Election 2024 Post-Mortem - Jon Stewart with Heather Cox Richardson
By: The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
I think that's really important that the right-wing emphasized things that ordinary Americans had to fear that were not real... and they erased the things that are real
Jon discusses the fallout from the Presidential election with Professor Heather Cox Richardson, the author of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.
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From the transcript (Professor Cox Richardson) :
So, in other words there isn't going to be any self-reflection from democrats on why they lost so decisively. They are just going to condemn the voters?
Are you self reflecting on why you voted for a traitor?
The dems lost because they went crazy left.
Keep doing it.
Vic, you oughta listen to the video, you might learn something.
I'm going by what members are saying, and I responded to post # 2 btw. I haven't heard one democrat member here say that either Biden or Harris made a single mistake. All I hear is condemnation of the American people.
Which candidate running for president was the traitor, because we have not seen any charges?
you
and the right won because they voted for the worst presidential candidate in american history
The people won and they are going to keep wining.
That certainly says a lot since Harris lost.
for a traitor who is now above the law
That is hardly the take away from the excerpt. Everybody must look at the election with clear eyes to determine why the voters voted they way they did. This must take into account the actual facts as they exist on the ground, and peoples perceptions and feelings about those facts because perceptions and feelings are what motivates an individual to vote.
Recognizing reality is difficult for some. People get told a story or narrative and choose whether to believe it or not. In voting, it is a personal decision as well as a community and cultural one, and the decision is largely based on the total lived experience and partly on issues that will affect the individuals/communities path forward.
Presumably you have chosen to accept the once and future king figure's story. As such you must be very knowledgeable about his plans.
???
They did not go crazy left. They had a more centrist coalition than Trump did.
I love typos.
Really 75 million people won. The rest of the 330 million have to deal with the fallout. And then in 4 years we can throw his ass out of office, again.
left of center is crazy left to 180 degrees to the right maga autocrats ...
we won't have to, with his health and mental state, odds are he'll be leaving feet first ...
Unfortunately then we'll have to deal with Vance. Then in 2028, coke-head Trump Jr.
The right won because they told lies, big lies, and kept repeating them. To paraphrase.
I would like to see the answers to those questions myself. Let me know if he answers them
I wouldn't hold your breath ...
Is that because he doesn't have any?
I see this "Make America Great Again" going about as well as the "Great Leap Forward" ....
Vance, with all his oddities, is more stable and rational than Trump.
based upon vance's demeanor and despite his verbal rhetoric, his wife holds his leash ...
That is like saying, "I would rather fall into a chipper shredder than be rendered limb from limb."
Much of the craziness of Vance comes from being in the position to have to defend Trump at any cost. There is no way to do that without being duplicitous.
Free from the Trump shackles, Vance would be much more rational albeit an uber-conservative authoritarian.
Remember, Vance originally was spot on about the character and dangers of Trump. He is not as much of a loose-cannon as Trump, is more rational, smarter, less vindictive, and I think would actually try to uphold the CotUS and US law.
Vance is NOT my choice for a PotUS because he has proven that he will sell his soul, but if I had a choice between Trump and Vance, I would take Vance in a heartbeat.
vance sold out and gambled his way to within reach of the top. the odds of him dropping into the top slot are actually pretty good ...
Yes, Vance has done well for himself.
you could see he add
Once you taste power, it consumes. Vance will laugh if Trump dies and consolidate power. He appears to be much smarter than Trump but lack the (ick) personal charm.
We have the supreme court to look at. People don't live forever, and if Trump dies after the halfway point, that is potentially 14 years of crazy in the Whitehouse, during which Trumpublicans will get to appoint and anoint any vacancies. And lest we forget how we got to this twisted court in the first place, with the Senate under R control, there is an extremely good chance that Rs will get to pack the court even more.
I see darkness on the horizon. All of the the people saying MAGA is nothing to fear have not looked into the abyss because they are not yet aware of an abyss. I want to join in their optimistic, "Oh, it'll be alright!" attitude, but if Trump gets to do even a quarter of what he says he is going to do, there will be governmental chaos and economic upheaval. Trump is not merely instituting a new cabinet. He is attempting to fundamentally restructure government and end government regulations, instituting a kleptocracy.
So, sure, sit back and sip on a nice mint-julip while Trump takes this great nation and makes a filthy hole of it. It'll be alright.
... so has peter thiel.
