Politics / November 21, 2024

Bury the #Resistance, Once and For All

It had a bad run, and now it’s over. Let’s move on and find a new way to fight the right.

Katherine Krueger
Kamala Harris and former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, hold a moderated town hall discussion at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, on October 21, 2024.

Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney hold a moderated town hall discussion at the Royal Oak Music Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, on October 21, 2024.

(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

The truism that insanity means trying the same thing again and again and expecting another result is as threadbare as they come. But the Democrats—who seem to love nothing more than redeploying the same losing tactics, even against the same candidate, and expecting to win—are powerful evidence of why that cliché sticks around.

In late September, I warned about the reemergence within the Democratic coalition of the failed #Resistance mindset that defined the 2016 election and the response to Donald Trump’s first term. Among that movement’s defining features were trying to shame or scare voters into voting against Trump, rather than for the Democrat, an over-reliance on pop culture signifiers rather than policy, and a hope and a prayer for the system, in particular prosecutors and the FBI, to deliver us from evil. If anyone doubted that this kind of politics is a dead end, the reality that set in on election night—when, in an almost spooky echo of the scene at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 gathering, Harris sent her supporters home rather than give a speech—hopefully settled the argument. And now that we’re on the other side of the 2024 debacle, it’s more important than ever that we bury the #Resistance mindset once and for all.

Rather than engage in meaningful self-reflection, though, many top Democrats are looking for someone other than party leadership and their own candidate to blame. Just like after Clinton’s 2016 loss, they’re landing on the progressive wing of the party and voters from marginalized groups.

They’re also flailing wildly. We need a Joe Rogan of the left! No, we don’t! Harris lost because of woke! She lost because she was insufficiently supportive of Israel, despite being a heartbeat from the presidency in an administration funding its genocide! She should’ve picked Josh Shapiro as her running mate, not Tim Walz! Perhaps the worst argument yet was Adam Jentleson’s take that the Democrats actually tried too hard to coalition-build with progressives, which is rich coming from a former John Fetterman staffer, who should know something about squandering goodwill by embracing one interest above all others. Jentleson’s op-ed, which earned praise from others who helped get us here, also argued for jettisoning identity politics in favor of “supply-side progressivism,” whatever that means.

At the most loathsome end of this spectrum, some liberals are descending into pure unfiltered racism, seemingly clamoring for Arab and Latino voters to be deported and for Gaza to be leveled as a hateful form of retribution for the election result.

Better answers about why Harris lost are abundant, and many of them stem from the party’s reliance on the same kind of #Resistance tactics that have failed so many times before. For starters, the campaign reportedly blew through an unprecedented $1 billion war chest and still ended up $20 million in debt, spending six figures on a set for the vice president’s appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast that netted less than 1 million views (by comparison, Trump’s appearance on Rogan has racked up more than 50 million) and a staggering $20 million on production costs alone for swing-state concerts by Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and others. The campaign also paid Oprah’s production company $1 million for her own town hall. All of these line items should be raising more eyebrows than they are for what they signal about the party: Its understanding of its base is through celebrity and culture, not grounded in any material reality. “Fight Song” might as well have been playing faintly in the background.

Harris’s economic plans—whatever they amounted to—didn’t resonate, and she failed to convey that she felt and understood Americans’ pain. Intricacies of the government’s budgeting process aside, it leaves a bad taste in voters’ mouths when they’re struggling to pay for groceries or waiting for their government to provide hurricane relief when the same body is expeditiously sending a record $18 billion to military aid for Israel and billions more for Ukraine’s war effort. Trump, however falsely, told America that he would fix its problems. Harris told us there wasn’t an inch of light between her and Biden.

It’s also clear that the Harris campaign’s bizarre embrace of Liz Cheney and her war-criminal father resonated with precisely no one, instead only serving to further alienate demobilized liberal voters. Days after the election, several Dem operators and insiders told Rolling Stone that they lobbied the campaign against buddying up with the Cheneys, with one source saying of Dick, “People don’t want to be in a coalition with the devil.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, who very well might’ve won, argued that the party has deserted working-class people, and Chris Murphy, who just won reelection, pointed to Democrats’ neoliberal turn and alignment with elites, both of which are entirely credible arguments.

But the answer is far more simple than that: Democrats desperately need to start honestly addressing America’s problems and offering real solutions.

The Nation Weekly

Fridays. A weekly digest of the best of our coverage.
By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You may unsubscribe or adjust your preferences at any time. You can read our Privacy Policy here.

The lesson to take from this crushing loss is that #Resistance logic and its attendant electoral strategies are dead and must be buried. No more leaning on celebrities, no more odes to a political system that most people can’t stand, no more worshiping of cops in all their forms.

It’s absolutely imperative that the party start offering a vision of the future and a value proposition to voters instead of continuing to run on what they’re not and disciplining voters who dare ask the party to reflect their policy interests. Democrats need to marry their ideologies with class consciousness or risk wandering the wilderness forever. Medicare for All and a housing guarantee would be excellent places to start, as would providing material support for women whose reproductive rights have been curtailed, rather than stopping at empty promises to codify Roe. Most urgently, they need to meaningfully resolve the existential crisis they’ve created for themselves even without Trump’s help: becoming a party of war and genocide. Biden and Harris’s policy in Gaza absolutely played a role in sending Democratic turnout plummeting across the country.

