An American Autopsy
Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States. Americans have now voted a convicted felon who has previously been twice impeached and found by legal definitions to be a rapist to the highest office in the land. But this is not entirely the work of the electoral college as unlike 2016 and 2020, Trump managed to make substantial popular vote gains nationwide. Even though the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt managed to win four elections, each by a landslide, Trump will likely become the president-elect to have received the most individual votes of any other person in American history.
What the hell do we do now?
When I first started college and was taking political science classes, 2016 was still on the horizon. The Republican and Democratic Party primaries were beginning to take shape, and it appeared to most that it would be a pretty boring election between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Years earlier, the Republican National Committee had drafted and published their Growth & Opportunity Project, a report to assess how and why Mitt Romney lost in 2012, and laid out steps for how to course correct for 2016. It was an autopsy. It was also a report I read in several classes and used to try and understand where Republicans were going and what they were strategizing.
The RNC autopsy of 2012 is largely forgotten now, with Trump’s ascension in 2016 seemingly an outright rejection of all that this report detailed and called for. However, it’s now more relevant than ever and shows in many ways how the Republican Party dominated in 2024.
The end results are not just Kamala Harris’s fault. They are not just Joe Biden’s fault (though he shoulders more of the blame from a political and strategic perspective). This isn’t a money issue, or a ground game issue, or solely the media’s fault. This is not just a singular or regional issue either; the rightward shift was nationwide. Harris lost ground in nearly every single Democratic stronghold — from New Jersey to Hawaii. Ultimately, Republicans — consciously or subconsciously — embodied the path to success as called upon by this years-old autopsy, and did a better job appealing to more people than Democrats did.
Whether or not it was intentionally called back upon, this report looked at some flaws in the Republican strategy in 2012, almost all of which have since been addressed. Digital and online traffic for core party members? Achieved. Retaining or expanding key demographics such as women and Latino voters? Done. Youth engagement and enthusiasm? Won in spades. Consistent messaging? Absolutely. The Democratic Party will need their own autopsy first and foremost. But even more essential, given who Trump is and what the Republican Party has become, we will need a collective autopsy for America.
This is not a normal election. We have only ever had one other non-consecutive president elected previously (and Grover Cleveland won the popular vote in all three elections he ran in). Trump is not a normal candidate nor a normal president (frankly not even a normal human being). But the rightward shifts seen nationwide are indicative of an underlying problem with the overall American electorate. It speaks to the fact that calls against fascism, calls against authoritarianism or demagoguery, sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all of the other horrors espoused by Trump and his followers will not be enough to win people over. It should — as should facts about economic plans, foreign policy strength, or environmental sustainability — but it won’t. And it didn’t.
So again, what is to be done?
A reckoning will need to occur, and swiftly.
With consequential elections such as these, the actions in the next couple of months and into 2025 will be paramount. History can show us that much.
Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 sparked a wave of southern state’s seceding from the union, in which an incumbent Democratic president, James Buchanan, did nothing, leading to the Civil War the following year. Herbert Hoover attempted to scuttle plans with FDR in his waning days of the presidency, but was ultimately foiled by an energetic and optimistic Roosevelt administration that accomplished more in Roosevelt’s first 100-days of office than any other president since. And in 2004 — of which this election result feels the most similar to me — Democrats were in complete disarray and never could have imagined nominating or electing a Black man to the presidency with a name like Barack Hussein Obama II after an unpopular Republican president who had previously lost the popular vote somehow managed to return victorious with an electoral and popular vote victory.
It will need to be a collective effort if we want to see change, as this is not a singular demographic issue. Party leaders will need to be replaced, already some encouraging signs there. The media needs to scrutinize Trump more acutely than ever, along with the other institutions at work — from the Supreme Court to Congress. Civic education needs to be bolstered to better educate people on what is and isn’t factual or trustworthy, and to adopt new methods of engagement that pry individuals away from their echo chambers. We need to strip back messaging and simplify things. Even enormous rallies and demonstrations may make only miniscule gains. We also need to be wiser with money spent. The Harris camp overwhelmingly lead with individual donors and fundraising efforts, but the results of that lead was negligible. Same with the on-the-ground get-out-the-vote efforts in the most crucial of battle ground states, which amounted to losses more than gains. All the money, volunteers, texts, and emails in the world will do nothing if the voters aren’t buying it, and if the price of gas hasn’t dropped to acceptable levels.
What must happen is smarter and more strategic thinking and messaging. An appeal that can be felt by the average American. And stop to think for a second about “the average American.” They will not read this piece. They will not think about the 2026 midterms or the Supreme Court or international affairs now, or tomorrow, or likely for quite some time. Not unless and not until it impacts their world. And remember, there’s still a lot of people below that average American you may be picturing who will still vote.
How can we, or specifically how can Democrats, do this? Look to the playbooks of the past. You think FDR ran and won four elections in a row thanks to luck? He simplified his message and the core values of the New Deal to make them digestible, even when they were not fully formed (because ultimately, few really care about the details). What most want is comfort. Roosevelt is credited less with solving the Great Depression, but leading the nation through it. He did this by engaging with the average American through new technology — radio — and for the first time ever, the president was speaking to you in your living room.
We need to meet Americans where they are most comfortable and utilize seemingly unorthodox but more than likely less costly means of engagement. And of course, with simplifying a message from a Rooseveltian playbook, will need to use liberal propaganda to get this done. An example of such can be found here. “When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Join a car-sharing club today!” Direct, succinct, in your face, and with an emotional reaction attached to it. (See also Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Daisy Girl” ad).
At the end of this day, the election results are perfectly in line with what many of America’s founders expected, and feared. George Washington rejected a third term in office and rejected a title such as “His Elective Majesty” to ensure a head of state that was attune to the needs of the people. James Madison, author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, warned of the “the danger of demagogues.” John Adams was quoted as saying in 1814, “I cannot say that Democracy has been more pernicious, on the whole, than any of the others. Its Atrocities have been more transient; those of the others have been more permanent. The History of all Ages Shews, that the Caprice, Cruelties, and horrors of Democracy, have soon disgusted alarmed and terrified themselves.” And Thomas Jefferson was an outspoken critic of Andrew Jackson, who came to power on a wave of populist sentiment, saying that Jackson was, “one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place” and that he had “very little respect for law.”
Trump is America to its core. Just as Andrew Jackson. Just as Joe McCarthy, Charles Lindbergh, William Randolph Hurst, Robert Moses, James Buchanan, George W. Bush, Al Capone, John Wilkes Booth, Roy Cohen, Roger Taney, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, David Duke, and countless others.
But in all likelihood if you are reading this, so are you. And so is George Washington. And Abraham Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, John Muir, Tecumseh, Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Clara Barton, Sacagawea, Crazy Horse, Neil Armstrong, Christopher Reeve, Sitting Bull, Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, John James Audubon, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King. Tom Hanks and Meryl fucking Streep.
I’ll end with a photo and a small piece of insight from history. Apathy can and does win out. Connection can too. Connect with others. Connect with yourself and with each other. Just as Democrats, educators, journalists, writers, artists, and critically those in power and those who wish to come to power, must connect to you, others, and the foundational ideals of this nation. Here is a photo of a Union Civil War veteran named James Brown, taken in May 1936, over 70 years after the end of the Civil War. It was claimed that he was 104-years old. He’s holding a photo of Lincoln, whom Brown said he connected with. Even after all this time.
