Wednesday Morning Quarterback… Four Years Ago

Republican former President Donald Trump handedly defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, and liberals have begun second guessing their strategies and choices that led to her defeat. Many consider whether Harris could have won had she (or the Democratic establishment that surrounded her) selected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as a running mate. The popular governor might have been able to help Harris win the Keystone State (which she lost) and had more Jews support her in other races, perhaps delivering Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

The reality is that Harris and the Democrats fought a very good race – considering the TOP of the ticket. Bringing in Harris late in the election cycle, limiting her interviews to prevent gaffes, and making the election about her not being Donald Trump was smart. However, it could not overcome the Biden-Harris term being deeply unpopular and Harris could not separate herself from the administration in which she served.

The correct question for Democrats this Wednesday morning was not what they did wrong over the past few months but what they did FOUR YEARS AGO. Specifically, choosing Harris as the Vice President because she was a Black woman, and allowing the nation’s border to be overrun.

Harris never won a single delegate in her 2020 run for the president. She had a voting record as a member of the alt-left coming from a radically woke state. Had Biden chosen a moderate and qualified candidate from one of the seven swing states, the 2024 election would have been much easier for the Democrats to secure. Opting to pick a person a heartbeat from the presidency purely because of her intersectionality characteristics was more than a blunder.

In addition, the Biden-Harris failure at the borders put Americans at risk. Americans listed it as one of the key considerations in selecting a president along with the economy (in which people also preferred Trump), well above abortion rights. But the Democratic machinery was tethered to the reality of the past four years, even as they attempted to make the race about democracy and women’s rights.

Democrats began to get tough on the border late in the term but the impact was already present, much like the soaring inflation of Biden-Harris’s first years in office leveled off, but the cumulative effect was already baked into everyone’s daily living. Wars in Ukraine and Israel made the world feel unsafe and rudderless.

Picking Josh Shapiro as the VP might have helped Harris win the 2024 election but it would have just covered up bad choices of the last four years. The takeaway should be more strategic to develop better tactics for the future, not just thinking about the choice of VP in the immediate race.

Americans voted for the economy and safety. Just like Israel. As long as Democrats appear as the party of redistributing wealth, defunding the police and porous borders, with left-wing politicians from left-wing states as their spokespeople, they will continue to lose races they could have won.