MELISSA DEROSA: Democrats face a painful question: What went wrong?

Much ink has been spilled trying to make sense of President Trump’s landslide victory. Explanations ranging from misogyny and racism to Joe Biden’s belated exit are both overly simplistic and lacking introspection, but perfectly encapsulate the increasingly small echo chamber dominated by Beltway insiders. Early on, Trump labeled Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as failed, weak, and dangerously liberal. The question Democrats must now honestly grapple with is: was he right?

Elections are a referendum on the party in power and nearly every poll told us that (COVID aside), Americans feel worse off than four years ago. Telling those same Americans not to believe their lying eyes was arrogant and condescending, indicative of a Democratic Party that has become dominated by elitists and divorced from the realities of the people they purport to represent. When you are bleeding Hispanics, the youth, Jewish, urban and union vote, and even those in AOC’s district it’s you: You’re the problem.

The number one issue was – as it almost always is – the economy. But Harris’ campaign instead focused almost singularly on abortion. And while Biden’s American Rescue Plan inarguably propelled our rapid post-COVID recovery, it also resulted in the largest jump in consumer prices in decades.  Housing stock in short supply caused rent to soar, gas prices remained at record highs, and heightened interest rates made homeownership unattainable. Democrats touted jobs numbers while ignoring that real wages stagnated (and briefly declined) and trumpeted record-breaking numbers on wall street, ignoring that to most the Dow Jones has virtually no impact on day-to-day spending power.

Harris struggled to separate herself from her own administration’s actions while her campaign preached patience and resorted to class warfare, vowing to make the wealthy pay their fair share.  Recycled promises of $25,000 for first-time homebuyers fell flat on the ears of a cynical public who long ago soured on the notion of wiping away college loan debt, while price gouging proposals landed with a too little, too late thud.

Alternatively, Trump at least proposed some economic policies tailored to segments of voters struggling to make ends meet, promising to make tips tax-deductible to low-wage workers in Nevada, to tax imports on foreign-made automobiles in a union hall in Michigan and restore the ability to deduct state and local taxes in Nassau County, home to the nation’s second-highest property taxes (ignoring that he himself rolled back the SALT policy years earlier). These initiatives connected directly with low-wage and middle class voters, offering concrete, tangible solutions.  

Biden-Harris’ unilateral reversal of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, fulfilled a virtue-signaling campaign pledge without an iota of forethought to the management required by a move that would inevitably invite a crush of asylum seekers. In a masterstroke of inhumane political genius, border state Republican governors, traditionally saddled with managing such an influx, bussed migrants to self-proclaimed "sanctuary cities." Budgets were busted, housing systems collapsed, and social services strained. Aghast voters watched as their hard-earned tax dollars were spent on hotel rooms and ATM cards handed out to these migrants.

The Biden-Harris administration could never find its footing in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Worse, their response at times appeared to be without principle, dictated by politics after 13% of democratic voters cast "uncommitted" ballots in the Michigan primary.  When college campuses devolved into chaos and Jewish students were targeted by grotesque antisemitism, no one took charge, let alone effectively stopped the disorder, reinforcing the notion that the Democratic Party is weak on law-and-order. Harris passing over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro for Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz gave critics ammunition to assert that the choice was because of Shapiro’s religion, further alienating Jews and non-Jews alike who felt the party was kowtowing to extremists and antisemites.

In their fear of the extreme left, Democrats alienated not only moderates within our own party, but also Independent voters. Everyday Americans are exhausted by the seemingly never ending litany of culture wars from fixations on identity politics and pronouns, to trivial interactions weaponized by the #MeToo movement and cancel culture to the renaming of Columbus Day, all while parents increasingly feel their judgment is being undermined by those in government. Harris’ inability to respond to her own past support for taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prisoners was the perfect summation for just how far off the beaten path Democrats have wandered.  

For democracy to function, the American people have to believe that the justice system is free from political influence. Indicting a former president of the United States is not something to be pursued lightly – a message that apparently never reached prosecutors in New York.

Letitia James campaigned on using her office to go after Trump. Alvin Bragg up-charged a Class-A misdemeanor to overcome a lapsed statute of limitations. Their actions boomeranged, rallying Trump supporters who portrayed him as a martyr and, as a result, the case brought against him for actions taken on Jan. 6 – one focused on such great institutional import that it arguably tests the very fiber of democracy – was never taken seriously.

Nearly half of Americans believe news organizations deliberately mislead them – a crisis exacerbated by the lack of widespread reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop issue during the last election and Biden/Trump debate this time around that raised very real questions about the mental acuity of the Ppresident – questions that, up until that point, were dismissed as right-wing propaganda. That, in combination with "news" articles laden with opinion, has given rise to a new reality where a post on social media has as much credibility as a story in The New York Times.

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Taken together, the 2024 election revealed a Democratic Party that is dangerously out of touch – unsure of what it is, who it represents, what their constituency wants and needs, and how to deliver for them. As alarmingly, the election was a resounding rejection of the mainstream media and a seemingly politicized justice system. While the former is a political problem, the latter–the continued loss of trust in the institutions required for a functioning democracy –represents an existential crisis.  

2024 should serve as a wake-up call.  If it is not, there’s no telling where the country goes from here.