Summary
Gender bias played a significant role in Kamala Harris’s defeat, with many voters—often women—expressing doubts about whether “America is ready for a female president.”
Some said they “couldn’t see her in the chair,” or questioned if a woman could lead, with one even remarking, “you don’t see women building skyscrapers.” Though some voters were open to persuasion, this often became a red line.
Oliver Hall, a Harris campaign volunteer, found that economic concerns, particularly inflation, also drove voters to Donald Trump, despite low unemployment and wage growth touted by Democrats.
Harris was viewed in conflicting ways, seen as both too tough and too lenient on crime, as well as ineffective yet overly tied to Biden’s administration.
Ultimately, Hall believes that Trump’s unique appeal and influence overshadowed Harris’s campaign efforts.
They absolutely don’t have a coherent constituency, that’s for sure, but they certainly could have a large enough constituency to put Trump and his entire army of ignorance and sleeze to bed once and for all, but they only cater to a very small segment of what could be their constituency, and for many of the people who could be their constituency it often feels like they’re actually catering to the enemy rather than to them.
That’s exactly my point. To appease one section of their potential voters they have to piss off others. We can second guess them on which decisions would’ve led to a victory, but the fact remains that they come across as incoherent and inauthentic because they have to walk a tightrope to keep together an imaginary coalition between things like American Jews who support Israel and Palestinian immigrants. They fail because they aren’t representing a coherent set of people. They’re representing sometimes conflicting ideas. American atheists and Catholics. Muslims, some of whom believe that women should be subservient, and “childless cat ladies”. People in this country are overall much more regressive socially than online progressives want to admit.
When it comes to the conflicting ideas they need to pick a side. And the other side has to decide whether to show up or not, we know which side always shows up, maybe they should take a backseat for a bit, they’ll show up anyway.
Like if you think women should be subservient, you’re not on our side. If you are okay with arming a terrorist nation to carry out genocide you’re not on our side. Easy peasy ones.
I think we’re actually finally at a truly 50/50ish ratio of regressive to progressive in the US… That’s why things are so tense between the progressive actual left and the regressive “left” DNC. Yeah there’s still misogynistic bigoted people here, but definitely way fewer than 100 years ago. And they should ALL be on the other team.