Perhaps you left out an "h" in 'whining'. In this election, everybody lost, it's just half of America doesn't know it yet because apparently, they're just too God damn gullible to realize it. And yes, I get it, the lowest common denominator will continue to spout bullshit as if they're somehow "winning" over the fictional "deep state" and the "Godless gays" and their "gay agenda" while they force women to flee their States to access reasonable women's reproductive rights. It really is sad to realize how far this great nation has fallen where half the country could be bamboozled by a lying cheating convicted felon and accused sexual predator and rapist all because they hate the other half of the country who keeps pointing out the underbelly racism, sexism and anti-lgbtq sentiments that some bigoted pieces of shit continue to cling to.
Or...they have and they delight in it. trmp promises authoritarianism and the chance to see the Gay Marriage SCOTUS ruling overturned, LGBTQs returning to the closet because they need to keep their jobs and their housing. Gutting of essential regulations that keep our food and water safe. And worker safety? Forget about it. OSHA regulations will be gutted where there won't even be an OSHA.
So MAGA...you wanted it. You're going to get it. Hail to the Dictator
Lol. Just like it happened between 2016 and 2021.
Some of us just choose not to be afraid.
good for you
but I'm gonna love I told ya so especially when gas prices don't fall below 2 bucks before Memorial Day
Well let's talk.
I didn't vote for him. I voted for the gay libertarian dude. It was a perfect fit for me because I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Which means I don't think it's any of my business what adults get up to, as long as they pay for it themselves. Also, Trump is too crooked and Harris is too stupid.
So I don't have delusions that he's going to reduce prices or improve education or cure the trade deficit or "fix" healthcare or any of the other things every politician promises to do while knowing they have almost no power to do it.
But that's also why he doesn't scare me. He's one of those guys who bullshit to accomplishment ratio is about 100,000 to 1. He is all talk and no action or all bark and no bite or all hat and no cattle or whatever similar metaphor is your favorite.
Look at his first term. We didn't "repeal and replace", we don't have a border wall, we didn't "lock her up". The only thing he really got accomplished was simplifying the form to file taxes. That just doesn't seem like it's all that terrible.
The real tragedy is that we have to listen to him blather, but we each have control over that.
The House is probably going to turn over in 2026, he'll probably be impeached on some nonsensical foolishness again, and we'll all get on with our lives.
A false world, perhaps known as MAGA.
oh look, Khrushchev was right all along ... /s
People believe what Trump says.
As sickening (and incredible) as this might be, the election results illustrate that people actually believe this pathological lying con-man.
Because it is not just Trump saying it. The "news" sources for quite a few, if not most, Trump voters Includes many podcasters and people outside the legacy media who are not constrained in any way by journalistic integrity, who reinforce and amplify his skewed narrative. This is a cultural reflection. I happen to think that we were moving in the right direction, but now I feel that we are most definitely not.
Spot on!
Narratives that resonate are what wins elections.
BTW, I am not saying that there are not media (I just spelled it "mefia", which in Trump's case seems rather serendipitously apropos) for the left which do not spread lies and misinformation. But Trump was telling the people what they wanted to hear, no matter how false it actually was.
He said we had a failed economy, which resonated not because it was untrue, but because people were still hurting under the effects of inflation and the high interest rates that resulted to try and tame inflation.
He said that criminal immigrants were illegally crossing the border by the millions and classified them all as evil, pet-eating sub-humans. Are they? No. Why did this resonate with Trump voters? Because he said that he is going to send them back. He used the scarcity of resources argument to claim that these immigrants were freeloading off of the government while citizens were being left high and dry. If one believes this argument, then one believes that the government is being unfair.
Which is particularly disconcerting. It indicates how easily people can be persuaded and how ignorant so many are of the economy.
Prices are higher than they should be and that is a real problem. But the solution is a function of the market operating over time. There is no action that a PotUS can do to fix the problem as realized. Selective price gouging can be addressed, but the general problem of high prices and high interest rates will be resolved by market forces.
Too many do not understand that our current economy is in great shape and that it is still in the process of self-correcting. Too many think that a PotUS has magical power over the economy. So if a candidate has no ethics and is willing to lie his ass off and the media has insufficient balls to call him out on his outrageous claims and so many sycophants on YouTube, etc. dishonestly repeat the propaganda from the liar in chief, the end result is the election of a scoundrel.
I don’t disagree with anything that you said, but and it’s a big but, the perception of those that voted for Trump was that they were not better off and it is difficult to convince them they are better off by using the Dow or any other metric that is not their own situation, the same applies for the border.
It’s not magic and those that didn’t show to vote just took a different path, no vote vs vote for Trump.’
Trump has a couple of years to keep his promises and the rubber will met the road again only not in his favor.
I saw an interview with the Republican Senator from Wyoming and he was questioned on deporting all the illegals and he said what ever it takes to do it until the interviewer told him what the cost would be for deporting one million illegals and it was $. Billion and after they he started dodging all the question about deporting illegals.
I have no idea if that figure is correct but it will not be cheap and we’ll see that happens in Jan of 25.
I agree. In hindsight, I cannot imagine how Harris could have dealt with high prices better than what she stated. The reality is that the price of goods was NOT a result of the Biden administration and that the remedy for the high prices is not within the power of any PotUS. So all she could do is pull a Trump and just lie her ass off. But she does not have the teflon coating of Trump so that would fail.
There was not enough time to educate the electorate on how the economy actually works and I do not believe many would accept the explanation anyway.
Prices and the border were the key factors against Harris. That was obvious. What is surprising, to me, is that the electorate overlooked the outrageous and voluminous negatives of Trump and elected that scoundrel. And that they believe he can perform some magic with prices. And worse, Kavika, that they do not understand that Trump's tariffs would trigger inflation yet again.
80 billion a year to deport one million I believe.
Mass deportation would come with hefty bill, require more …
Oct 27, 2024 · The American Immigration Council estimated that it could cost $88 billion annually to deport one million people a year. The removal of millions of construction, hospitality and …
Lol.
Donald Trump, lol.
I forgot to put the $ amount in. It was $88 billion.
Do you have a figure for the deportation, Sean. If not it is your usual nonsense.
The tariff will explode the cost of goods and inflation, that is basic Econ, but it was avoided or ignored by many.
The cost of deportation will be massive as will many of his other plans like NO TAXES.
No, trusting the numbers from an open borders advocacy group funded by Soros is nonsense.
They did not wish to hear anything that contradicted the one who would constantly tell them it wasn't their fault, even when his lies were like non covert spies, blatantly false and often outlandish, but it is what they Wanted to hear and they did. And as he blamed anything and everything on either the immigrants or the Dems and the Biden Administration, which made an easy target for so many's frustration, as they held it dear while the massive crime wave of illegal immigrates immigration, plagued our lands, raping, pillaging, and murdering all that they can.
Meanwhile, back in reality land, crime had reduced significantly, and all those policies Biden and Harris had implemented causing this terrible high inflation, somehow could be undone just by a Trump innawegerration...
And Fox , Newsmax, and all far 'right' while so wrong outlets echoed the faux news forward, taking us all, backwards, years , if not decades, while the Repubs parroted the lies to pursue power over a country, over our Country. Disgust, as witnessed was their blatant lust for power, and violation of trust, as in our, should have them all in dire need of a shower, but, they grabbed the reigns, and asz they smack the ass, of the smacked ass they enabled to run, they've all proven the former party of law and order, posses none, as they are all pretty much proven scum.
Maybe they were scraped off of that swamp Trump was claiming to drain, all as our forefathers dreams of a more perfect union, swirl and circle, around a drain that will not drain the pain the Trump reign is sure to inflict, it's what happens when peoples duty, becomes derelict.
There are a number of other studies by different groups that come to the same conclusion of billions of dollars.
If you have studies that show something else please post them.
Trump in 2016 promised to mass deport illegals and the grand total for the four years was just over 325,000, So what happened in the first term and cost have not gone down in the ensuing eight years
I thought 88 billion was the number of undocumented immigrants trump said were voting ... /s
Biden acted as Bernie Sanders. Harris was to the left of Sanders.
Keep putting up radical candidates.
supporting american constitutional ideology seems radical to white supremacists, neo-nazis, and xtian nationalists ...
When and where?
not the last 60 years, in the GOP ...
You are in favor of the Constitution.
How about the 2nd Amendment?
... the justified solution for elected officials, and their supporters, that negate constitutional boundaries.
I'll take that as a No.
How about the 1st Amendment and free speech?
it's a definite yes for self preservation and defending the constitution. I'll be sure to remind you about the 1st when your hero goes after all those that hurt his fragile ego and feelings in his revenge and retribution campaign.
Interesting. Why do leftists talk about what Trump possibly might do as opposed to what Biden actually did?
I don't get that.
his own words ...
show us a list with as close to unbiased source citations as proof.
Did he ever lock up Hillary Clinton? But Joe Biden did have his DOJ go after Trump, didn't he?
show us a list with as close to unbiased source citations as proof.
