Yesterday there was a thoughtful diary on the Trending list, in response to Kos’s diary from the day before, that advocated progressive populism as the way to win over some of the voters who went for Tr*mp in 2024 and build a winning coalition. I too think that fighting the egregious activity of billionaire corporatists is something we must do to win the next elections. Nonetheless, I was struck by something as I read the diary: y’all think that Kamala lost the election because of her conservative economic policies? Really? Let’s be clear: Democrats championed a Black woman to lead the nation. Maybe in California or New York that is typical enough that we can just focus on Kamala’s policy positions as the source of her defeat, and bless those voters’ hearts if this is so, but in swing states like Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona on which the election turned, gender and possibly race mattered. In these parts of the country, the choice by Democrats for Kamala to lead the nation was highly progressive, and based on the election outcome, too progressive.
Swing state voters who four years before went for Joe Biden – Joe *effing Biden – looked at the choice between Kamala and TFG and thought that TFG was the safer bet. Holy f*ck. Folks, that isn’t the result of her economic policies – that is due to people – men AND WOMEN – who fundamentally do not believe that a woman can lead our country. Now let’s recognize that 70 million Americans were okay with or were excited to vote for a woman president. But that is not a majority of voters. The election wasn’t lost because Kamala alienated too many young progressives in the solid blue states; it was lost because voters in swing states who previously went for Biden – including his economic policies - wouldn’t vote for Kamala. And if you are feeling right now “how dare the diarist imply that it was Kamala’s gender that lost the election” then you might need to consider the possibility that you reside in a progressive Democratic bubble. I agree that it is hard to grasp that in 2025, there are voters who feel in their gut that there is something not right with women in leadership, but here we are. If we want to see a woman win a presidential election, we are going to have to step out of our bubble and work to promote women in leadership at the grassroots level in communities where it is not the norm – school boards, city councils, judgeships etc, then on to statewide positions. So, sure, let’s try to bring over voters with economic policies focused on workers. But let’s live in reality: that wasn’t what lost the election, and if we don’t like that, we need to do the hard work to fix it.
