Liberal Democrats only have themselves to blame

Five points on Trump's victory over Harris.

Five points on last night election results:

1. This is the first election in twenty years where the Democrat cannot claim to have lost because of third parties. In 2000, of course, they famously blamed Nader for their defeat; but when he ran again in 2004, Kerry lost so badly to George W. Bush that Democrats were unable to point at him a second time around. In 2016, of course, Democrats blamed Jill Stein for costing Clinton states like Wisconsin. But this year Stein only won .4% of the vote in Wisconsin — less than half of the 1 margin Trump won with over Harris.

   
   The same story holds across the board. We will probably hear recriminations against Stein, West, and de la Cruz anyway simply because that’s been the default mode of rationalization among Democrats for so long, but this time around they lost so badly that they have no one to blame but themselves.
   

2. Harris’s strategy of aggressively courting the Republicans was an embarrassing failure. Despite her bewildering decision to spend the final days of her campaign touring with Liz Cheney, Harris underperformed Biden among independents by an 8 point margin, and among Republicans by a 1 point margin.