A story in chess lore involves the great Danish-Jewish player Aron
Nimzowitsch, who, at a tournament in the mid-1920s, found himself
struggling against the German master Friedrich S�misch. Infuriated at the
thought of losing to an opponent he considered inferior, Nimzowitsch
jumped on the table and shouted, �To this idiot I must lose?�

It�s a thought that must have crossed the minds of more than a few liberal
pundits and Democratic eminences late Tuesday night, as Kamala Harris�s
hopes for winning the presidency began suddenly to fade.

How, indeed, did Democrats lose so badly, considering how they saw Donald
Trump � a twice-impeached former president, a felon, a fascist, a bigot, a
buffoon, a demented old man, an object of nonstop late-night mockery and
incessant moral condemnation? The theory that many Democrats will be
tempted to adopt is that a nation prone to racism, sexism, xenophobia and
rank stupidity fell prey to the type of demagoguery that once beguiled
Germany into electing Adolf Hitler.

It�s a theory that has a lot of explanatory power � though only of an
unwitting sort. The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump�s
political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself
part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable,
comeback.

Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a
progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like
Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President
Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by
implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her
overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a
compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly
repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in
2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like �My values haven�t
changed.�

There was also the larger error of anointing Harris without political
competition � an insult to the democratic process that handed the
nomination to a candidate who, as some of us warned at the time, was
exceptionally weak. That, in turn, came about because Democrats failed to
take Biden�s obvious mental decline seriously until June�s debate debacle
(and then allowed him to cling to the nomination for a few weeks more),
making it difficult to hold even a truncated mini-primary.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/donald-trump-defeat-
democrats.html