Oh, for the 900th time:
Biden DOJ Crossed Political Rubicon With Trump Indictment
FBI turns over docs on parent, Catholic targeting to Judiciary Committee amid contempt threat
A.G. Merrick Garland Tells FBI To Investigate Parents Who Yell at School Officials About Critical Race Theory
FBI, DOJ Failed to Turn Over Documents Related to Investigation of Catholics, Lawsuit States
DOJ, FBI Hit With Lawsuit Over the Targeting of Catholics
FBI Used Undercover Agent to Target Catholic Church: Jim Jordan - Newsweek
FBI, Justice Department Twist Federal Law to Arrest, Charge Pro-Life Activist | The Heritage Foundation
Because the DOJ is part of the executive branch, Biden could have called off the dogs but because he didn't, he was complacent with what they were doing.
He probably thought he was going to run again and beat Trump again.
I bet he is pissed that he was dumped by the establishment left.
The only radical candidate in the election was Trump. He is the one promising sunshine and roses to everyone (as long as they voted for him) and the one promising to tear our government down.
I guess we'll be waiting for that proof as long as we've been waiting for those indictments for Hillary and Obama.........
Says the person that has never provided any proof of claims.
Every politician that has ever ran for office in this country has done the same.
Are they all radical?
some folks seem to be conveniently forgetting that joe is a mackerel snapper too. one that is able to separate gov't from religion, like the constitution requires ...
If your performance on here is indicative of real life, it is little wonder that you voted for a traitor. And don't even think about your specious argumentation surrounding the word traitor.
happy to see you're so offended by the perception that the DOJ isn't independent from the oval office, for now ...
time to ramp up the "they did it first" justifications for what is sure to come from the WH ...
I'm sure most of the MAGA sycophants think it's worth the cost no matter what that happens to be... until it affects them personally. Even them many of them will deflect it to something else.
Who has been charged with such crimes?
His AG wouldn't let him. This was widely reported on everywhere except MAGA channels.
Nope, unless you include grand juries as part of the DOJ.
No. If donald Trump did not want the justice department prosecute him, he should not have committed the criminal activities that led to the prosecutions. That is, he should not have hauled off the documents and then spirited them around in an attempt to keep them and lied about having them when he knew full well that he had them. Most of all, he should not have lied to the country at large about the 2020 election up to and beyond 1/6, causing people to mistakenly believe his calls to come to DC, and fomenting the riot and insurrection while asking his own VP to discard the Constitution and let him finagle his way to an undemocratic and extra-constitutional 2nd Presidency.
His protestations ring hollow. As do yours.
Great. So it will be easy for you to prove that claim.
Either you are going to be met with silence or a link to an opinion piece by some LWNJ
Not sure what you mean by my "performance", but my track record against leftists here is exemplary. Today is no different.
I did not vote for a traitor because not one of the four candidates has been charged with such crimes.
It might mention Hillary and Trump in the same paragraph and that will be considered "proof"
I was screaming this continuously to the inanimate and uncaring furniture....
'I thought 88 billion was the number of undocumented immigrants trump said were voting ... /s'
'Says the person that has never provided any proof of claims.'
Projection
Fact
Nope
I am glad you think so. People who know the truth, know differently.
yeah right ...
I do. Can you prove me wrong?
That's hilarious coming from you.
Chronology of a Dozen Times Trump Pushed to Prosecute His Perceived Enemies
New Documents Show Trump Repeatedly Pressed DOJ to Overturn Election Results Before Inciting Capitol Attack
Sessions Letter Shows DOJ Acted on Trump’s Authoritarian Demand to Investigate Clinton
Still waiting on you to back up YOUR claims on several other NT threads. Are you going to do it, or run away from those requests?
the constitution and due process goes right out the oval office window with the criminal/traitor's first J6 pardon. welcome to unequal justice for all in america, maga ...
Trump's narcissism tells him that no law or rules apply to him. Unfortunately, so far, he is actually right.
Yes, I could. But will I waste my time proving something that most people already know? No.
They don't consider Biden a "real" Catholic
There are a lot of "liberal" Catholics. They do not get the attention from the media that the conservative Catholics do.
cool, we're even. I don't consider maga real americans ...
That's $8K per person. I didn't think airline tickets cost that much
correct
I was once a liberal Catholic.
To the Federal government
But what about those 5000 dollar hammers?
I preyed on them in high school ...
