As of this writing, Donald Trump has just flipped the state of Arizona to claim all seven swing states and claim an impressive 312-226 electoral college final victory over Kamala Harris and return to the White House; avenging his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.

Trump also won the popular vote by some 3.5 million votes. The election was over well before Trump won the Grand Canyon state. However, the final scorecard illustrates how complete the defeat of the Democrats was. The Republicans also took control of the senate and are on the verge of taking control of the house to give them full control of Congress. 

Naturally, a post-mortem analysis has already begun to understand what went wrong for the Democratic Party. Pundits, political insiders and social media have already begun the blame game. White women, misogyny, racism and even George Clooney have been offered up as reasons why the election was so one-sided. The problem with this is it doesn’t address the cause of the defeat.

Many Americans have been struggling with the cost of living due to inflation over the past four years. An exit poll released by CNN on Tuesday found that 67% of voters described the economy as “not good or poor”.   This despite unemployment being “historically low.” Why might this be the case?

The reasons are the following: Many Americans who work more than one job are struggling to survive because the cost of living is so high and wages, particularly in blue collar jobs have remained stagnant for decades despite a sharp uptick in productivity.

Many Americans who actually have well paid jobs can’t own their own home because house prices are too high. The Biden administration failed to address these economic issues during the last four years.        

What did not help Kamala Harris was that she was part of a presidency that gave billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine and Israel. Whatever anyone thinks about the merits of the aid is redundant. The point is that when millions of your own people are struggling to live from paycheque to paycheque, giving out billions in aid is not a good look.

Working class Americans voted for Trump in droves

Another issue that hurt Harris was the border, especially because she was specifically tasked with making sure the border was secure. She failed miserably in this task and there is no doubt that this hurt her on election day.

The Democratic Party as an organisation deserves its share of the blame. Ever since the ascent of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, the Democrats have adopted a neoliberal economic policy that left their voter base, i.e. working-class people, behind (although some have also stated that this shift began under Jimmy Carter).

Working class Americans voted for Trump in droves. It won’t be easy to get back these voters unless the party changes significantly. The obsession with identity politics and cultural issues over economic concerns also backfired spectacularly, with 21% of black men and a record number of Latinos voting for Trump.  

It was a big mistake to anoint Harris as the nominee without an open primary. Apart from being undemocratic, it ensured that the best candidate to be the nominee was not allowed to be found the right way; through democratic, fair competition. Also, the fact that Harris herself was a weak candidate to begin with did not help. From her constant word salads to the fact that she flip-flopped on several issues, Americans were left with a feeling of not being sure who they were voting for.

With Trump, at least they knew exactly what they were getting. Harris also stated that she wouldn’t have changed anything in the past four years. This was a big mistake as firstly she missed an opportunity to differentiate herself from Biden and secondly it showed that she was tone deaf to the legitimate concerns of voters.

If the Democratic Party wants to return to winning ways, it needs to do away with its obsession with identity politics and corporate fealty and return to its roots as a broad-based movement for the betterment of the working and middle classes. The sooner it does this, the more chance it has of returning to power.

Mark Manduca has a Master’s degree in Diplomatic Studies from the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies.