So to fully understand this article you will need to first read this: https://www.natesilver.net/p/24-reasons-that-trump-could-win. Nate Silver is still the best pollster America has. He is a liberal. These are his words on why his party may lose. Published 2½ weeks before they did lose. I would roughly divide these 24 reasons into 3 groups:

1. Situational issues specific to this election or Harris in particular
2. Running as an incumbent and people’s reflection on the result on the current administration
3. Fundamental party issues

So before we dive into this, let’s start with point 0. If you are on the Left and this result is “unbelievable” or “I just can’t understand it” then you do not have any of the problems listed by Nate. You have a reality problem. That is not a take down nor is it an insult, it is a technically correct analysis on the range of information you are allowing in. Trump and Harris have been tied for 3½ months in the polls. If two people are tied, then it is not a surprise when either one of them wins. You should have seen this coming, or at least admitted that there was a notable possibility of it. Feeling bad for a loss, that is human and you have my sympathy. Doubly so for those who have worked hard on campaigns only to lose. Not being able to contemplate how a loss is possible even when it is widely reported on and has been widely reported on for months? That is an unwillingness to accept information you don’t like.

It is ok to be wrong. Use it to get stronger. 

So Nate’s 24 points break down into 3 big blocks of ideas: 

1. 10 points specific to this election or Harris

2. 7 points specific to how the Biden Administration ran things, or more precisely how well some of their policies worked

3. 7 points about the Democratic party at large and where they fit in and aligns with the general US population

The first 10 we get to ignore. Those will not be an issue for Democrats in the next election cycle. If you want to scapegoat while refusing to get better, that is your list. Please don’t do that.

The next 7 are policy lessons that should be reviewed. CNN calls out Harris (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/06/politics/harris-campaign-went-wrong/index.html) for struggling to answer the question “What would you do differently?”. That is a scapegoat. The problem is not how she answered her question but that many choices made collectively by Democrats over the last few years did not end up well. That means the party needs to reflect on those and make actual policy changes. A political party losing an election because they made bad decisions is the sign of a healthy democracy. Given the role of inflation in this election and the way Democrats treated Joe Manchin and economists who warned them on over spending, this black eye is earned.

Look, policy is hard. The history of public policy is filled with stories of unintended consequences. Some ideas are “broadly good ideas” but don’t work at a specific time or in a specific situation. That is a nuance that policy makers need to understand and always strive to get better at. Their desires for an idea do not outweigh the realities on the ground. Some level of moderation, timing, or situational adjustment are needed. Yes, still do the idea most of the time, just not all of the time if the situation does not match. Polarization makes this worse because what was a “broadly good idea” now gets turned into a political litmus test as if an edict from God. If you want to make minor modifications to it instead of bowing to it as an immutable truth then you are “not a real Democrat”. And that is the problem. When ideals and reality don’t agree, the side that votes against reality will quickly find reality voting against them in the next election. And that is the sign of a healthy democracy.

The final 7 issues are about the party at large… and almost all of them were said in 2016. Part of what happened here and has been happening is the Democrats were so busy hating Trump at the start of 2017, they just never reflected on their weaknesses and they elevated their most unlikable voices. You know, the exact same trick Karl Rove pulled during the Bush Administration. This is not hard to figure out. Open up the Democratic platform on one screen. Open up the Gallup poll on the other screen. Compare them and when 60%+ of the country disagrees with your position, that is where you need to moderate, not dig in.

Previously, the Democrats were slowly and steadily losing both the Labor vote and the minority vote. With the new male/female split among those in their 20’s, they may be losing the youth vote too. Now let me be clear: when I say “losing” what I mean is losing their advantage, i.e. they are now splitting the vote with Republicans instead of it being a source of surplus votes, i.e. part of their “Big Tent”. Latinos and the Asian voter were already becoming more diverse in their political views. We will have to wait and see the final polling numbers, but the number I am most curious to see is the ratio on how black men voted.

Either way, all of this adds up to the fact that the Democratic party is no longer the “Big Tent” party it once was. It is a medium tent party at best, and a medium tent party is just not good enough to win an election, not even against candidates as flawed as Donald Trump. For Democrats to win, they need to enlarge their tent again. That will take compromise on some issues, reprioritization on other issues, and flat out recanting some very unpopular ones. Those are going to be hard conversations for the party, but they are hard conversations that are long overdue. It is time for the Democrats to trade some tiny voting blocks in deep blue states to regain a footing in some much larger voting blocks in swing states.

… and you don’t have time to spare. As I am writing this the Senate is clearly going red and while the House is still in play… it is steadily filling up red as well. The Left needs to get strong if they want to divide power and block the worst of Trump in the second half. And that is the line. It is not “do I like this new policy position”, no the line is “does this position help win in the next election?”. That is the question that should have been asked in 2016 when Hilary lost. It should have been asked in 2020 when Biden won but with the thinnest of margins. The quality of character between Biden and Trump is massive, the margins should not have been that small. And now in 2024 the Democratic Party has once again being given the chance to take a fearless moral inventory of itself in the light of popular opinion.

I hope the Left learns. America needs it to.