The Misinterpretation of the 2024 Election

How the Overton Window Moves to the Right When we Start Hand-wringing

Posts like the following have been roiling through the social media sphere for two weeks, as many try to figure out what just happened:
“Democrats must take a long hard look at the root causes of their defeat on November 5 and make some drastic choices with regard to their party's future, the way they did in the wake of Michael Dukakis's loss in 1988, when Bill Clinton, the most talented stand-up politician of his time, had emerged to chart the new political course.”

This is a paraphrased quote from a man who made a nasty reply when I responded and then unfriended me so I couldn’t clarify my remarks.

There is a particular type of person, generally someone who identifies as a Democrat while holding some very regressive views, who will jump at the chance to blame the party for being “too far left” when something goes wrong.

I contend that this is a mistake.

I think you need to be very careful how you interpret this situation. The hand-wringing is misplaced. This was INEVITABLE as soon as citizen's united became law and the 1965 Voter's Rights Act was gutted.

Bill Clinton was a result of us allowing the Overton Window to shift far to the right. Yes, I voted for him twice. It was the only game in town after the Reagan Doctrine began the long process of destroying the New Deal.

Assuming that this is a realignment to the right for the majority misses the mark.

In my last post I ran through all the ways in which an election need not be rigged electronically to still be far from free and fair.

To recap: a venal corporate press failing to accurately portray the candidates, dark money, and severe voter suppression and gerrymandering, all legal under current law in the wake of Citizens United and the gutting of the 1965 Voter’s Rights Act. Nothing any Democrat could do would stop these things from doing their work.

Perhaps the message is that we need a REAL Democratic party that will reign in turbo-capitalism and get real about ecosystems collapse. We need a party with a spine, not a party that hides itself under the bed when the storm strikes.

Not GOP Lite because we refuse to acknowledge the defects in the electoral process itself and think we now understand what "the people" want. There is no "the people" now. We are far too polarized for that.

Nobody can truly win at this point. They can sieze power by cheating, legally or not. But that is not winning.

And if Kamala Harris had pulled out an electoral victory with a GOP congress, a rogue SCOTUS, and a divided people, she could not govern effectively.

If too many people listen to this defeatist interpretation of 2024 it won’t matter much who runs the federal government in the end.

We have heard over and over that “when we fight, we win!”

Why would we listen for one minute to Democrats whose first move is to cut and run when the inevitable consequences of 40 years of right- wing propaganda have the effect one would expect?

I have an idea— why don’t we try to take our country back instead? Not by adopting a neoliberal compromise, but by modeling real economic justice and ecological stewardship.

We still control our own actions and values. The MAGA did not steal these things on November 5th. Let’s act like it.