I written a few comments, very long ones on why Harris lost to Trump and I suppose that some dems and liberals don’t agree with me but the dems must start dealing with reality. They are now doing the blame game but it is the same group that led this loss to Trump. The fricking bottom line IMO for the dems is a change in leadership, younger more moderate and people that can start talking to the working class no matter their race and put the dems emphasis on the border, the economy at the top and prioritize the remaining issues as needed. This swing to the right, IMO isn’t just in the US take a look at much of the rest of the world they are turning right as well. A direction change was needed and we are seeing the results not only in the US but world wide.
The question to be asked is not why women, blacks, Hispanics et al did not show up in numbers that we needed. The answer is that you didn’t give them any concrete responses to the economy and border and those were their top concerns. When a party doesn’t address voters concern it is without doubt they will lose the election.
In my opinion there were three defining moments in the election. The first being Biden not leaving after one term as he had stated he would (transitional president as promised) and leaving only 100 days for Harris to campaign and appointed not picked by a primary. The interview where she was asked what she would do different than Biden and she said she couldn’t think of anything. That was the death sign for her and the campaign. How in the hell can you not be ready for that question, it was obvious that the people were down on Biden and his policies and that she would only win if she would separate herself from them. A total failure on her part.
Now if we let the same old gang make plans for a comeback, kiss our asses good bye.
If anyone thinks I’m a Trump fan, I’m not in any way and I believe that the first thing he is going to do when he becomes President is pardon all of the 1/6 insurrection it’s. That is against everything that America stands for.
Kavika, we had a binary election and the choice was vote for Harris or vote for Trump or stay home and elect Trump. Trump is easily the most unfit for office major party presidential candidate in history.
You would think that would mean something, but our media and certainly social media are so fucked up the choice was not made plain to the voters, or a slight majority of voters dont care if a traitor is in office. Thats the fact of all this. The country has had higher inflation than now, higher crime than now, and a lot of illegal immigrants in other years and decades, but we havent had another Trump.
We have a broken society and that is the right wings fault much more than it is the Democrats fault. Think of Madison Square Garden. If people couldnt decide to vote against Trump after that disgraceful travesty there was nothing Harris and the Dems could do.
I understand what you are saying, JR but the fact remains Trump is President and for the next four years he will be. The best approach is to build the party and pay much more attention to what the working class is saying since they are the biggest constituency in American that is the way to win again. If we don’t we will not be relevant for a hell of a long time.
Trump ended up with 310 electoral votes Biden in 2020 got 304 far from a massacre and people in AZ, MI, NV, and WI split their votes, Trump won those states but the dem Senators all won their seats. That in itself tells a story.
I’m not going to argue the point with you any longer, JR. It is what it is, time to regroup, move on and be ready for 2026.
I'll take that bet ...
We need to emphasis the working class. The Democrats can't win without them
we need to emphasize public education, because 75 million people thought a racist, misogynist, criminal/traitor moron was a better choice than a well qualified black woman with a background of public service to average americans.
Yes, but that kind of goes along with my emphasis on the working class. They're the ones that need the better public ed so they will recognize the next racist, misogynist, criminal/traitor moron that comes along
neanderthal DNA is firmly embedded in the maga cult ...
>sniff< I smell sausage burning ...
As it is in all of us...........
So join the human race..................
We all have some Neanderthal...some more than others...like too much
as I was saying....
that's a joke to you
You don't have as much as say some of my relatives. But you have friends on here who have more than their share
cool. all the traitors names and addresses are in the public record. their welcome home parties should be a blast ...
We indeed basically had a binary election, and millions more voters turned out to vote for Trump than turned out to vote for Harris - result an overwhelming victory
The problem with that simplistic summary, is how so many did not see, what Trump, Republicans, and the far 'right' did not show, or just blatantly lied about. How they continued with so many lies about how terrible our thriving economy is, how the hordes of immigrants are overwhelming our border, and murdering and raping someones daughter, how we don't really need clean drinking water, Windmills and electric cars are bad, oil is good, Kamala's policies are the cause of the high inflation, the dems have spent all of the Fema Money on illegal immigrants and immigration, and she wants transgender inmates to have government paid forsex changes and men competing in womens' sports wearing tight and sexy shorts, when about nun of this was true, butt it didn't fly like a flying nun over their heads as the sallies in the fields believed every word the LIARS Said.
And all while the convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, pussy grabbin Trump was never brought up on charges for so many OTHER crimes he should have been, and would have been, if not for the scumbags in the now agenda driven Supreme Court. As they put on hold the story that NEEDED TO BE TOLD, about the lying scumbag insurrectionist document stealer that got elected, and of course no stolen election now, cause how could it be, if Trump won ?
