By Ishaan Gollamudi
We’re fucked. If you’ve been online in the past four weeks, you have an at least passing awareness of the distinct dimensions of our “fucked-ness.” If you haven’t, I can only assume it’s because you’ve been navigating the trek to Canada’s southern border; I believe that’s the next planned PSO trip as well. Either way, you’ve likely acknowledged — if not accepted — Trump’s re-election, and his well-publicized and increasingly absurd parade of cabinet picks has given you little choice otherwise.
This article, however, is not about that. The primary purpose of this article is to give historians a catchy pull-quote when they write their analyses of the last days of the American Empire (see “we’re fucked”). But, while I have this platform, the secondary purpose of this article is to dissect the Democratic Party’s missteps. There are a nauseating number of articles on this already, but I figured I would throw my hat into the ring, too. I can write in complete sentences, make pseudo-intellectual pronouncements about people I’ve never met and I’m unshakably convinced that my brilliant political insights will be the masses’ salvation.
Let’s start with the stakes of this election, as defined by the Democratic Party: a final bulwark against the wave of fascism that four criminal probes couldn’t stem. Yet in defense of democracy and the liberties of millions of Americans, the Democrats put up Joe Biden. For most of the 2024 election cycle our “final bulwark” was Joe Biden, a walking ad for hospice care with a 36% approval rating. Our sole alternative to facism was a man who could be out-debated by his own CPAP machine, and the Democratic Party considered this a winning political strategy. Apparently the Party’s appeal to the working class was demonstrating that they know carpentry too: they can nail their own coffin shut.
But, eventually, the Democrats nominated Kamala Harris, seizing upon the wave of relief at Biden dropping out to cover the fact that they were running the same playbook: not being Trump. Unfortunately, Americans like Trump, and therein lies the issue. If you’re a Puget Sound student or Democratic political consultant, you likely have no idea why people voted for Trump. If you’re white, and therefore either a Puget Sound student or Democratic political consultant, you’re especially bewildered that any brown people voted for Trump. Unfortunately, I was sworn to secrecy about the latter at our last brown people meeting. I can’t speak to the former either, but I have an excuse: the fate of our democracy doesn’t rest on me getting elected.
Letting Joe Biden run for re-election was bad. But refusing to engage with your constituents and understand why they chose Donald Trump over you is incontrovertibly damning. With the fate of our democracy and the rights of millions of Americans at stake, your best strategy was playing to an extinct species of “moderate Republicans” instead of talking to real people. Kamala Harris didn’t lose because of Latinos, leftists or whatever group liberals have decided to scapegoat on X/Twitter. Harris lost because the Democratic Party is out of touch, and the only reason the Republican Party isn’t in the same position is because, by sheer dumb luck, someone who can actually appeal to Americans fell into their lap.
As a result, women in particular are staring down the barrel of a future without bodily autonomy or dignity. Because an actual apology email from the Harris-Walz campaign seems increasingly unlikely, I’ll apologize on their behalf: I’m sorry women.