In the build up to the Presidential election I had heard a lot of talk that Kamala Harris was likely to win, and even win big. At first I was doubtful, as everyone seems to continually underestimate Donald Trump’s appeal, but as the message was repeated I allowed myself to be convinced. I should have trusted my cynicism. 

I won’t list the supposedly crucial factors that would have led to a Harris victory that never materialised. Needless to say, a lot of people now have egg on their face. The Democrats in particular, and liberals and lefties across the world in general, need to have a hard look at themselves.

How did a supremely well qualified and experienced candidate badly lose an election to a ridiculous clown, who is a convicted felon that frequently spouts gibberish and has an authoritarian streak a mile wide? The specifics will come out in the wash, but the left’s complacency has been revealed.

Big problems facing the left across the world

Lots of things have been blamed for Harris’s failure, from swing voters caring more about immigration and inflation than we thought, to the rising cost of living, to incumbents losing elections across the world, to the increasing radicalisation of young men.

All are important, but we can’t point to one issue and claim it alone explains why a dangerous authoritarian has taken control of the world’s largest government machine, army and second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. No one factor can explain the reason for the avalanche of oppression likely to fall on migrants, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people.

Not just an American problem

Nor can we exclusively claim this is an American problem. The toxic mix of outright hatred, nationalism, anti-establishment bile, and conspiracy theories that Trump peddles also led to the election of five Reform MPs in this year’s UK general election, despite a sweeping victory from a centrist party. Labour’s wide but shallow support could mean that in the next election we see a huge victory for a right-wing Tory leader as well as continual growth in support for Reform.

Liberal and left-wing politics is not connecting with voters. What we’re selling, from tolerance towards migrants and trans people to respect for institutions such as universities or a culture that celebrates diversity, is being roundly rejected by swing voters who are delivering victories for increasingly right-wing leaders. Everything from gay rights, to environmental policy to even diversity and inclusion in the work place is under threat.

Harris owned a gun

We need to be clear about why this is happening. The explanation needs to go beyond whether Harris hugged the flag enough, or shaking our heads and saying that voters just don’t want immigration. Harris owned a gun and was as patriotic as the next American. Also, the point of left-wing politics is to encourage tolerance for people and not shrug when the tide of popular opinion turns against immigration and act as if nothing can be done while the concentration camps for migrants spring up all around us.

Yes, the cost of living and inflation has put a lot of pressure on many people’s livelihoods and they’re looking for a leader who will improve their situation. However, it doesn’t automatically follow that people will then want an authoritarian strongman to engage in mass deportations and military trials for his enemies. The question is not why did people want change? It’s, why do they want the change that a far-right thug is offering?

Tired of being lectured

One explanation is that the honest, god fearing, salt of the earth swing voters are fed up with being called racist, sexist and transphobic just for liking first-person shooters, enjoying Ricky Gervais’s latter day material and not knowing the proper pronouns to use for the young staff in their local TK Maxx. The left should get off its high horse about people who aren’t ultra-progressive and on Instagram. Let’s talk more about wages and less about Palestine.

Then again, what these honest, god fearing, salt of the earth swing voters are angry about - aside from low wage growth, which is as much a problem for New York and London’s young professional social media admins as it is for the manual labourers of Wisconsin and Workington - what really makes them resentful of modern society is that there are now women and people of colour in Star Wars.

The left is also not connecting with the swing voters who never, ever, even for one second, shut up about immigration. We are also struggling to win over the people who are opposed to any change to society, are hopping mad at the idea that people in a city miles away from them are living a life they don’t understand or approve of (and some of these people want to do sports) and boil with rage at the thought that somewhere someone is eating a burrito they didn’t earn.

Swing voters won’t support the woke or a woman

This isn’t 2012, 2016 or 2020. The “woke revolution,” whatever it was supposed to be, is dead and buried. Maybe there was a time when left-wing politicians were concerned with tackling micro-aggressions, maybe around the time of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, but those days are long gone. Even AOC talks about aspiration now, and the Labour Party prefers to pal around with big business instead of student activists. Voters might be put off by lefty politics, but the established parties of the left have got the memo and run in the opposite direction. Yet still it wasn’t enough for Harris to win.

Harris was a cop (well, a state prosecutor) who owned a gun and was a vocal supporter of Israel. She wasn’t a 2010s era Tumblr leftie. Yet still the swing voters, at least enough of them to throw the election to Trump the crooked authoritarian, took one look at a woman centrist, cop, patriot, who owns a gun and said that she is a woke extremist and won’t vote for her. Just being a woman is enough to be considered woke unless you act like Katie Hopkins.

Remember these aren’t people marching with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.” We’re talking about the average swing voter. Will the world be a better place after the left becomes even more focused on pandering to the prejudices of angry Boomers? Even if the left can get into power, is it worth it if the cost is throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into the arms race of who can be the nastiest to migrants? My answer to both these questions is no, but I have no idea how we are supposed to change things for the better.

What the left is selling

Why didn’t people think that taxing the rich and reducing the huge expenditure of the American government on war was the solution? Why didn’t people in Britain feel that the solution to years of austerity and poor wage growth was some radical redistribution? Because the left hasn’t made an argument that really connects with people. That’s what stops us changing things for the better.

We blame the media, or the Democratic Party machine, or the age of the electorate, or voters being stupid for the fact that left wing policies aren’t seen as the solutions voters reach for in these times of crisis, but the simple truth is that people don’t want left-wing solutions to their problems. They want right-wing ones.

Maybe Keir Starmer is on to something and the only way for the left or liberals to win over swing voters is by putting forward a bland white man who promises no change, but offers to deliver better than the right on cutting immigration and maximising the gains to be rung from our crumbling economic system. Maybe we do win by ditching commitments on climate change and raising taxes, because people hate lefties and the woke so much that there is no alternative.

Continuing downward spiral

In Britain with a new and even more right-wing Tory leader we need to be wary of Trump’s unexpected victory as we could be looking at an unexpected Tory victory in four or five years. The left needs to get better at arguing our position and convincing people to vote for us. This won’t be easy, but the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Then again, I feel sceptical about my own words. I don’t want politics to become even more geared towards people who only believe in two immutable genders, despise any help going to the poor and will not tolerate any change to the ethnic makeup of their country. If we don’t win over these people then the far-right cleans up. However, the only way to win them over is by becoming right-wing. *Cough* Keir Starmer *Cough*.

An authoritarian thug has just been re-elected President of the United States in a result that will be terrible for democracy, the environment, people of colour, women, LGBTQ+ people and anyone opposed to our continuing civilisational downward spiral into oblivion. The left needs to get better at making our arguments or this disaster will only be the beginning of the nightmare we find ourselves in. The problem is, how do we convince the people who don’t want to wake up from the nightmare?

Donald Trump picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.