The Democratic Party was left reeling in shock and disbelief after Donald Trump’s unexpected and decisive victory over Kamala Harris. With Republicans seizing control of the Senate and likely retaining control of the House, Democrats have found themselves in a whirlwind of finger-pointing, desperately trying to assign blame for the staggering losses.
Lindy Li, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s finance committee, expressed her deep disappointment and frustration with the Harris campaign during an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend. She didn't mince her words, calling it a "$1 billion disaster,” the New York Post reported.
Li's appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend, hosted by Will Cain, was marked by a moment of shock when she dropped an “f-bomb” while dissecting the failed Harris presidential bid.
“The truth is this is just an epic disaster, this is a $1 billion disaster,” Li said.
"They’re $20 million or $18 million in debt. It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends I have to be accountable to and explain what happened because I told them it was a margin-of-error race.”
Right up until the day of the election, pollsters and media mouthpieces were insisting the race was neck-and-neck and that the results might not be known for days, if not a week. That all came crashing down late on election night when Wisconsin was called for Trump, putting him over the magic threshold of 270 electoral votes and making him the president-elect. Control of the Senate was also called for Republicans on election night. Control of the House was still up in the air, however, most expect Republicans to regain the majority.
Li isn’t the only Democrat losing their mind over the election. However, instead of taking their whipping as a teaching moment, many Democrats are engaged in a chaotic blame game for the defeat. Democrats seem to be ignoring the fact that Trump gained ground over 2020 in every state except for Washington.
Some Democrats blame the Harris-Walz campaign strategy, while others, particularly progressive Democrats, have blamed “identity politics, backlash to wokeism, elitism, and lack of an exciting agenda” as the reasons for the pole axing, the New York Post wrote.
Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a Democratic-Socialist senator from Vermont, accused the party of abandoning the working class and defending the status quo.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said late last week.
Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who was re-elected last week, said the Democrats' “tent is too small” and that party elites have “shunned” populists.
“A firm break with neoliberalism. Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don’t decide for them. Pick fights. Embrace populism. Build a big tent. Be less judgmental. But we are beyond small fixes,” Murphy wrote in a post on X.
Republicans, not Democrats, became the big tent party. Trump made tremendous inroads with Hispanics, black men, white women, and 18-—to 29-year-olds and, in fact, won a majority of the Muslim vote in Dearborn, Michigan. Trump carried all seven of the so-called “swing states.”
Some, however, don’t appear to have learned their lesson. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) claims the election was “winnable” for Harris and Democrats, relying on polls that showed Harris up by 5 points, which didn’t translate on Election Day.
“Even when Biden got out, VP Harris was 5 points up in some of the polls. Anybody who is saying now that this wasn’t a winnable campaign didn’t say that back in August,” Khanna told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.
Khanna claimed the Israel-Hamas war hampered Harris concerning the progressive base of the party.
It isn’t known what effect the Biden administration’s lawfare campaign against Trump played into the election. Still, his poll numbers went up every time he was indicted for one apparently bogus crime or another. Two assassination attempts, including the first one where if not for a well-timed turn of the head, we’d be having a different conversation, may have also benefited Trump. Finally, the last-minute desperation with Democrats comparing Trump and Trump supporters to “Nazis” may have backfired and been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Harris was elevated to be the Democratic Party nominee after Joe Biden dropped out on July 21 after a disastrous debate performance against Trump that exposed his significant cognitive issues. Biden endorsed Harris, and she gained her party’s nomination through some back-door shenanigans before the Democratic National Convention was even held.
For Li, she was a team player when Biden was still in the race, calling him a “class act and the consummate leader, and on July 18, three days before he withdrew, calling him “the MOST successful President of my lifetime.” Despite claiming she was in “shock” when Biden withdrew, she said there was “uniformal relief” from donors when he did so.
When speaking about Biden’s withdrawal, Li suggested his speedy endorsement of Harris was a “fuck you” to his fellow Democrats. Fox managed to censor the “f-bomb,” and she refrained from doing it again.
“I actually think President Biden, the whole endorsing her 30 minutes after he dropped out, I think that was a big ‘Fuck you’ to the party. ‘If you don’t want me, here’s somebody you may not like, deal with it,’” Li said.
“Kind of like sticking it to the man.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the former Speaker of the House, who was one who was widely blamed for pushing Biden out of the race, is apparently having memory issues, where on a New York Times podcast, “The Interview,” said Biden should have gotten out of the race sooner.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi told the interviewer. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.” Only weeks before Biden dropped out, Pelosi was singing his praises.
Back in February, however, Pelosi was singing a far different tune:
Li believes she was “misled” about Harris’ ability to defeat Trump by Harris campaign surrogates, including campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon.
“I was promised…”Jen O’Malley Dillon promised all of us that Harris would win,” she said. “She even put videos out saying that Harris would win. I believed her, my donors believed her, and so they wrote massive checks. I feel like a lot of us were misled.”
After Harris was pole-axed by Trump on November 5, O’Malley Dillon sent a memo to staffers.
“You stared down unprecedented headwinds and obstacles that were largely out of our control. We knew this would be a margin of error race, and it was,” she wrote.
“The whole country moved to the right, but compared to the rest of the country, the battleground states saw the least amount of movement in his direction. It was closest in the places we competed.”
That is what you call classic gaslighting.
Trump swept all seven battleground states, won the popular vote, and saw the Senate flip to Republican control, with the House poised to remain in Republican hands.
So, as Democrats engage in a game of finger-pointing and the blame game, Republicans are savoring their victory.
Trump will meet with Biden in the Oval Office on Wednesday to discuss the transition process.
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