I mean, no wait. I at least thought the Democrats would keep the House. I never imagined the Republicans would take everything like this. What?

Honestly, watching the U.S. election, I felt that the Democratic Party was being complacent. The values they stand for are, of course, incredibly important. But using 'we’re the good guys, and they’re the bad guys' as a main slogan, even if true, is not a winning strategy. The Democrats needed to acknowledge, at least to some extent, what Republican supporters want. Sometimes, they need to compromise and be flexible. The Democratic Party completely failed to read the spirit of the times and the direction in which the American people’s sentiments are moving. Otherwise, how could they lose both the Senate and the House and fall behind in the popular vote?

I work in (political, gulp) journalism but live in a red state and can co-sign this. One of the biggest things I hear, living where I do, is that Democrats don't care about me but Trump does. Now, I find that insane because Trump knows nothing about being a blue-collar worker who lives paycheck to paycheck, but he has successfully tapped into the rage and frustration that these people feel. Rural areas feel unheard and unseen by Democrats (these days called the 'liberal elite') and Trump not only saw them, he convinced them he'll make it better. Nevermind that he's done it in highly questionable ways; he's reaching out to them and saying 'I get it, I'm gonna help.' With Biden and Harris, the message was 'well, we aren't Trump.' The man tanked his race multiple times, it shouldn't have been close, but Democrats never owned up to the things they indeed failed on or suggested that they would do anything different. They thought not being Trump was enough, but time after time there was evidence that independents/young voters/Latino and Black voters cared way less about his character than Democrats. The fact is that when you can barely feed your family or keep a roof over your head, you care less about someone's character and more about surviving. Trump won on the economy, in no small part due to the fact that people remember having more money when he was in office last (there are a lot of YES, BUTS to that sentence, but that's a separate post). Democrats were always playing defense on economic numbers and pointing fingers instead of offering solutions. Perceptions and feelings on the economy will defeat almost every other issue on a ballot. Money, especially a lack of it, freaks people out.