The post-mortems that Dems go through every time we lose an election are brutal and stupid. Everything is thrown at the wall, we argue for months over tiny issues that we’re sure lost us the election.

This one is simple:

From TPM Reader RL …

Good morning, my name is R(***) L(***) and I’ve been a long time reader going back probably 15+ years. I really enjoy reading your content, and lately I’ve been listening to your podcast as well. I’m listening to Episode 348 and just wanted to offer Miss Riga support on her analysis – at around 19:00 – that while we should be mindful of the message and how we shape it and who we target as Democrats, whether you are a progressive Democrat or (like myself) a pro-labor Democrat. I’m really aware of the fact that as a firefighter, we have firehouse kitchen table talks daily. I am constantly finding myself saying “Where are you getting your information from?” And the reality is that people are in their own bubble because of social media and the way people consume media now. 

From TPM Reader AJ …

Twenty-two year reader here.  I came back for a visit today looking for some astute commentary with grim humor, but there’s none to be found — which is appropriate, given the circumstances.

Last night, and like many others, I felt ill upon realizing that this was the new political reality: an unabating descent into authoritarianism and autocracy.  As a lawyer, I cannot imagine what is going to happen to our federal judiciary — both the Supreme Court and otherwise.  I know that my illness has become a chronic one.  I know that it won’t go away, and it may even result in my/our demise.  Nevertheless, I feel oddly calm.

More concretely, in analyzing the election results, I want to offer the following thoughts

From TPM Reader TS …

A period of reflection and stand down might make sense.  Two things will need to happen going forward in 2025:

From TPM Reader DC …

I’ve been alternating between depression, anger, and bewilderment today. I see things like

At issue [regarding Jack Smith], per NBC, is the long-standing DOJ policy we became so familiar with in Donald Trump’s first term: that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

And I think, at this point who the fuck cares about “long-standing DOJ policy”?! It’s also long-standing DOJ policy that a president doesn’t summarily fire independent counsels investigating him. If only Biden had just fired the investigators of Hunter he could have been done with it. But no, we have to follow long-standing policy. Trump can do whatever he wants, but the rest of us are just chumps.

From TPM Reader JG …

Usually I agree with your takes, but not with what seems to be your acceptance of the idea that the Trump victory was part of the global rejection of incumbents because of post-pandemic misery.  The failures were two:  first, Biden’s signal failure to educate the American public about the post-pandemic situation and what his policies were doing to get us through this period.  We see the trade off: a few more points of unemployment means suffering for a relatively small group but reduces inflationary pressures that would lead to price increases for the population as a whole.  Inflation — precisely because it expresses itself across the general population is politically riskier than protecting the well-being of the otherwide unemployed, a fraction of the population.  You can defend the policy choice for more stimulus on grounds of compassion and the common enterprise, but do recall any such case?  I don’t.  You know Bill Clinton would have been making that case.  And more generally to explain and defend success in navigating the post-pandemic environment.  

Our publishing interface tells me I’ve written well over 40,000 posts in just shy of 24 years doing this. The ones I remember most clearly are the ones I wrote after big electoral defeats and shocks. I think of 2004 and 2016, and then, of course, the more subsidiary setbacks. I think about what I believe people need to — or what would be helpful for them to — hear, or what scaffolding of analysis or meaning one can use to begin to construct a place to house those feelings of shock, disappointment, desolation. More than anything else I try to capture the truth of the matter as I’m able to make sense of it. Because that’s my real job.

What did this mean? Why did this happen?