Isabella M. Weber and Elie Mystal: What Was the Biggest Factor in Kamala Harris's Defeat?

[Celerity]

As progressives continue to debate the reasons for Harris’s loss—it was the economy! it was the bigotry!—Isabella Weber and Elie Mystal duke out their opposing positions.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/why-harris-lost-economy-versus-racism/

https://archive.ph/5yCbs


Democratic presidential nominee, and Vice President Kamala Harris concedes the election at Howard University on November 6, 2024. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

December 13, 2024




As the dust settles on the 2024 elections, stunned Democrats are struggling to understand why the country voted the way it did. In the run-up to November 5, survey after survey showed that Americans were concerned about the cost of living, but many economists and pundits shook their heads in disbelief. They blamed a “vibecession.” Imagine you are struggling to pay your grocery bills, and then an economist in the country’s top income bracket comes along and says your hardship is just vibes. It is this lack of compassion, this unwillingness to descend from the world of elegant models and aggregate numbers to try to understand conditions on the ground, that ended up making many economists complicit in Donald Trump’s victory.

James Baldwin once said that anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. People’s experience of inflation differs based on factors like race, income, gender, where you live, whether you have a car to drive to cheaper stores, whether you can buy in bulk to take advantage of discounts, whether you rent or own your home, whether you have a mortgage from before interest rates went up, whether you depend on credit-card debt, how many assets you hold, and so on. This diversity of lived experiences is not captured in the headline numbers. For many people, the favorable economic data and booming stock market belied the reality of exorbitant grocery prices, sky-high rents, prohibitive healthcare costs, and spiking interest rates.

Exit polls consistently showed that the economy was among the biggest concerns for voters. In one exit poll, for example, 46 percent of respondents said they were worse off than they were in 2020; only 20 percent said the same four years ago about 2020 versus 2016. In another poll, nine out of 10 voters said they were concerned about grocery costs, and eight out of 10 said they worried about healthcare, housing, and gas costs. And in a third poll, voters from families that earned more than $100,000 leaned toward Kamala Harris, while those from families earning less than $100,000 preferred Trump. Many working Americans felt that Democrats had abandoned them with respect to their pocketbook struggles and ended up casting a ballot for Trump.

It didn’t have to be this way. The Harris campaign was off to a promising start when the vice president proposed introducing price-gouging laws for food at the federal level, which surveys show are immensely popular, including with swing voters in swing states. But she stopped putting the plan center stage after Wall Street started throwing mud at it and a few economists incorrectly criticized the measures as “price controls.” In reality, Harris’s proposals would not have fixed prices but would have given consumers the power to hold companies responsible when they excessively hike prices in emergencies. Faced with that backlash, Harris went quiet on her most potent message for low- and middle-income voters. Her campaign still ran some ads on price gouging, but she did not mention it in the presidential debate; nor did she emphasize the idea that she would protect voters against cost shocks in her interviews and speeches.

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Let’s start here: We can all agree that at least some people who voted for Donald Trump are racist, yes?.................................

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[dalton99a]

1. There were multiple reasons

1a. Inflation
1b. Black woman

2a. Immigration
2b. Black woman

3a.
3b. Black woman

4a.
4b. Black woman

5a.
5b. Black woman

...

...

...

[Botany]

3. Cheating

I don’t know how they did it but they did it.

[yorkster]

4. I'm with Mystal.

It's a damn tragedy that she wasn't elected and gawd knows what lies ahead with the
reelection of Trump.

[Arazi]

5. America was never going to elect a black woman

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Agree with Elie

We seem to still have sexist streak among many in this country.

[Fla Dem]

7. I felt from the start, it was misogyny and racism.

When asked voters came up with other reasons, but that was just to hide their racism and misogyny.
I volunteered at my county's Democratic headquarters. The flow of people that came in to get Harris swag and help addressing postcards, and volunteer to knock on doors to get out the vote was unbelievable. A number of volunteers said they' had never seen such energized Democrats and a number of them told us they were republicans, but no way were they voting for Trump.

Harris was an excellent candidate. Was she perfect? No. But a hell lot more perfect than that big ass blowhard. She had less than 4 months to pull together her team, campaign and get her message out, while Trump had 8 years.

Top what all off with the fact Kamala was a Black/Asian and a woman and that is why she lost the election. The misogyny and racism were the major factors and a lot of political commentators refused to acknowledge that when doing their after election analysis.