Why America Rejected the Biden-Harris Administration

Jonathan Chait: “That half this country could willingly restore Donald Trump to a position of power is a sickening thought. For most liberals, moderates, or people who closely follow news sources not controlled by the Republican Party, it is almost unfathomable.”

“The incomprehension often leads either to despair or denial. Because Trump is so abnormal, so grotesquely narcissistic and cruel, his success seems to upend conventional political assumptions and render his triumph into a kind of black magic. Reality is more banal. The American public has not embraced Trump. The decisive bloc of voters always evinced deep misgivings about Trump’s character and rhetoric, even if they didn’t fully recall all his crimes and offenses (who could?). Trump didn’t win by making people love or even accept him. He won because the electorate rejected the Biden-Harris administration. It is important to clearly discern the sources of that rejection. The work of correction is hard but not complicated.”

“The seeds of Harris’s failure were planted eight years ago, when the Democratic Party responded to Trump’s 2016 victory not by moving toward the center, as defeated parties often do, but by moving away from it. This decision was fueled by a series of reality-distorting blinders on the Democrats’ decision-making elite.”