Light at the End 

Experts

All of the experts, most of the amateurs, and just a few damned fools; will tell you why Kamala Harris lost the election.  They say, she was too “woke”, or she was too “lib”, or for some, not “lib” enough.  Maybe her greatest mistake was she failed to pay obeisance to Joe Rogan, and spend three hours in Texas with him.   Or she didn’t move far enough away from Biden on the issue of Israel’s destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon. (Of course, Trump’s election gives Netanyahu free rein to do whatever he wants – so if that was a reason to vote against Harris, it sure backfired).

And then there’s those other things she didn’t do.  She didn’t take enough credit for the Biden Administration’s successes on infrastructure, on industrial development, on jobs and the economy.  And she didn’t give the relatively simple explanations for her change on the “fracking question”, or the more significant questions about inflation.  

Occam’s Razor 

Add all of that together, and maybe it impacts a million voters (if that).  Joe Biden got 81 million votes in 2020.  Harris has 71 million, with perhaps another 4 million still to be counted (most in California).  That still puts her short 6 million votes.  And Trump got basically the same as he did in 2020.  So it’s clearly not a “flop” of Biden to Trump.  It’s simply that 6 million Biden voters stayed home.

The “Occam’s Razor” answer to the Harris turnout is simple, and saddening.  If we look at the last five Presidential elections it seems obvious.  In 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama was a Black man who won large victories.   Hillary Clinton in 2016, was a White woman who won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College.  In 2020, Joe Biden was a White man who won the most popular votes in history, and the Electoral College.  And in 2024, Kamala Harris, a Black woman, lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College, to a former President who is a convicted felon.

Misogyny

Is it really that simple?  Is nearly half of America so biased against women, White or Black, that they will literally vote for a twice-impeached, convicted felon, ex-President?  It seems that the “Occam’s Razor” answer is clear:  misogyny wins out.

And while I absolutely hate to give the Trump campaign any credit at all; they did recognize how to exacerbate that misogyny.  Take the entire disgusting but effective transgender campaign: from manly looking women on the basketball courts to the dreaded “girls’ restroom stalker”, to the young adolescent boy in hospital gown waiting to be “reassigned”: it was all about “protecting women”.   And the candidate said the quiet part out loud:  “I will protect women, whether they like it or not”.  He took away their agency, their right to make their own decisions. 

And for a significant portion of the Nation, both male and female, the abortion rights argument also “fed” the “men know better” principle.  Trump’s Party was the Party of “life”, even as Trump himself distanced himself with his line of “letting the states decide”.  That shrewd ideological move wasn’t really all about the “sanctity of life”.  It was about restricting the agency of women.  And the final point:  if women can’t decide about abortion, if women need to be protected from “transgendered stalkers”, then how could a woman possibly be President, the Nation’s “Protector”?

Harbinger

Let me be clear:  I hate the conclusion.  I don’t want “Our America” to be this place.  I truly believe that women in general, and Kamala Harris in particular, are eminently qualified to be President of the United States.  The United States has moved quickly:  it was only twenty years ago that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a national policy for the military.  It was only a decade ago that the Supreme Court allowed for same-sex marriages nationwide.  And it has only been in the past few years that the public discussion of transgendered rights has “come out”.   

Many thought that the whole “woman” issue was settled.  But we need to remember: the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), sent to the states for ratification in 1972, never became part of the Constitution.   That underlying misogyny has never been fully addressed.  Even today, women, on average, make 16% less than men for the same job.  For a significant part of the Nation, women need to “be protected”, not “followed”. 

It isn’t likely that the second Trump Administration will further women’s rights.  But what it will do is sharpen those women who are willing to fight for their agency.  The battles against backward Trumpism will go on; and women will lead the struggle.  Harris, even in losing, ranks fourth (behind Biden, Trump and Trump) in the number of votes gained by a Presidential candidate.  That beats Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and George W Bush.  The margin is narrowing.  And may that’s a harbinger for the future, a “light at the end of the tunnel”.  I hope.