KINSELLA: Reasons why Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won

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Kamala Harris lost. Donald Trump won. How come?

Ten reasons.

1. Kamala Harris. She lost because of her. Not because of anything she said or did; she was a great candidate. She lost because of something she couldn’t control. She’s a woman. By now, it’s clear that America isn’t going to vote for a woman to be president anytime soon. The Democrats have tried twice. That glass ceiling will remain intact for years to come, and that is a sad thing.

2. The Democratic VP pick. Tim Walz is a nice guy. He has a rural, aw-shucks persona that is hard to dislike. But – as this writer said, over and over – the fight was always going to come down to the so-called blue wall (Michigan, Wisconsin and, notably, Pennsylvania). So why didn’t the Dems pick Josh Shapiro, the very-super-highly-popular Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania? Because he’s a proud Jew, it seems. Harris’ team were nervous about the antisemitic vote in Michigan and chose wrong. Shame on them.

3. Joe Biden. Full disclosure: I worked, hard, for Joe Biden when he won. I believed in him, for his decency and his experience. But the presidency aged him, badly. The one debate he had with Trump showed that to millions of Americans. After that train wreck, Biden delayed and denied the inevitable. Loyalists like me said he had to go. When he finally did, he only gave Harris 100 days to establish herself as a viable candidate. It wasn’t enough time. Biden’s hubris defeated Harris.

4. Israel. Israel, as the terrible events in Amsterdam on Thursday reminded the world, is no longer just a country. Israel is now a test of one’s morality. It is a mirror, held up to reveal who favours civilization and decency, and who favours barbarity and cruelty. Since October 7, 2023, Jews – not the Israeli government – have again been made history’s victims. Did the Democratic Party fail that morality test? It did.

5. Inward. The United States of America has turned inward. Its people no longer want to be the global police officer. They no longer want liberalized trade. They no longer care about NATO or Ukraine or Taiwan. Donald Trump is a damn fool, but he is smart enough to know that America has turned inward. The Democratic Party – always the internationalists – didn’t. They paid the price.

6. Economy. If Trump goes ahead with his reckless tariffs plan, it will re-start inflation, and possibly even tank the global economy. Why? Because if a supplier of a commodity – grains, softwood, beef, auto parts, you name it – is hit with a tax, what do they do? They pass the cost along to the consumer, and inflation returns with a vengeance. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, didn’t pay sufficient attention to their own polling, which showed most Americans were unhappy (like most Canadians) because of the cost of living. Donald Trump, the Fifth Avenue billionaire, understood that. Why didn’t Democrats?

7. Border. Canada and the United States are countries created by immigrants and refugees. Everyone knows that. But when Hispanics – the biggest immigrant demographic in the U.S. – vote for the man who has likened them to rapists and murderers, and who he wants to deport, well, you have a big problem, Democrats. Bringing in people when you don’t have housing for them? Cruel. Bringing in people who carry with them hatreds acquired in other places? Madness. The Democrats understood they had a border problem, but only too late. Trump got there first.

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8. Conservatives. Small c, not large C. Around the world, conservative parties are on the march. They have a smaller voter base across Western democracy. So why are they winning elections? Because they know important political choices are decided in voters’ guts, not in their heads. And because progressives chose pronouns over principles.

9. Media. I’m a (mainly) progressive who works at a conservative media outlet. The conservatives around me rarely agree with me, but they welcome my voice. Why weren’t Harris and the Democrats like them? Why did she hide from media for weeks, when she needed to be defining herself? Why didn’t she go on Joe Rogan? The media paradigm has changed, folks. But the Democrats are still trying to satisfy the editorial board at the New York Times. They had those people! They needed new people!

10. Whites. I’m a white, straight male. I’m privileged, and I know it. But in 2024, it would be kind of nice if the Democrats – and the Canadian Liberals, for that matter – occasionally regarded me as a citizen, and always not the devil incarnate. Would it have killed them to do that? Apparently. So, white males killed them, the first chance they got.

Anyway. There’s 10 reasons. What are the biggest ones she lost? I’ve got 134,000. In Wisconsin, 18,000 votes. In Michigan, 38,000. In Pennsylvania, 78,000.

Those are the 134,000 main reasons Kamala Harris lost. If those votes had swung the other way, she’d be president-elect. Period. Just under 2% of the vote in three states.

That’s why she lost, and he won.