Exemplary and moved, Kamala Harris offered Donald Trump what she had denied Joe Biden four years earlier: the recognition of defeat. On Wednesday, November 6, the Democratic candidate addressed her followers, gathered at Howard University in Washington, to recognize the result of the presidential elections.
“This principle, more than any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny.” she said. The vice president, who had spoken with the winner, promised to help him during the transition. Kamala Harris promised that “The light of America’s promise will always shine, as long as we don’t give up and keep fighting.” Despite the magnitude of their defeat, there was no trace of regret, only gratitude toward the inconsolable activists. “I’m very proud of the race we ran and the way we ran it. »
Jen O’Malley Dillon, his campaign manager, struck an identical tone in her thank-you note to volunteers. “They faced unprecedented headwinds and obstacles that were largely beyond their control,” she wrote. Then came the big denial. “We knew it was going to be a race within the margin of error, and it was. » No. It was a defeat. There was no distance or self-criticism about the strategy followed. Maybe it wasn’t the time.
For months, a powerful confirmation bias has dominated the Democratic field and among most commentators. It consisted of finding in every excess, in every inconsistency of Donald Trump, confirmation of his extremism, to which Americans could not decently access.
When Kamala Harris spoke of the need to reconcile the country, tired of the chaos of the Trump era, she overlooked another priority of a majority of the population: expressing their discontent with the chosen course. Violent loss of purchasing power, modification of identity markers, immigration issue, rejection of costly and endless military adventures abroad, even by proxy: all this has coagulated to form a desire for alternation.
A legitimist, fearful and conventional democratic apparatus
The autopsy of the political disaster will take time, on the Democratic side. Start with political evidence. At 81 years old, Joe Biden should not have been a presidential candidate again. In 2020 he promised to be a figure of generational transition. He went back on his word, offering no clear explanation for his stubbornness, while he was affected by his diminishing abilities. Finally, his unpopularity had no hope of return, too anchored in time. But the president was counting on massive rejection of Donald Trump. The democratic apparatus, legitimist and fearful, did not dare to challenge his decision.
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