Every word you say is true, but more people voted for Trump, therefore he is INNOCENT of every single thing he has been accused of. Dont you know how that works with MAGA '24 ?
unfortunately, i do
Interesting perspective
I remember hearing on a podcast (no memory of which one) "Oh the Bullshit you will hear as the election draws near".
And that was certainly the case - no rational person believed most of the "tall tales, lies, false narratives" (whatever you want to call them) they were bullshit that Trump and his followers were spewing to maintain the attention level of the crowd. Not even Trump believes most of that crap.
All the things mentioned above about conviction, poor character, criminal activity are very likely true - but in this "binary election" more than 50% of the voting electorate "didn't seem to care. They think their lives will be better under Trump (a point that must be proven) and voted accordingly.
And winning the election does not make Trump innocent of anything. I am not sure that innocent and Trump would ever belong in the same sentence.- and I interested to see if the current ongoing prosecutions will be dropped, dropped with prejudice or simply put on hold until he is no longer president.
Okay, that's 25 min of life I won't get back. Sorry, that was my limit. These people are totally clueless. Stewart and Richardson sit and whine about Trump being an autocrat who is going to remove liberal regulations imposed on society by an unelected bureaucracy. They weave a narrative that Black voters chose Trump to seek some sort of power while ignoring that the Constitution requires the government be subservient to the people. The people are supposed to have the power in the US, not the government.
Richardson was trying to tell us that Kamala Harris was trying to form an Eisenhower coalition of voters to rebuild an era of progressive Democrat and Republican politics. She blithely ignores that the country was enjoying a peace dividend of post-war prosperity. Richardson ignores Joe McCarthy, the Red Scare, and a Cold War turning hot. Richard ignores Korea and the first signs of becoming entangled in Vietnam. Heather Cox Richardson only sees what she wants to see and tries to turn that into propaganda.
We had two Presidents on the ballot this election. Did voters prefer the agenda of President 45 or President 46? Was the country moving in the right direction under President 45 or President 46? Were voters more confident in the future under President 45 or President 46? Were voters better off under President 45 or President 46? Lecturing voters to eat their peas won't change their perception of how things are going.
We can never go back to the post-WWII era of progressive prosperity. We don't have the factories. We can't unilaterally control Europe and Asia. Our adversaries are political factions who attempt to coerce the US into picking winners and losers by threatening terror attacks. We no longer have waves of European immigrants entering the country; the US is becoming less Eurocentric every day with every new illegal arrival. Our currency has become so worthless that banks don't want to mess with it.
And liberals want to dictate the types of appliances are allowed in our kitchens, the types of vehicles allowed in our garages, the types of books allowed in our libraries, the types of people allowed to teach our children, the types of speech we're allowed to say. Liberals tell us women have a right to choose but that choice cannot be made without an approved expert; a doctor has more say over family planning than a father. Yet, Stewart and Richardson would have us believe that Trump, MAGA, and Republicans are the autocrats. The clueless leading those who aspire won't strengthen the Democratic Party.
Kamala Harris lost because 11 million Biden voters did not turn out. Apparently their lives weren't better enough under President 46 to motivate them to vote. These absent 11 million voters were not enthused by the promise of more of the same. Kamala Harris was saddled with an unpopular incumbency; with a few similarities to Al Gore's candidacy. An incumbent VP can only run as a legacy candidate for their predecessor. And that legacy is more autocratic than Stewart and Richardson will acknowledge. Promising to game the system and stack the courts to reinstate Roe v. Wade isn't a democratic promise. Promising to fight a proxy war, no matter the cost, is not a democratic promise. Promising to force people to buy EVs at exorbitantly inflated prices is not a democratic promise. Promising to make people utterly dependent on health insurance while ignoring the cost of healthcare is not a democratic promise. Harris was promising to autocratically impose Democrat's concept of a better life on people whether they wanted it or not. Stewart and Richardson have been advocating autocracy all along; they only need the unchallenged power to make people's lives better whether they like or not.
I believe this is the case. Not quite that simple, but
The rest of your comment ...meh
Well, the consequences of that 'meh' is that the Republican Party is no longer the party of old white men. The Republican Party really has changed. Trump may not have a national mandate but Trump does have a clear mandate within the Republican Party.
At the least, Trump has made the Democrats' playbook obsolete. President 47 really does mean that President 45 was not just a one-time anomaly. So, Democrats can't just kick the can and go back to business as usual.