It’s one thing to lose an election; it’s another to lose your identity. The Democratic Party in 2024 faced both these crises, culminating in Kamala Harris’s defeat to Donald Trump. But the real story isn’t just the loss itself—it’s the timeline. The Democrats didn’t simply wake up to a red wave on election night. They saw it coming, months—if not years—before the polls closed. The warning signs were blaring, yet their response was tepid, constrained by internal contradictions and a miscalculation of their own base’s discontent.
For decades, Democrats relied on their coalition of diverse, working-class, and young voters to carry elections. However, in the Trump era, that coalition began to fracture. By the time Harris inherited Joe Biden’s shaky mantle, the party’s grip on its base had loosened significantly. The cracks had been…