Quick Take: Not So Great

"Flawless" political campaigns don't crash and burn

The joy has evaporated, the dreams are dead, and only the delusions remain…

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Among the reactions of Democrats and progressives to Donald Trump’s victory is the lament that the catastrophe occurred despite the fact that his opponent, Vice President Harris, ran a “great” or “flawless” campaign. There could be no better evidence of the denialism that afflicts most of the comrades as they contemplate the shambles of their hopes and dreams.

The narrative goes like this: Though Harris did everything she needed to do and more, the stupid, ingrate American people failed to reward her heroic efforts. See, for example, this Substack article by feminist activist and progressive pundit Jill Filipovic. An excerpt:

Kamala Harris ran such a great campaign. There was such unexpected energy around her. I was initially skeptical of anointing her to the role, but it felt so frictionless and unifying that I quickly segued into the “actually that was great” camp. And then she did everything right. She campaigned hard and in the right places. She said all the right things. She was smart and empathetic and funny. She was so clearly such a superior candidate to the brooding, angry, rambling autocrat on the other side.

Alas, this claim is clearly at odds with reality: Great campaigns do not produce electoral debacles. Kamala Harris did not run a great campaign. She did not do everything right. She was not smart and empathetic and funny—well, not intentionally funny. I’ve already summarized Harris’s manifold deficiencies, so there’s no need to list them here. Suffice it to say that she and her team blew through a cool $1 billion for a return of 226 electoral votes and 48% of the popular vote.

Ms. Filipovic is clearly aware that the logical disconnect between her judgement and the outcome of the election requires explanation, and she has one ready to hand: “[W]e should…be asking why so many Americans were willing—even enthusiastic — to again vote for Donald Trump. This election isn’t an indictment of Kamala Harris; it’s an indictment of our nation.”

Of course. Once again, America’s Deplorable Majority stomped all over the promise of a Radiant Progressive Future.

Standing alone, this sentiment goes a long way toward explaining why Donald Trump won: It breathes the insufferable condescension and specious presumption of moral superiority that has come to characterize postmodern progressivism. There were, indeed, solid issues at stake in this year’s election: the economy, the border crisis and illegal immigration, law and order, global instability, the state of American democracy. But it was the manner in which the candidates treated those issues that that made the difference.

Put simply, Kamala Harris did not take them seriously. She clearly did not believe that the American people had any right to complain about the state of the nation, or to question the competence of experts and elites. As far as possible she refused to address their concerns. She ceded those issues to Trump, who did talk about them—and in words that people could understand. That’s why he won.

Jill Filipovic can’t see that. She speaks for a political faction that has become obsessed with boutique issues, petty grievances, counterfactual historical narratives in the style of the 1619 Project and “settler colonialism,” and destructive policies like DEI and transgender ideology. Speaking of the latter, probably the single most effective media moment of 2024 was Team Trump’s “They/Them” ad, which precisely summarized the problem with the Harris campaign and American progressivism: profound alienation from the American mainstream.

There are, indeed, Democrats who are not as deluded as Ms. Filipovic. They recognize that the Democratic Party, which has become the party of one-percenter progressivism, has a severe political problem. One such realist is Congressman Richie Torres, Democrat of New York, who opined that “Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’”

But those voices of reason are being raised in minority counterpoint to a stupendous chorus of denial. We shall see whether sanity wins out in the long run. For now, though, the inmates are running the asylum—and Bedlam prevails.