Chris Bastian: Some Hard Truths—and Lessons—for Democrats

Don’t stew in anger or hopelessness. The real work begins now.

By Chris Bastian

I was a ward committeeman in Philadelphia in my college days, and one of the earliest political lessons I learned was: If you lose a contest, you get up the next day and start all over again. So I do not propose to stew in anger or hopelessness. Those of us who call ourselves Democrats have a recovery to achieve and the work begins now.

First, some hard truths:

1) The election was not “stolen.” Donald Trump was elected because people chose to vote for him. Doesn’t matter how much misinformation the Russians pushed at us; doesn’t matter how much Elon Musk spent. People looked at a choice of Trump and Kamala Harris and chose him.

2) It wasn’t because Harris was a woman, or Black or biracial. There are certainly people in Trump’s camp who are racist and/or sexist, but some people voted for him who also voted for Elissa Slotkin and Tammy Baldwin or had voted for Governors Gretchen Whitmer and Katie Hobbs two years earlier. Harris lost because she was the Democratic alternat…