Why did Democrats Lose in 2024?

Lack of democracy in the "Democratic" Party

Understanding what happened in the 2024 election is pretty straightforward, but requires some context. Let’s be very clear about recent elections.

The 2016 Democratic primary was sabotaged by the establishment and the Clinton machine to ensure Clinton won. They rigged it so clearly and obviously, when they were taken to court they actually argued that Party leadership has the right to “go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.” No one makes that argument unless they have no other argument, because that exactly what they’re doing. Party big shots even admitted it was rigged.

That’s the establishment oligarchy (rule by the few) ignoring the voters and making the decision to serve their big donors (rule by the wealthy few).

In 2020, the establishment again sabotaged the Democratic primary by having the big guns in the party - Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and others - offer prizes and threaten retribution to get the other establishment candidates to drop out, like Buttigieg got a cabinet position, consolidating the establishment behind Biden instead of allowing an open primary to play out democratically.¹

Again, the establishment oligarchy choosing their candidate to serve their big donors, not the voters.

In the 2020 election, Biden didn’t win, Trump lost. Fully 68% of Biden voters told exit polls (N = 15,590) they were voting against Trump, not for Biden. Despite this, the Democratic establishment claimed it was a great victory and pretended like they won. Biden was awarded the white house by the results of the election, but he didn’t win it because people wanted him, he won it because voters rejected Trump.

This repeated in 2022, when, across the whole country, having a Trumpian opponent was worth between 4 to 7% on average to the Democrat in the race. Without that anti-Trump vote, we did have a red wave in 2022. And again, the Democratic establishment acted like we won a great victory instead of just being the beneficiaries of Trump’s unpopularity.

In 2024, the Democratic establishment effectively cancelled the primaries. Their paid consultants were on TV saying things like “I know that might not sound democratic, but that is the game”. DNC staffers tried to convince me, like the consultant in the video, that it’s “normal” to not have a primary when the incumbent is running again, which is just a bald-faced lie. When Biden dropped out after it became obvious he wasn’t mentally capable, instead of having an open process to select a new nominee, the establishment once again stepped in and made the decision for everyone: Harris.

The process they used to install Harris was facilitated by the Co-Chair of the Democratic National Convention Rules Committee, Tim Walz. In short, the new rules were written to make it effectively impossible for any candidate other than Harris to get the nomination. At least one candidate told their supporters not to nominate them, because the new rules set up the process explicitly and deliberately to expose their supporters to intimidation, harassment, and retaliation. Details are here.

For three presidential cycles, the Democratic Party establishment has prioritized their choice for candidate far above whoever the voters might pick, and they have used the explicitly anti-democratic rules, processes, and norms of behavior in the Party to ensure their choice is forced on everyone else. This is effectively political rape, an assault on Democratic Party members and Democratic voters more broadly.

More importantly, it is a clear demonstration of why oligarchy is a bad way to make decisions - oligarchies regularly make incredibly bad decisions because the exclude the vast majority of people affected by their decisions.

Every time the establishment has put their finger on the scale, we’ve lost - even when we get such establishment people elected, they don’t have the support of the people except as the only way to avoid something worse. Again, 68% of 2020 Biden voters didn’t vote for him, they voted against Trump, and the decisive margin in 2022 was anti-Trumpian, not pro-Democrats. Party leadership counted those as wins when they absolutely were anything but wins. Party leadership failed to address the issues highlighted by these fundamental losses.

Every DNC and State Party leader who failed to recognize and raise these issues needs to resign. These people do not understand how to win.

They only know how to serve their big donors. So long as the big donors remain in control, the establishment oligarchy will prioritize their big donors’ interests over the interests of working people - and the Party will continue to lose.

The “Democratic” Party is making bad decisions about candidate because they do not operate democratically, they operate as a plutocratic oligarchy - rule by the wealthy few - no different that our civic governments. As the science of the wisdom of crowds (not mobs, crowds are organized, mobs are not) demonstrates conclusively, a large and diverse (which amounts to inclusive) population arriving at their decisions independently and aggregating their choices equally will make vastly better decisions vastly more often than any system lacking or deficient these features.

If we want to make good decisions, we need to practice actual democracy: diverse, inclusive, independent decision making aggregated and equally. As I’ve documented extensively since I joined the Party in 2016, the “Democratic” Party operates anything but democratically. This actively and deliberately reduces our collective decision making intelligence and leads to losses exactly like the one this past Tuesday.

When we’ve made even modest efforts to select candidates democratically, like we did in 2008, we electrify the country, drive up turnout, and most importantly, we win. If we want to win on a regular basis, the only option is to insist on actual democracy at every level of the Party.

That means one person, one equal share of decision making power in the Party - either by direct vote or by delegated vote, where delegates can be overruled or recalled by their constituents in a fair and simple process, ensuring pretty much anyone can learn how it works and perform the tasks necessary to call a democratic vote.

Until we take the “Democratic” Party away from the big donors and their servants in the Party establishment, the Party will continue to be a plutocratic oligarchy, and will have all the liabilities of such an oligarchy - the Party will continue to make bad choice after bad choice, and continue to lose regularly and persistently.

To win, the “Democratic” Party must stop making a mockery of its name and instead learn to live up to the concept of democracy: rule by all the people equally.
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1. Except Warren, who admitted they rigged the primary in 2016 against Sanders, but helped to rig it against him in 2020 by staying in after the establishment candidates dropped out, thus not allowing the progressive vote to consolidate against the establishment behind the stronger progressive candidate.