Democrats have an enormous dilemma if Kamala Harris loses

Changing leaves, the World Series, Halloween, the New York City Marathon. Then, in a blink, Election Day. The classic quadrennial late-fall cycle in America.  

Now it’s the final stretch, the final sprint. The race currently seems so tight, it is impossible to predict with confidence who will win, or what ultimately will be the deciding factors for the voters. Yet in a few short days, we will likely know the answer. Then Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah , Christmas, New Year’s, and at last, Inauguration Day. On January 20, 2025, the next POTUS will take office. Former President Donald Trump may return to the West Wing, or we may greet President Kamala Harris as Number 47. 

Harris, in her brief race to the White House, has achieved many impressive feats. In a blast of summer joy, she energized the Democratic Party. She held court over thousands of citizens in jam-packed rallies around the country. She looked both confident and glam at the debate against Trump. She raised over a billion dollars in support, grandly outpacing Trump’s own imposing fundraising effort. Millions of Americans will enthusiastically cast their ballot for the vice president. 

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If Harris wins, there would be celebration in the blue streets, excitement about the historic first female American president, and hope that Harris would bring to the Oval Office a refreshing mix of energy, leadership, unity and smart new ideas.  

There would, of course, be those who would worry about her habit of creating toxic workplaces for notoriously discontented staffers; her long-running failure to stem the influx of migrants at the southern border; her largely unpopular stance on transgender issues, and the uncertainty still surrounding many of her key positions and international steel. Others would be more generous and encourage their fellow Americans to give Harris a chance to acclimate to the top job and take her shot at becoming one of the greats. 

Meanwhile, there would be complicated feelings on the other side. Trump voters would be disappointed, crushed, angry, stoic, resigned, disruptive, or, perhaps, sanguine. Some might blame a blatantly biased press, electoral mischief, Trump derangement syndrome, or the candidate himself for being too chaotic, too volatile, too rhetorically undisciplined, too past his prime.  

Most red voters, however, would get on with the business of their lives, even as they proudly wear their MAGA hats and buy Trump buttons and other vintage merch to pass down to their grandchildren. They would continue to vote Republican and keep a close eye on the likely party majority in the Senate, along with JD Vance, Nikki Haley, and any MAGA candidates Trump chooses to support. 

But for the blue voters, if Harris loses the election and Trump returns to the White House, there would be a seismic, convulsive uproar of angst and censure within the Democratic Party that would resonate from coast to coast. There would be much to blame, and many to blame, and the accusations would be flung far and wide, with fury and fervor. 

The first person to be placed in the dunking machine would be … not Kamala Harris, but President Joe Biden. For staying in the race too long, only leaving when it was indefensible for him to continue after his disastrous June debate. For running for president back in 2020, when it was clear to some that his mental acuity was already in decline, and that the prospect of a long-term presidential career was untenable. For blocking other viable Democrats from running, curbing the growth and potential of his party’s future leadership. For picking Harris as his running mate for crass demographic reasons, and for covering up unsavory truths about his family, especially his son, Hunter. For choosing self-interest and vanity over country, putting an egotistical desire to remain in power over the needs of the party and the nation.  

Even those who might dispute these claims, and argue that Biden was acting with integrity and fortitude when he ran in 2020 and 2024, convinced he was the only person who could beat Trump (which may be proven correct this go-round, despite his deterioration), would lay some of the debris at Biden’s feet. 

Second in line for blame would be Harris. For taking that summer burst of joy and hope and mangling it with word salads and a refusal to answer basic questions or properly prepare for and perform at important interviews.  

For declining to clarify her most fundamental policy positions; for not sending sufficient signals to the center of the electorate that she understands where her party has gone too far;  for not mastering the politics of appeal to Hispanics, young Black men, or Arab-, Muslim-, and Jewish-Americans; and for inexplicably maintaining an unusually light schedule for a young, hale candidate unfettered by funding issues or a pandemic. And, if she loses Pennsylvania, for not having the fortitude and clarity to choose the Keystone State’s popular Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. 

Next, blame would be placed on a liberal agenda, one that wandered off the smooth, paved road of enlightenment, stumbled through the weeds, and then tangled itself in the brambles of extreme, almost irrational, thought, causing even yellow dog Democrats to get a little orange. 

Some Democratic voters, astonished and bewildered, say they no longer recognize the party they grew up with, while many loyal donors are on full alert that their funds would someday be responsible for allowing young children to unwittingly have their genders reassigned or the Middle East to be fully controlled by terrorist groups.  

Alternatively, and contradictorily, blame also would be cast by the AOC wing of the party, who would charge that their fellow Democrats have in fact been too meek, lacking the conviction to push boldly and decisively into a new era of full-blown progressive change and populist economics. 

In addition to blame, there would be a profound reckoning about how the Democratic Party lost its mainstream appeal. Once it offered a home to a wide spectrum of voters (fiscal conservatives, progressives, bipartisan moderates, lefties) while embracing classic American tenets such as tolerance, free speech, patriotism and a global helping hand. There was a tangible pride in its representation of the old and the young, the well-heeled and the up-and-coming, the patriarchs and the new arrivals.   

Now it is fragmented and disordered, plagued by infighting, resentment and second-guessing, resembling a dog with a flea on its tail, chasing itself, circling, biting, without calm or cohesion, or a fresh mainstream policy agenda.  And, of course, as much as Democrats are loath to admit it, or even think about it, Trump has taken advantage of their move to the far left to take more of the ground in the political center than they could have ever imagined.

In the past, when faced with setbacks, the Democratic Party has found ways to right itself, correct course and learn from its mistakes, unquestionably with assists from generational political talents such as Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who were able to synthesize the critiques, move the party back into a zone of health and inspire confidence from leaders and civilians on both sides of the aisle after a White House loss.  

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Clinton, in particular, along with other party thinkers at the Democratic Leadership Council, made an effort to appeal to all Americans after a string of presidential campaign losses culminating in Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’ defeat at the hands of President George H.W. Bush.   

Clinton took stances both bold and nuanced on policies such as right to work, welfare reform, the death penalty and free trade, positions that were a shock to many on the far left, but that reflected an effort to understand the other side and speak to all citizens as a united entity. He gave his party a new, winning direction, a path they largely stayed on until the rise of Biden and Harris. 

But in 2024, the Democrats are in far deeper denial about their party’s identity than they have been in the modern era. How far left it has gone, how unstable and unreliable many perceive it to be, How and why Trump has dominated American politics for a decade and counting.

If Kamala Harris wins, she would step into the role as president for all Americans, a responsibility she undoubtedly is qualified to undertake. The Democratic Party, then, would have some breathing space to figure out how to create its own comprehensive appeal, and determine a viable path for the future of the brand. 

But if Harris loses, Democrats in Washington and around the country would have an enormous task: they would have to find a way to salvage the party and come to terms with its fractured identity and significant disillusionment from its base, all while dealing with fallout from the election, preparing for political combat against Donald Trump, and managing a collective mental health crisis from its disillusioned cohorts. 

And if Harris loses, this would be the Democrats’ biggest problem: there would be zero consensus in the party about what went wrong – and thus zero consensus about what the proper solutions should be, and, therefore, zero consensus about which leaders should be empowered to bring the party back to power. 

All we do know is that, under those circumstances, it almost certainly won’t be Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. 

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