dig.ni.fy Winter Issue - January 2025 | Page 39

politic. This was true across the world, and the democrats suffered from this reality.

2.The Middle Layer is 'The Type of Campaign You Run' - when top of ticket runs below senate and congressional candidates, it is not a winning ticket – i tdoesn’t make sense. Democrats failed to make the case that Democrats were the thin blue line that would protect voters from special interests that are going to run rampant through Washington, D.C. – whether technology, oil & gas, etc. That should have been the core argument, and the democrats did not make the case.

3.The Lower Level is 'This Moment in Time' – Democrats after COVID became viewed as the establishment at a time when most Americans, for the first time in history, didn’t believe their children face a better future than they did. And Democrats talked like the establishment, using complex wording that comes out of academe instead on common language that people understand. Moreover, the Democrats didn’t have a single playbook that applied to everyone: instead, they had one that applied to the elites and one that applied to everyone else.

Emanuel concluded Democrats need “to establish a wider connectivity, where the values and ideals that we believe in we’re going to fight for; and they are wider than the loudest voice.” Moreover, he argued, the public believes the democratic party is more controlled by the far left, than the republic party is controlled by the far right. Thus, if Democrats are to be successful, they need to reestablish not only the fact Democrats are a coalition party, but no one voice is bigger than the totality and singularity of its voice.9

This seems to make a lot of sense. It accounts for the anger and blame post-COVID, and how that has been directed at the incumbent. It explains the lack of clear and consistent messaging of the Democrats, which presented them as being elite and out of touch. And it resonates with the point made earlier that at least 40 percent of the electorate is not made up by either registered Democrats (30 percent) or Republicans (30 percent). It is a version of ‘build a bigger tent.’

A Different Take

However interesting, what is missing from these cases is not what the Democrats did wrong but what Trump did right: that is, what actions – whether perceived as ethical or not – he and his campaign undertook that tipped the tide in his favor. Only then might it be possible to learn some lessons that prove valuable in understanding what happened.

The Economy – Particularly Inflation

Trump readily embraced the adage, first coined by James Carville during the Clinton campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid.” And Trump also drove home the question Reagan asked in his successful campaign: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” In making the case it was about the economy, how people viewed their economic well-being and prospects for the future, Trump argued not only had the economy performed better when he was president, but that inflation was under control.

Neither of these claims proved true. GDP under Biden was significantly higher than under Trump; and yes, inflation started to rise in October-November 2024 and there are concerns going forward, but consensus exists Biden had pretty much tamed inflation during his tenure.10 These factors were, of course, known to the voting public. What was also understood was that 16 Nobel laureates said Trump’s economic plan would reignite inflation, particularly his use of tariffs. And a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics said his plan would also significantly increase consumer prices. But Trump ignored the facts and studies, choosing instead to push false claims. Trump was not interested in playing fair by being accurate. His goal was to win the election.

Trump understood what Rahm Emanuel noted: people had just gone through a horrible pandemic that produced a significant loss of lives and savings, not to mention great uncertainty concerning the future. He knew that, though his early policies around COVID

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