Why did Kamala Harris lose the 2024 election?
Propaganda? Bigotry? Idiocy? Revenge on the wrong people, for decades of vicious, extractive capitalism that abandoned the working class for COSTCOs full of Vietnamese manufacturing?
Here are some answers I’ve seen:
Propaganda.
“Trump's election says a lot about trust in journalism. Since the rise of Fox News, the industry has failed to earn the public's confidence. We see now where that can lead.” Los Angeles Times: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-12/trump-2024-election-trust-journalism or https://apple.news/Abm-hZYlgQo6qlV7q6kWvbQ
Bigotry.
Roxanne Gay says a lot of things went wrong (“too many celebrities, echo chambers, ignoring the economy, no alternative to the conservative media ecosystem, too much embracing of conservative politicians, too much identity politics, too big a tent, the price of eggs.”) But ultimately people got what they wanted: “These are adults, so let us treat them like adults. Let us acknowledge that they want to believe nonsense and conjecture. They want to believe anything that affirms their worldview. They want to celebrate a leader who allows them to nurture their basest beliefs about others. The biggest challenge of our lifetime will be figuring out how to combat the American willingness to embrace flagrant misinformation and bigotry. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/opinion/america-trump-tolerance.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Uhm, maybe idiocy?
In a global test of adult know-how—math, literacy, critical thinking, abstract reasoning, but also really basic skills like “reading a thermometer or planning a trip”—Americans performed way worse than other rich countries. But we also performed worse than ourselves previously. The portion whose “mathematics skills didn’t surpass those expected of a primary-school student rose to 34% of the population from 29% in 2017, the last time the test was administered. Problem-solving scores were also weaker than in 2017…” America comes up short
The least-educated workers are falling behind on basic skills, in The Wall Street Journal: https://stocks.apple.com/A0XYOBYLTSsWbByLxAkv7DA or https://www.wsj.com/us-news/america-us-math-proficiency-falling-1b5ac73c?mod=RSSMSNI’ll save No. 4 for next time because I think is closer to true:
“Revenge on the wrong people, for decades of vicious, extractive capitalism that abandoned the working class for COSTCOs full of Vietnamese manufacturing”