Yes, the presidential election was mostly about the economy, stupid. But Lisa Selin Davis writes at the Globe that there was a lot of moderate-left dissension over other issues on Tuesday, such as “social extremism” and the intraparty silence among Dems surrounding it: “Just like the spineless Republicans who found Trump dangerous and distracting but didn’t oppose him, there are Democratic politicians who don’t support the party line on social issues and toed it anyway.”
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Blue-state bubble blues … 11-7-24 … Post-election thoughts
Random post-election thoughts: … Still a little numb after Tuesday’s drubbing. And still can’t believe I got my Kamala-victory prediction so wrong. I really do live in a blue-state bubble. … Yesterday’s local blue-state-bubble of all bubbles: GBH’s Boston Public Radio show with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. In one segment (and not the Doris Kearns Goodwin segment) there was little or no conceding that the Trumpsters might have some valid points. No conceding that bubble inhabitants might be wrong here and there. It was mostly about Trumpster racisim/misogyny/fascism etc. etc. … Then again, it’s hard not to find fault with those who think Trump and Tony Hinchcliffe’s racist/misogynist/authoritarian appeals and jokes are actually funny. … So many contradictions and nuances to sort out! … Gov. Maura Healey has at least one foot outside the bubble: “Economic Concerns Drove Shift to Trump, Healey says.” … My thoughts exactly, via Shirley Leung: “I thought women would save us from another Trump presidency. I was wrong.” …
Newfound respect: Bernie Sanders
As I’ve previously noted (see posts below), Bernie Sanders is more of a classical progressive who believes class matters in politics, unlike the more modern identity-politics/woke progressives whose ideological theory that race/gender/sexual orientation ultimately glom together into an single, unstoppable and righteous voting bloc just got blown out of the water Tuesday. … What percentage of Latinos voted for Trump on Tuesday? Oh, that’s right. 45 percent. … They can’t all be upset with ‘Latinx,’ can they? … Back to Bernie: Still don’t agree with many of socialist Bernie’s solutions to Dems’ working-class-voter woes. But he’s on the right track in identifying the working-class-voter problem. …
Do I dare?
Hmm. Should I or shouldn’t I? Re: re-subscribe to Andrew Sullivan’s newsletter. He did call Tuesday’s general results in a Sunday London Times column. It’s a devastating piece on ultimately Biden’s (not Harris’s) political miscalculations. …
No surprise: Fox News was insufferable yesterday
The folks at Fox News yesterday were actually complaining that Harris took too long to concede the election. You see, it wasn’t good form. It lacked class, blah, blah, blah. All this from shameless network backers of a certain presidential candidate who spent the past four years refusing to concede the 2020 election. …
I’m blaming Ann Selzer
After writing the post below on the Ann Selzer/Iowa poll, I wondered: Was she, consciously or unconsciously, trying to gin up last-minute momentum and enthusiasm for Harris with the surprise last-minute poll results? Hidden biases work in wonderous ways, after all. … Hey, I gotta find someone to blame for my lousy Harris-wins prediction.
Switching to state political news
Massachusetts Republicans made a handful of gains yesterday? Really? Massachusetts Republicans? It’ not exactly a political tsunami, but it’s probably enough to justify a small GOP victory lap. … Question 2 passed – and you have to wonder why referendum opponents didn’t start airing ads earlier. The pro-Question 2 commercials were quite powerful and needed a response, pronto. But there was no major anti-Question 2 response for weeks on end. … What will the legislature do with the Q2 results? Perhaps require MCAS graduation tests to proceed as usual, but not use the results to ban anyone from graduating? If legally possible, it might be a clever way of abiding by Tuesday’s referendum results while still using MCAS graduation tests as ways to measure school and individual performances. … Re MCAS tests in general: I could be wrong, but I sense a backlash about the sheer number of different student tests, not with the principle behind student tests. … With the rejection of Question 5 and with Trump promising to cut taxes for restaurant workers, it might be a good time to nab a restaurant gig. Hell, I wouldn’t mind doing a no-taxes bartending shift now and then. I enjoyed bartending way back when at my old Kenmore Square and Central Square haunts. They were true dives to remember!
