The left is in a mad scramble of attempting to assign blame for Kamala’s staggering defeat.  Leftists have pointed fingers at one another and even blamed the constituents they claim they represent.  What is amazing is that they refuse to hold up a collective mirror and look at themselves as the root cause of their failure in this election.

The reasons for the loss were relatively simple.  Here’s a breakdown of the reasons that they handed Donald Trump a sweeping victory on a silver platter:

1. Kamala Harris was an inferior candidate.  She had been chosen as Joe’s running mate because of her race and sex.  The incredible level of personnel turnover in her staff was a warning sign that she was likely not a good leader.  When, over two years ago, Biden showed signs of his mental cascade, she didn’t do her constitutional duty to replace him.  Even her infamous word salads were a sign of a person who was unable to speak intelligently about subjects she should know.  Biden did nothing to elevate her or prepare her as a successor.  The one thing she was in charge of, the immigrant problem at the southern border, was a disaster.

By not going through a primary process, Kamala was ordained for the role of candidate rather than selected from a field of qualified peers.  Even a highly abbreviated selection process would have likely exposed her weaknesses and supplemented her with a better candidate.  

2. Kamala’s choice of Tim Walz demonstrated poor leadership.  Picking a V.P. is one of the most important decisions you make once nominated.  She chose a weak person, a goofball by his own description.  Not only that, but Walz couldn’t deliver any of the key states she might need for victory.  Minnesota was already likely to fall into her side of the electoral map.  Her first and most critical decision was a poor one.

3. Not understanding the economy.  The messaging from the Biden/Harris administration on the economy has been erratic and disconnected from reality.  First it was “There’s no problem.”  Then it was “this is temporary inflation.”  Next, they landed on the message of “The economy is doing great; we have numbers to prove it.”  This line played poorly with voters, since they were being told they were ignorant about something they were coping with daily.  The issue from the start of her campaign was that she never seemed to understand the impact of the economy and come up with realistic plans to tackle it.  Instead, she focused on price-gouging, labeling Big Business as the source of the country’s economic woes when in reality, it was the Biden/Harris spending that caused it.

4. Accepting responsibility for the immigration issue.  Everyone knew that Biden had reversed all of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, which led to the problem.  They stopped construction on the wall.  It was no secret that they had caused this problem, and she was in charge of it.  She never stepped up and said, “Mistakes were made.”

5. Constant changing of messages showed an erratic pattern of behavior.  Her campaign began as one of joy.  Then it became a series of attacks on Trump, starting with “he’s erratic and mentally unfit.”  That didn’t play well, given that she was a candidate for someone called by his own Justice Department a senile man with memory issues.  When the realization hit that the message wasn’t working, she pulled out the “threat to democracy” card and plopped it hard on the table.  As that fizzled, she went with the fascist accusations.  There was no consistency coming from the Harris camp.  It was as if there were new talking points weekly for the media to echo, none of which bespoke joy — only hate.

6. She needed to sever her connections to Joe Biden.  When pressed about what she would have done differently from Joe Biden, Kamala couldn’t think of a single thing.  In that moment, she refused to admit that they had done anything wrong.  In other words, electing her was a continuation of the same policies that were hurting the American people.

The lingering problem she faced several times was the grim reality that Joe Biden was mentally unfit to remain in office, let alone run again.  Harris refused to acknowledge that he was impaired, despite the fact that it was the sole reason she was running as the Democrat candidate.

Kamala needed to throw Joe under the bus, just to show that she was different.

7. The dividing up of America made it impossible to form a coalition for victory.  The left spent the last four-plus years dividing the U.S. population, pitting elements against one another.  When the time came to unite, they couldn’t do it.  For example, how can you be pro-women but advocate for men playing in women’s sports?  They took some groups, such as blacks, for granted, simply assuming they would vote for Kamala.

Trump won a staggering victory, mostly because he was not up against a foe who was properly vetted or amply qualified.  Kamala didn’t deserve the role of candidate; rather, she was thrust into it.  She was put in front of a chessboard, up against a master player, but knew how to play only tic-tac-toe.

Blaine Pardoe is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author canceled by one of his publishers in 2022.  His conservative political thriller series, Blue Dawn, is the story of the violent overthrow of the government by radical progressives.  His upcoming series, Tenure, is about a Punisher-like hero who goes after the woke.  He also authors the bestselling military science fiction series Land&Sea.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.