It’s been a month. Kamala disappeared for most of it, surfacing only to ask for more money to pay unpaid campaign bills. Maybe she should touch base with the Trump campaign on how to handle that, since they still have unpaid bills from 4 years ago… And I could wax poetic about some of Trump’s cabinet picks…

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. With a few weeks of perspective, we have a clearer view of the recent campaign season and election. I know you’ve been waiting for it, so here’s my take.

Let’s be honest: this was the Democrat’s election to lose. It was on them; all they had to do was perform reasonably well, engage the electorate, be marginally more effective than the Republican train wreck.

And they lost. Big. Not only the Presidency, but the majority in the House. This election should be a lesson to pollsters and party committees: how not to run a campaign. Do I think they’ll learn it? Based on their history – No, I don’t.

In this election season, the Democrats proved themselves (again) to be tone-deaf elitists, appealing only to their (very narrow) base and the “never-Trumpers” who really didn’t listen to anybody, anyway; they failed to engage the electorate as a whole. The Republicans did a much better job of it, focusing on the issues that matter in the here-and-now, the day-to-day issues that the majority of us have to deal with. The economy, inflation, grocery prices… Sorry, DNC, but feeding the kids is a little bit higher on the working family’s priority list than EV charging stations.

How they pushed Biden out (deservedly, yes, but the way they did it was awful) and anointed Harris without anything even remotely resembling a Primary process wasn’t a good look, either.

I’m not suggesting that the Republicans aren’t as elitist as the Democrats (both parties are run by billionaires with little clue of how the rest of us live), but they know how to engage the majority of the electorate, on the issues that resonate with the average Joe. And that’s mostly why Trump joins the Hon. Grover Cleveland as the only President elected to non-consecutive terms.

The other big factor in Trump’s win is the peripheral business that has gone on the last few years, which contributed in a big way to the Dem’s losses. I speak, of course, of the legal wrangling against Trump, from the porn-star fiasco to all the election-interference lawsuits. They screwed this up big time.

For the most part – not everything timed out this way, but for the most part – they stalled filing their charges and lawsuits until it would impact the 2024 election cycle. They wanted him – and other Republican candidates – scrambling to answer public outrage over January 6, 2021 instead of campaigning for office. Big mistake. What they failed to realize is that this tactic gave the Republicans the perfect ammunition to claim political manipulation and unfair prosecution, a “witch hunt.” The weaponizing of the Justice Department (Federal or State) by Trump’s political opponents became a much more plausible claim because of this timing, and it cost the Democrats big, invalidating any legitimacy to the legal actions, making it so the Republicans controlled the narrative. Even the porn-star debacle that should have knocked Trump out of the running.

A situation not helped in the slightest by Biden now reneging on his promise not to pardon his son because of political manipulation and unfair prosecution……… Yeah, after all is said and done, Biden throws his own Justice Department under the bus, and proves himself no better than any other politician when it comes to keeping his word. Color me not shocked.

You know I’m not happy with the prospect of another 4 years of a Trump presidency, any more than I’d be happy facing 4 years of Harris as President. But the bottom line is that we’ll get through it. We always do. The pendulum continues to swing.

Image from Steris Healthcare (Steris.com)