Friday Mailbag!

Here we go!

Happy Friday! (It is definitely Friday…I checked several times!)

We made it.

Only 1,460 days until the next presidential election!

As always in this post, I tried to answer a ton of your questions about what happened this week and where this all [waves hands around frantically] is headed.

If I didn’t get to your questions, head over to my livestream at 1 pm eastern on my YouTube channel where I will take a bunch more questions in real time. And, while you’re at it, subscribe — it’s FREE — to my YouTube channel. We are almost to 50,000 subscribers!

And, in a twist and because we had SO many questions, I am going to do a special Saturday edition of the Mailbag tomorrow — where I will answer even more of the things that were on all of your minds. Stay tuned for that.

One programming note: Today ends my three-week run of offering ALL of my content for FREE. I wanted to do that so as many people as possible got access to my information and analysis leading up to the election. I hope you enjoyed it!

Starting tomorrow, I will be putting some posts — including this Friday mailbag every week — back behind the paywall. I’d love for you to support what I am building here by becoming either a monthly ($6) or yearly ($60) subscriber.

Let’s do this!

Q: A not-insubstantial number of Americans are distressed by what feels like a dark populist turn among our fellow Americans, led by what some of us feel is an extremely flawed President-Elect. Some of us wonder what our place is in this country. I suppose that mostly I am getting over the gut-punch numbness of this sweeping win for populism. And, it's not just the results of the Presidential election, it is our neighbors, coworkers, friends who apparently feel deeply different than I do. How do people like me find a place, destress, and prepare to move forward through the next 4 years? How do we hear our fellow citizens points of view when those points of view make no sense to us?

A: I think the first step is not to be immediately dismissive of other peoples’ points of view which differ from your own.

I have heard — and read — lots of comments from the left during this campaign about how anyone who supports Trump is a) an idiot b) a misogynist c) a racist or d) all three put together.

If your reflex reaction is to say “I’m right and the millions (and millions) of people who voted for Trump are totally wrong,” the Democratic party isn’t going to be a majority in this country going forward.

In short, don’t be Principal Skinner:

I just believe that the path forward — for all of us — is to try to meet people with whom we disagree on a neutral playing field. Don’t assume malicious intentions. Don’t assume they are dumb. Don’t assume anything.

Talk to them about their values. What matters to them. What they care about. Why they care about it. And what they like — and don’t like — about American culture.

Living in a bubble of your own self-satisfaction might feel good — in fact, lots of Republicans are doing it right now! — but the reality of Tuesday’s election is that Democrats have a massive brand problem. Scads of voters — in red states and blue states! — abandoned them because they viewed the party as ineffective stewards of the economy, blind to the border chaos and in the thrall of woke politics.

Setbacks happen in life. (Trust me, I know!) But plugging your ears or refusing to see what’s right in front of you in the wake of a defeat is lunacy.

Those who don’t learn from history are, well, you know.

Q: I’m really disgusted by all the Monday morning quarterbacking, with finger pointing at Kamala Harris, I.e. “she wasn’t a good candidate”, “she did too much of this/she didn’t do enough of that”, etc. You, Chris by virtue of your Thursday morning post, are one of those doing the finger pointing at her. And then you went on to say in a different post that Biden started this disaster in motion by announcing in March of 2020 that he would be choosing a woman as a VP. I believe this is grossly unfair and feeds into the misogyny that has been clearly present in this country. Your comments would be much appreciated, because I’m depressed and pissed at the same time.

A: To be clear: I did not say anything about March 2020. That was a senior-level Democratic strategist. I simply published what he sent me. You are free to disagree with his views! But I didn’t write that.

As for your point about criticizing Harris, I am not totally sure what you think should happen after the Democratic nominee loses all 7 swing states and Donald Trump improves his showing from 2020 in 48 out of the 50 states?

This was a comprehensive defeat for Harris and Democrats. And while I think there were absolutely atmospheric factors at work here (Biden’s unpopularity, economic pessimism etc.) I do think that Harris made mistakes as a candidate — most notably by moving far too slowly to separate herself from Biden.

Again, this question feels infused with the “we did nothing wrong and need to change nothing” mentality that I think is absolutely corrosive for Democrats going forward.

I am sorry if that pisses you off. I get it. But my job isn’t to make you — or anyone else! — feel good. My job is to give it to you straight.

Q: You've been saying that Harris needed to distance herself from Biden, earlier and more vigorously.

But how would that work? "I disagreed on A, B, and C. But I was ignored." This is not a winning message, is it?

There's a reason why sitting VPs have usually not made great presidential candidates. It's really hard to separate yourself from an unpopular incumbent who hand-picked you. As Hubert Humphrey and Al Gore could tell us.

A: I agree that being VP is not the terrific perch to run for president that lots of people think of it as.

At the same time, I think there were clear ways that Harris could have broken with Biden in a public and compelling way.

Take immigration. I think Harris should have given a big speech where she said something like:

“Joe Biden and I put in place a series of measures we believed were the right antidotes to the situation on our southern border. They did not work as effectively as we had hoped. I have realized that this is an issue on which we can’t be Republicans and Democrats. We have to be Americans. And that’s why I am pledging to appoint a Republican as the head of the Department of Homeland Security if I am elected president. — to oversee the border in a broad bipartisan way.”

I genuinely think saying just that would have helped. And I said that a month before the election!

Q: Will anyone in the media ask why Trump (likely) won the popular vote and what people see in him? All of the people who voted for him are not racists, misogynists, Nazis and garbage as the media believes. Will they be reflective on why this rich guy from New York can talk to the working class and blue collar America and the D's can't? If Trump had just said, "I feel your pain," he would've truly shown that he is possibly as good of a politician as Bill Clinton. He saw the concerns with the border, crime, inflation and wokeness and no one on the other side did. Will the media ask the questions or just reflexively paint all of his supporters (over 50% of the people who voted) as racists, misogynists, Nazis and garbage and, perhaps, if the way they covered Trump and the race pushed people to vote for him?