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Another big election loser: The Iowa-Selzer poll
That Ann Selzer-Iowa poll showing Harris surging in the last days of the election? It was a little off. Like by 14 points. … The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld is having a field day with the poll – and with those (similar to yours truly) who bought into its results hook, line and sinker.
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Poor Ukraine
Yesterday’s biggest loser: Ukraine. … Biden had his Afghan-retreat debacle. Will Trump share a similar fate with Ukraine?
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Class-oriented progressives vs identity-politics progressives
Thinking a little more about the same WSJ article that I linked to immediately below, the coming intraparty debate among Dems, in the wake of yesterday’s disastrous election results for the party, will eventually come down to a struggle between what type of progressive politics will prevail within the Democratic Party: old-fashioned class-oriented progressive politics, as advocated by people like Bernie Sanders, who think Dems need to stress economic issues that appeal more to working-class voters, versus identity-politics progressives, as advocated by many in academia and other college-educated/suburban types, who mostly view politics through the lens of race, gender and sexual-orientation, etc. etc. …
Neither side is 100 percent right or wrong. It’s not a case of one or the other. But yesterday’s results clearly show that the corniest of all corny lines is true: It’s the economy, stupid, and that means a greater emphasis on economic/class issues and de-emphasis of the more radical aspects of identity-politics/cultural issues. … When you get down to it, moderate-liberals and Bernie progressives have more in common than they realize: Dems really do need to focus more on economic and class issues.
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Progressive causes triumph in at least one state: Massachusetts
Much of the progressive agenda was rejected across America yesterday, but a few progressive causes prevailed here in blue-state Massachusetts, via referendum approval of dropping the MCAS graduation requirement (Question 2) and allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize (Question 3). But it wasn’t a clean progressive sweep: voters rejected the partial legalization of psychedelics (Question 4) and changing the current restaurant tipping-pay structure (Question 5). … Btw: Approval of Question 1, which allows the auditing of the legislature, was definitely a bi-partisan affair, winning more than 70 percent of the vote.
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Oops. … Kamala Harris, loser
I sure got that one wrong. No huge last-minute female surge for Harris. Trump simply outperformed her on so many key levels. … I agree with Dan Kennedy: Win or lose, Harris performed magnificently as a candidate. Just not magnificently enough. … What really hurt Democrats was Democrats. I’ll have more on this later. But let me just say: Democrats have a lot of soul searching to do in coming weeks, months and years. They’re out of touch with huge swaths of the American electorate, particularly working-class, rural and non-college-educated people in general. Dems need to find a way to connect to them – economically and socially – and distance themselves from some of the radical positions of the academic left. What Dems don’t need is to act and sound like they haven’t learned anything.
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Prediction time: Kamala Harris, winner
Maybe it’s a case of wishful thinking, but my hunch is Kamala Harris is going to pull this one out today. Donald Trump outperformed the polls in 2016 and 2020 – and he may yet do it again this year. But I think women are going to put Harris over the top, as suggested by the recent Selzer/Iowa poll. Latino anger over third-rate comic Tony Hinchcliffe’s first-rate racist comments could also help Harris, or so I hope. .…
Update – 11-5-24 – I liked these lines in a NYT piece on what could happen today and this week: “If Kamala Harris wins big, we should have seen it coming all along. … If Mr. Trump wins big, we should have seen it coming all along.”
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Kristaps who?
Down two starters – Kristaps and Jaylen – and the defending champs still find a way to win. … In particular, it’s remarkable how little people are talking about Kristaps’s absence. … This team is just fun to watch. They have so much talent and depth.
Update – 11-5-24 – Ho-hum. Another day, another Celts win, this time by 30 points, and without Jaylen and Kristaps again.
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