Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

“…I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay, wastin' time…” …Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay… Otis Redding… Still picking crow feathers out of my teeth, I sat back and analyzed how I misread this election so badly. Along the way, I had a lot of company because 99% of the mainstream media and political consultants, who get paid the big bucks, screwed up just as bad if not worse than I did. It took me a day or so, but I think I understand. Like fashion and lifestyle, American politics are cyclical—currently these cycles seem to be running in four-year increments, and we were due for a change. America at its core is a slightly right of center country, but Biden Harris and the Democrats with their aggressive push of “woke” politics and DEI had gone “a bridge too far” and it triggered an adjustment. The Progressives and MAGA did their jobs, and voted as expected no surprise there. It got interesting when the middle/swing voters cast their ballots for Trump. The Middle are not, and have never been Trump fans, Trump didn’t win the Middle vote, Biden/Harris lost it. Trump’s brand of hybrid populism, off the wall, at times clever, blessed with the survival skills of a garbage can raiding racoon, normally bounced off the Middle/Swing voters, but this time they voted for him, why? I think there’s several reasons, (1) Kamala Harris was truthfully, a bit of a marginal candidate. She became VP because Biden promised he’d select a black female as his running mate. She didn’t participate in a primary and the whole thing looked a little staged to the average person. She became the Democratic candidate for president because she could walk up and down the stairs of an aircraft and remembered what day of the week it was. Her campaign slogan for all intents and purposes was “my name isn’t Trump”. That worked four years ago, but we’re in a new cycle. (2) Inflation and the cost of living were on everybody’s mind. Harris never stepped away from Biden’s policies, and they were stapled to her coat tails. The Biden-Harris sweeping economic agenda − which includes projects that are a decade out − failed to connect with working-class Americans' immediate concerns about inflation and high consumer costs. Trump hammered away on the cost of living, and she didn’t have an answer. Trump was his obnoxious self, but on election day, the price of groceries and gasoline were a clear winner over character and good manners. (3) The southern border and immigration, which during an election year quickly get linked to crime. The border is a mess and when you’ve been Border Czar, you can’t do much but change the subject. (4) Abortion rights was a bust for the Democrats, it won in almost every state where it was on the ballot as a state issue but flopped for Harris on a national level. Women deserted Harris in droves, held their noses and voted for Trump—grocery prices won over reproductive freedom. Abortion seems to have lost some of its steam since the last midterm election, again cyclical two years ago. I won’t be at all surprised if this issue resurfaces in the next midterm in two years. (5) The Democrats have lost touch with their traditional base. In the words of David Axelrod, “… Democrats have become a smarty pants, elite, college educated crew that looks down at working class…”.  A look at the election map shows narrow blue bands along both coasts, bit the rest of the country red. Union bosses endorsed Harris and rank and file union workers voted for Trump. Democrats leaned heavily on A list celebrities, and it blew back on them, blue collar voters didn’t care what Beyonce, Taylor Swift or George Clooney thought.  David Axelrod likened Democrats to "missionaries" in their approach to non-college-educated voters − a message of "we're here to help you become more like us…”.  Senator Bernie Sanders said, “… it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them…".  (6) The state of our democracy. This is the most interesting (see, I got to use my favorite adjective) issue. This phrase first appeared in exit interviews on election day, and it’s the proverbial 500-pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about. The Biden administration did a complete “buy in” on green energy, DEI and “woke” politics. Wildly popular with ultra progressives and the far left, it enjoyed little support with blue collar workers, older voters, Swing voters and was a red flag to conservative democrats who blame the party's left wing for divisive cultural issues such as support of transgender rights and the chaos on college campuses from Gaza war protests. Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, in a Substack column said, “…the average person in Saginaw, Michigan doesn't think it's fair that their daughter has to compete with someone biologically stronger than her…”.  Roginsky also emphasized the lack of outrage from Democrats over pro-Palestinian protests this year that effectively shut down some colleges and universities. Democrats are no longer perceived as the party of common sense. In our quest not to offend anyone, we come across as totally out of line with how regular people think…".  If Democrats plan on “woke” politics being a mainstay of their future, they’re going to have to re-package it because it didn’t play well in working class Black and Latino households. Donald Trump was elected the 47th President in a fair and legal election. He won despite his character flaws and outlandish behavior and that says a great deal about the candidacy of Kamala Harris and the Democratic party as a whole. Unless the Democrats want to be the equivalent of the House Freedom Caucus, a noisy minority that no one takes seriously, they need to do some serious soul searching and get back to being the party of hard hats, farmers, union guys, nurses, teachers, cops and firemen because they all voted Republican this time around…