A: I am trying to ask those questions right now!

I have long said that the greatest trick Trump ever pulled was convincing middle class and lower middle class voters — whites, yes, but Latinos now as well — that he was their voice. Like, how?! I still don’t have a great answer.

But to your broader point, I think that reacting to such a convincing loss with a denunciation of every Trump voter as a racist woman-hater is NOT the way for Democrats to learn from what happened on Tuesday.

For my part, I tried to put some pro-Trump voices forward in the days leading up to the election — and will continue to work on ways of having thoughtful conversations among people who disagree about politics in this space.

Q: I was literally yelling at my screen when Harris did the town halls and refused to directly answer a voter's questions. Instead, she went back to standard boiler plate. Voters want a candidate who they can relate to and is on their level. My question, do you think the Democrats, after two failed female campaigns, will try to run a "relatable" male this time? Mayor Pete or Gov Shapiro come to mind.

A: Yeah, I think a lot of Democrats don’t want to admit an obvious reason — not the reason but a reason — for why they lost: Harris was just not a great candidate.

She spoke in what felt like poll-tested sentences. Sometimes she veered into total word salads. (Yes I know Trump does this all the time too.) She didn’t do well when challenged about her positions. She never explained why she was much more liberal in 2019 than she was in 2024.

As for who Democrats nominate in 2028, I genuinely don’t know. But, I will say that while I think Pete Buttigieg is immensely talented as a politician and public servant, I am not sure America is ready to elect a married gay man. I don’t know if nominating Mayor Pete would close that “relatability” gap you are talking about.

In my mind, the strongest candidate — at least today — would be Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Midwestern. Two-term governor. Charismatic and skillful as a candidate.

Q: I am sure I am not the only poster of this question: is it possible for Dems to escape the wilderness and who leads us out of it?

A: A really good question — and not one with a simple answer.

I think Democrats’ problem in the near term is that there is no obvious person who can step in as the sort of anti-Trump or the foil to the president-elect.

If Democrats won the House and Hakeem Jeffries became Speaker, he would been an obvious choice. But I don’t think they are going to win the House.

It’s not going to be Chuck Schumer. Barack Obama doesn’t have any interest in doing it. Bill Clinton is too old. So is Joe Biden. I don’t see Harris, having just lost to Trump, being the person the party turns to. Tim Walz always felt more like a regional candidate than a national one to me.

But, politics — like nature — abhors a vacuum. So people will rush to fill that lack of any obvious next leader. Whitmer is in that mix. Josh Shapiro. Gavin Newsom for sure. Maybe JB Pritzker from Illinois. Buttigieg. Andy Beshear.

Q: How can the American public be assured he does not install himself for a 3rd term in 2028 ? Seriously, what happens if he refuses to leave?

A: Well, the Constitution — the 22nd Amendment in particular — clearly bars a president from serving more than two terms.

Legal scholars agree that there is no wiggle room or space for interpretation in the 22nd Amendment. And the process of trying to overturn the amendment — two thirds votes in the House and Senate and then ratification by 75% of state legislatures — would NEVER happen.

If Trump simply, as you suggest, tried to stay in office, I would assume — although I am obviously not certain — that there would be an effort in Congress to order him removed.

Q: How likely do you think it is that [Trump] will implement the Project 2025 agenda? I truly fear for the future of democracy in the US if that's the case.

A: I lean toward “unlikely.”

Which is not to say that things in Project 2025 won’t make it into the Trump administration’s agenda. They will.

But the idea that Trump will simply swallow whole a plan crafted by a bunch of think tank nerds on how he should run his presidency? That doesn’t sound like the Trump I know.

Will there be Project 2025 adherents in key places in his administration? Yes. But, like, there have been deeply conservative people and ideologues within every Republican administration. (And deeply liberal ideologues in every Democratic administration.)

In some ways, I think this is nothing new.

Q: Before the election I was an avid consumer of news, both on TV and written. Post election I have nothing left in me to hear analysis and commentary on the election. I don’t want to hear the blame game. I am most disappointed in my fellow citizens who are ok with our country becoming Nazi inspired dictatorship. It’s too sad and depressing. I have to step back from news sources indefinitely for my mental health.

A: Yeah, this is the problem.

I just do not think it makes ANY sense to say things like “Nazi inspired dictatorship.” It’s irresponsible. It creates a climate of chaos. And, frankly, it’s offensive to the 6 million Jews and their families who were killed by Hitler’s mass extermination plan.

Let me also say this: Everyone needs to do what is best for their mental health. If that means stepping back from the news, I get it.

But, to my mind, now is the time to reengage. What is clear — at least to me — is that a whole lot of people on the left don’t understand what is going through the heads of a majority of our country right now. Finding ways to suss that out — and maybe find some common ground — are critically important.

And then there’s this: Trump, whether you like him or hate him, represents the most radical person — in terms of how he conceives of the presidency and the nation — in the modern era (and maybe ever).

Supporting people like me who will hold him to account — when appropriate — is critically important. We need to understand MORE now. Checking out doesn’t accomplish that goal.

Q: What now for Allan Lichtman?

A: A WHOLE lot of people would respond “Yeah well what about Allan Lichtman’s keys????” every time I would say that I thought Trump had a small advantage in the race.

I really hope we can stop with that now. Allan is a totally fine guy. But a subjective set of measures he has created doesn’t make him any more reliable than anyone else with a subjective set of measures!

Give me polling — and the election modeling based off of it — every day over the likes of Lichtman.