.

No, I don’t think he does. He has missed his chance for a big win and big coattails

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think a lot of the "Dem/Reps need to change" stories are relative to pre-election expectations.

If the widespread consensus pre-election was that Trump and Republicans were clearly favored, I'm not sure we would have as many of these sorts of stories and more media would focus on Dems ability to win in Trump states/districts down-ballot.

However, heading into election night the consensus generally was the Presidential election was at worse a tossup for Harris, and down-ballot Dems were favored to flip the House and win at least 48 Senate Seats. Then on election night, most of the surprises were in Republican's favor like PA-Sen flipping or Trump winning AZ by 6%.

It's also similar to how 2020 felt like a gut punch for many Democrats even though it in hindsight was a really solid election for them overall - they just underperformed pre-election expectations.

[Joe Rogaine]

No. And nobody should listen to partisan Republicans trying to give pointers about the direction they should go either. They always come up with some long list of bullsh**t that's mostly immaterial. Look at how they attach stuff like DEI and "wokeness" to Harris when her campaign had basically nothing to do with that. They just parrot the same three things because it's what they personally focus on. I've had choice words for progressives and liberals and their language on race and gender for years now, and even I find the attempts to attach "wokeness" to Kamala by conservatives unconvincing.

Democrats do have an image and communication problem, and their methods of addressing certain social issues have been laughably bad in several respects, but honestly not fixing it won't necessarily doom them to political irrelevancy. And doing a complete overhaul and going full populist left or full Blue Dog wouldn't guarantee them success. The real secret is that voters are constantly dissatisfied and angry, and because they're uniformed or misinformed they'll default to directing their frustrations at whoever is in power at the time regardless of how much blame they deserve. This doesn't just have to do with legitimate material concerns, this is also a product of our culture. People are fickle, and that can be capitalized on by anyone who isn't completely inept.

[Joe Biden 2028]

Here is how I see things

Trump will gain about 2.5 million votes from his 2020 total. Harris will have lost about 7 million from Biden's 2020 total. Thats about 5 million Democrats nationwide who voted for Biden in 2020 but refused to vote in 2024.

My guess is a combination of things. Inflation and Gaza mostly.

Regarding the 2.5 million Trump won. These voters are lost for Democrats. They are men of color who previosuly voted Democrat and Gen Z young men aging into the electorate.

So, moving forward how do we win back the 5 million who stayed home?

(Important to note, the 5 million was almost universally outside the seven major swing states. Turnout was close to 2020 numbers in the swing states while crashing in the rest of the nation).

[It's Time.]

The Biden cover-up hurt voters trust in the administration.

[GAinDC]

No. And nobody should listen to partisan Republicans trying to give pointers about the direction they should go either. They always come up with some long list of bullsh**t that's mostly immaterial. Look at how they attach stuff like DEI and "wokeness" to Harris when her campaign had basically nothing to do with that. They just parrot the same three things because it's what they personally focus on. I've had choice words for progressives and liberals and their language on race and gender for years now, and even I find the attempts to attach "wokeness" to Kamala by conservatives unconvincing.

Democrats do have an image and communication problem, and their methods of addressing certain social issues have been laughably bad in several respects, but honestly not fixing it won't necessarily doom them to political irrelevancy. And doing a complete overhaul and going full populist left or full Blue Dog wouldn't guarantee them success. The real secret is that voters are constantly dissatisfied and angry, and because they're uniformed or misinformed they'll default to directing their frustrations at whoever is in power at the time regardless of how much blame they deserve. This doesn't just have to do with legitimate material concerns, this is also a product of our culture. People are fickle, and that can be capitalized on by anyone who isn't completely inept.

This is really the truth, but if everyone agreed we would have no discussions in here between cycles lol

[Sopranos Republican]

This is why I'm not buying the whole "oh yeah a normie Republican candidate would've done so much better against Harris" argument

The normie Republicans couldn't win Senate seats in many of the same places where Trump won by several points.

So no, the Democratic brand is not beyond repair at all, but they just better hope that the GOP doesn't realize how strong they could potentially be if they dropped the Jesusfreak stuff a bit and went soft Libertarian. (And no, I'm not saying Trump is a libertarian, but his de-emphasis on certain social issues outside of immigration has gone a long way.)

[Progressive Pessimist]

I actually agree. Democrats down-ballot that outran Harris are probably closer to the norm of how Democrats will fare in elections in the near-future. We're far from an ideal place, but given the turnout dynamics and political environment that has been cultivated under Trump, Democrats should expect to do better in between now and 2028. And that will be easy once Trump and his party are the status quo again and remind Americans why they suck s*** at governing.

The Democratic brand isn't bad, it's that the Biden-Harris brand was and that permitted Trump to be an acceptable alternative. Now, that's maddening in many ways, but it reminds me of the inverse of 2020 when Biden outran most down-ballot Democrats. That election felt like a pro-Biden election more than a pro-Democratic one, and I would say that this was a pro-Trump election, and not exactly a pro-Republican one.

Don't get me wrong, it's still frustrating as f***. It's just that the Democratic Party is hardly in the hole it was in post-2016. And in turn, Republicans will be doomed in the elections of these next few years. And when Democrats take the White House again, it'll become a matter of how much of Trump's actions in the executive branch and judiciary can be reversed, if any.