Running on Empty: How the Dems Lost to Trump for the Second Time in Eight Years

Kamala Harris, the commentators widely agreed, ran a nearly perfect campaign. She hit her cues, avoided mistakes, and was really good at laughing for no reason other than her joy at being our next president. Her campaign skillfully choreographed support from a cast that ranged from the socialist firebrand Bernie Sanders to the conservative Republican Liz Cheney. Not to mention all the celebrities!

It’s almost unfair that the object of a presidential campaign is to win the most electoral votes rather than the highest scores from a panel of talk show hosts and former Obama speech writers.

Still, even after the results came in, giving Donald Trump a sweeping Electoral College victory and the first Republican popular vote majority in twenty years, the immediate reaction in many quarters was to insist Harris had done the best she could in the face of voter bigotry and global inflation that has caused many incumbent parties to lose office around the globe.

(Few mentioned Claudia Sheinbaum, who just months ago ran on the incumbent party ticket and became the first woman — and first Jewish — president of the country directly south of us. But that’s a left-wing party that angered elites and reduced economic inequality, which for our media makes what happened in Mexico…