(ThyBlackMan.com) Before the final vote tally when it became apparent that Donald Trump would beat Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats leaders and others began their postmortem exercise as to what went wrong.
They also started reflecting on how the Democratic party should respond to Trump’s administration. More important, how it could in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later, recapture the executive and legislative branches of government.
From all appearances, Democrats are still walking around in the dark in the coroner’s office trying to find out why they lost the presidency. Why they failed to win back the House of Representatives. They understand that if they figure that out it might help them devise strategies and a campaign message to regain power.
Beginning in 2016, after it became apparent that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president, Democrats have been one dimensionally obsessed with him. They were delighted that of all the Republican candidates for president, the Republican party had made the colossal mistake in selecting the least electable candidate.
Democrats, members of the media and political pundits were certain no one would vote for Trump for president, especially against Hillary Clinton. No one would take him seriously.
How could people of conscience, morals, character and decency vote for such a man with such questionable and dubious character, Democrats, media representatives and political pundits asked.
They were not prepared for the answer. They were proven wrong as not just men but women, including a sizable number of Democratic women voted against Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps, if Democrats, the media and political operatives had done their due diligence Trump probably would not have gotten anywhere near the White House. There were quite a few people, possibly Jeffrey Epstein? who would have enjoyed blocking his access from the White House or anywhere else other than a prison cell.
Not out of a sense of civic duty or patriotism. Just because he had made so many enemies that despise him.
From that point forward the sole focus of the Democratic party was Trump. They became the party of anti-Trump.
Every election after Trump took office even though his name was not on the ballot became an election, a referendum about him. Democrats were able in 2018 to regain the House of Representatives but may have misread the reason behind their blue wave.
It had worked in 2018 they concluded so they would keep with the anti-Trump mission in 2020. Democrats were successful in 2020 in winning the White House. But it may have had more to do with the nation having just experienced a once in a hundred-year pandemic than actual displeased with Trump.
Some Americans may have found Trump to be unhinged, immoral, unquestionably unreligious and unscrupulous in character. However, their 401Ks were profitable, their bellies were full, and the economy was booming.
A booming economy handed to Trump by President Barack Obama. A booming economy that Trump would try to take credit for and which he would eventually run into the ground.
A sizable number of Americans were more than willing to overlook Trump’s daily chaos. All he needed to do was once and a while to pretend to act presidential. Easier said than done.
With his defeat in 2020, Democrats, the media and political pundits were prepared to carve out the lettering on Trump’s tombstone. However, as some of Trump’s most reverent supporters will readily proclaim, especially after his near assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, he has divine powers. He parts the sea, turns water into wine, lowers the price of eggs and beef and put in motion one hundred years of world peace.
The 2024 election however had Democrats in the coroner’s office wondering, “Why, Why Lord?” The answer, Democrats were too consumed with Trump. They also were too busy talking to and among themselves and not with the voters.
If Democrats had taken the time to speak and more important listen to the people, the voters they would have been forced to address the question that the people, the voters asked of them, “What does the Democratic party, what do Democrats stand for? We know you are against Trump, but what do you stand for? Why should we vote for your candidates?”
Being against Trump as 77 million people in 2024 clearly showed was not enough.
Republicans over the years have been successful in defining what Democrats and what the Democratic party stood for. They painted Democrats as being weak in defense of the country. Too afraid to stand up to the Soviets and their communist allies.
They painted Democrats and their party as being soft on law and order. Soft on crime. Too concerned about the rights of criminals and not the safety of law-abiding citizens.
They painted the Democrats as too focused on poor people, Blacks and other people of color and not enough about white folks. Later, they painted Democrats as being on the wrong side of the cultural war siding with gays and protesters and against the unborn and police.
Republicans in the last election were highly effective in painting the Democratic candidate for president Vice President Harris as totally responsible for the US southern border being opened. That she personally escorted 25 million brown people all carrying bags and suitcases filled with fentanyl to force on unsuspecting American citizens.
After dropping the fentanyl off they would steal American jobs such as cleaning public bathrooms, picking fruit and vegetables, cutting lawns and washing dishes. In between their two and three jobs, they would be busy raping women and children and murdering Americans.
If that was not enough, they convinced 77 million American voters that transgender people were on a clandestine mission to force American men to wear dresses and American women to not shave. That is not to say Republicans had to promote either of those outlandish notions to gain votes. Clearly, they knew that there would be millions of voters who just were not going to vote for a Black woman to be president.
Democrats without a platform as to what they stand for have been left hoping that Trump will stumble, bumble and fumble to such a degree voters will rush to the polls in 2026 to remove Republican lawmakers who put Trump before the country. Democrats are left to hope that Trump will go through with highly questionable economic policies and actions which crater the economy causing a severe recession.
That Trump and the Republicans One, Big Beautiful Bill turns out to be one big ugly disaster causing American citizens and small businesses one big ugly economic nightmare. They are hoping that world leaders will openly mock Trump for being a clown.
Hoping that citizens in other countries will take their vacation dollars to other countries because Trump’s America was not a place they would want to visit. That leaders of other countries tell Trump to take his tariffs and place them up his butt next to the three double cheeseburgers, two supersize fries and two large diet drinks he just wolf down.
The problem with that strategy is that there will be a significant number of people who just would not care. Donald is their lord and savior.
Democrats must come to understand that the politics of joy, peace, diversity and justice for all may get them to heaven. However, their candidates unfortunately sure as hell are not going to win at the polls.
Republicans have mastered the politics of distrust, division, disinformation and hate. For a significant number of American voters, they go to the polls to vote against and not to vote for someone.
Nevertheless, what is most important for a significant number of American voters is what does the Democratic party stand for? What are you going to do for them?
Staff Writer; Al Alatunji
