A BLUE LAGOON: How did we ever lose to this guy?

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2024

Let's take a look at two lists: "How did we ever lose to this guy?"

Initially, the question as stated in the form of a joke. It first appeared in 1988, on Saturday Night Live, with Candidate Dukakis wondering how he could possibly be losing to the vacuous Candidate Bush.

By this November, the potential of that hidden prophecy had bobbed to the surface at last. To those of us in Blue America, we had just lost the White House to the most disordered candidate in political history. if by a narrow margin.

According to Cook, this is where the numbers stand with almost all votes counted:

Nationwide popular vote (to date), 2024
Candidate Trump: 77,176,074 (49.82%)
Candidate Harris: 74,777,835 (48.27%)

That's where the numbers stand at this point in time. Somehow, we did in fact lose to that guy—and in the end, he will have received more than 77 million votes!

How in the world did we lose to him? Over Here, in Blue America, inquiring minds should presumably want to know. Different explanations have appeared, including many variants of this eternal crowd-pleaser:

This is why Kamala lost: because Trump fans are nuts...There's something about Trump that makes a lot of people see him not just as a Republican politician, but as the savior of the nation. It's crazy.

Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton said that only half The Others belonged in the basket of deplorables. Sometimes, we Blue Americans now make it sound like all 77 million Others are crazy or possibly nuts.

It' a time-honored form of explanation. On the other hand, it leaves us, the people of Blue America, with nowhere we can go. If all those people are crazy and nuts, there's nothing much that we can do to improve our electoral lot.

How did we manage to lose to that guy? The question now rests on our shoulders. For ourselves, we've long assumed that Candidate Trump is clinically disordered in a significant way—but we're willing to accept the fact that tens of millions of neighbors and friends don't see it quite that way.

(Also, that every journalist in our admittedly brilliant Blue America has agreed that this obvious possibility must never be discussed.)

Why did so many people manage to vote for Candidate Trump? By Friday evening, November 8, Tim Alberta of The Atlantic had started to sketch the possible shape of a possible explanation. 

In our view, he offered a decent starter list. Now for a bit of framing:

Culturally, Alberta hails from Red America. Politically, he's long been anti-Trump. Imaginably, his cultural origins may help free him from certain prejudices and predispositions which may prevail Over Here. 

On Friday night, November 8, on the PBS program Washington Week, the gentleman offered these starter thoughts, as we noted three days later. He spoke with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic:

ALBERTA (11/8/24): As someone who has spilled a lot of ink on Donald Trump's lies over the past decade–

GOLDBERG: A couple of books worth.

ALBERTA: –a couple of books worth, I just want to say this when we talk about propaganda. Arguably, the three most determinative things in this election were propaganda from the Democratic Party. 

Number one: "Joe Biden is fine and totally fit to be president for another four years." He wasn't. 

Number two: "The border is closed. It's under control. There's nobody coming in."  That was not true. 

And number three: "Hey, don't worry about inflation. Prices are fine. Bidenomics! Everything's great. You guys don't know what you're talking about. Actually, the economy is in great shape." 

This is propaganda to millions of Americans who said, "None of that is true, and therefore, I don't trust you."  They might not trust Trump, but they don't trust Democrats either.

So said Tim Alberta! He said he's written at length about "Donald Trump's lies." But he said he'd spotted some possible problems with Blue America's messaging too.

We Blues! According to Alberta, we'd said that President Biden was totally fit, when he plainly wasn't. We'd said the border was under control, when it plainly wasn't.

We'd also said that the economy was in great shape. In Alberta's view, we had even possibly cost ourselves votes when we kept saying that!

With that, we had a bit of a starter list—a possible list of possible ways those of us in Blue America may have helped earn our way out. A few days later, a second traitor to his class stepped forward with his own list.

The second list of possible reasons appeared in the New York Times. It had been compiled by another figure from the cultural or political right who had been aggressively anti-Trump, basically right from the start.

He'd ended up voting for Candidate Harris. But like Alberta, Stephens thought that we the Blues may have helped earn our way out!

Online, his column carries an acerbic headline. But as his column starts, he again describes the question facing Blue America—The Problem We All Live With:

A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat

A story in chess lore involves the great Danish Jewish player Aron Nimzowitsch, who, at a tournament in the mid-1920s, found himself struggling against the German master Friedrich Sämisch. Infuriated at the thought of losing to an opponent he considered inferior, Nimzowitsch jumped on the table and shouted, “To this idiot I must lose?”

It’s a thought that must have crossed the minds of more than a few liberal pundits and Democratic eminences late Tuesday night, as Kamala Harris’s hopes for winning the presidency began suddenly to fade.

How, indeed, did Democrats lose so badly, considering how they saw Donald Trump—a twice-impeached former president, a felon, a fascist, a bigot, a buffoon, a demented old man, an object of nonstop late-night mockery and incessant moral condemnation? The theory that many Democrats will be tempted to adopt is that a nation prone to racism, sexism, xenophobia and rank stupidity fell prey to the type of demagoguery that once beguiled Germany into electing Adolf Hitler.

It’s a theory that has a lot of explanatory power—though only of an unwitting sort. The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable, comeback.

Oof oof oof oof oof oof oof! Ow ow ow ow ow! 

In fairness, let's be fair. The columnist was Bret Stephens, a man of the center-right. In fairness, he'd been aggressively anti-Trump pretty much right from the start and basically all the way down. 

As a general matter, Stephens thinks that Donald J. Trump is something like "an idiot" too! But for him, the story doesn't end there.

As with Alberta, so too here! This was a person from Red America—but a person who had long rejected Red America's overall view of Donald J. Trump.  Is it possible that some sort of double vision lets him see those of us in Blue America in a way which may elude many of Us?

According to Stephens, some of the way we lost to that guy falls back directly on Us.  He said there are things we aren't seeing about our defeat, and he tracks this alleged blindness to the world's most ancient reason:

He said there are things we Blues aren't seeing because, all too often, we can't quite see ourselves.

As the column about us prigs continued, Stephens listed various ways we allegedly earned our way out. It seems to us that some of his claims don't quite make sense—but in our view, some of his perceptions and claims do make unfortunate sense.

Alberta had offed a starter list; Stephens now added to it. Tomorrow, we'll turn to Stephens' list of reasons—to his explanations for the way we managed to lose to that guy, if only by 1.5 points. 

In our own view, the story of this dangerous defeat tracks back to the mid-1960s. Unsurprisingly, we ourselves were physically present when the story began! 

That said, the story doesn't end there. In our view, it also involves some of the unexplained behaviors of the Biden Administration, much as Alberta seemed to say back on November 8.

We Blues now face an ancient choice—the lady or the tiger! We can continue to say The Others are crazy and nuts—although, as far as that goes, who isn't?

We can say The Others are crazy and nuts. Or we can consider testing a wider perspective:

Is there possibly something we Blues might have done which may perhaps have helped bring on this dangerous defeat? We humans may not be wired to think such thoughts, but can we possibly overcome the power of pride and prejudice?

Can we emerge from our Blue Lagoon. from a backwater of our own making? 

Tomorrow: The second list