Let’s not forget that this started with the party machinery and the president himself. Biden was willing to bet this election and the fate of his own party for the sake of his vanity when he announced he’d run for reelection. Only after it was made clear that Biden and party leadership had for years lied to their own voters and the American public about his fitness to serve did they replace him with his vice president, who had helped prop him up. Voters were desperate for any indication that the Democrats wanted to win and were taking this election seriously with a change at the top of the ticket. What they got was a campaign that squandered the surge in enthusiasm among its base almost instantly and inspired no trust in the American public.

When Harris took over, she made clear that her loyalties were with Wall Street and the party’s corporate donors. Whenever she landed on an actual plan that could have mattered, like an effort to stop price gouging on groceries, her donors immediately leaned on the campaign to walk it back, which she did, reportedly at least in part out of concerns that such a policy would cater to progressives. That’s the Democrats’ essential catch-22: Any policy that could gain them broad, lasting electoral support by centering economic concerns would be a poison pill to their donor class and is therefore a nonstarter.

Now that these party elites have helped drive the rest of us off a cliff, the immediate political future looks bleaker than bleak. With the Democrats handing the White House, Senate, and House to MAGA, there are early indications that this administration could prove even more cataclysmic for the country. This time around, the former and future president seems confident, ready, and raring to start remaking the country in his image from day one. His transition team has assembled a murderer’s row of cranks, ghouls, and alleged sexual predators in what The New York Times characterized as “breakneck speed.” Crucial government decisions will now be made by cretinous hangers-on like Elon Musk. The dopiest supporting players in the MAGA movement are also gearing up. (“It is my honor to inform you all that Project 2025 was real the whole time,” Benny Johnson, who can make even the dimmest bulb look fluorescent-bright, posted with an American flag emoji after Trump’s victory.)

The #Resistance won’t save us from any of that. Nor will the deeply entrenched system it spent so many years exalting. The sooner Democrats understand this, the sooner they can begin to rebuild their discredited party. One thing’s for sure: The results won’t change until they do.

Support The Nation this Giving Tuesday


Today is #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that typically kicks off the year-end fundraising season for organizations that depend on donor support to make ends meet and enable them to do their work—including
The Nation

To help us mobilize our community in this critical moment, an anonymous donor is matching every gift The Nation receives today, dollar-for-dollar, up to $25,000. That means that until midnight tonight, every gift will be doubled, and its impact will go twice as far. 

Right now, the free press is facing an uphill battle like we’ve never faced before. The incoming administration considers independent journalists “enemies of the people.” Attacks on free speech and freedom of the press, legal and physical attacks on journalists, and the ever-increasing power and spread of misinformation campaigns all threaten not just our ability to do our work, but our readers’ ability to find news, reporting, and analysis they can trust. 

If we hit our goal today, that’s $50,000 in total revenue to shore up our newsroom, power our investigative reporting and deep political analysis, and ensure that we’re ready to serve as a beacon of truth, civil resistance, and progressive power in the weeks and months to come.

From our abolitionist roots to our ongoing dedication to upholding the principles of democracy and freedom, The Nation has been speaking truth to power for 160 years. In the days ahead, our work will matter more than it ever has. To stand up against political authoritarianism, white supremacy, a court system overrun by far-right appointees, and the myriad other threats looming on the horizon, we’ll need communities that are informed, connected, fearless, and empowered with the truth. 

This outcome in November is one none of us hoped to see. But for more than a century and a half, The Nation has been preparing to meet it. We’re ready for the fight ahead, and now, we need you to stand with us. Join us by making a donation to The Nation today, while every dollar goes twice as far.

Onward, in gratitude and solidarity,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Katherine Krueger

Katherine Krueger is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn. She previously worked at Splinter, Talking Points Memo, and The Guardian, and is a co-owner of Discourse Blog.

More from The Nation

Kash Patel at the Team Trump Bus Tour in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 10, 2024.

Kash Patel Is Trump’s Scariest Cabinet Appointment Yet Kash Patel Is Trump’s Scariest Cabinet Appointment Yet

The president-elect wants to put a “deep state” conspiracy theorist in charge of the actual deep state.

Chris Lehmann

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, on Capitol Hill to discuss his nomination with senators.

The Senate Must Reject Scandal-Plagued Pete Hegseth The Senate Must Reject Scandal-Plagued Pete Hegseth

And then it must keep rejecting Trump’s cabinet picks.

Joan Walsh

Donald Trump walks onstage for a campaign rally on October 12, 2024, in Coachella, California.

Blue States Will Not Be Safe in Our Corrupt, Clownish, Authoritarian Future Blue States Will Not Be Safe in Our Corrupt, Clownish, Authoritarian Future

The Trump administration will seek vengeance against any state that tries to resist the spread of crony capitalism.

Column / Sasha Abramsky

Anthropocene Matrix

Anthropocene Matrix Anthropocene Matrix

Bro-bots.

Steve Brodner

The Clock Is Ticking

The Clock Is Ticking The Clock Is Ticking

For a cruel new America.

OppArt / Judy Polstra

Dr. James Zogby participates in a panel discussion about the Muslim experience in America at the Washington National Cathedral on October 23, 2012, in Washington, DC.

Why I’m Running for Vice-Chair of the Democratic National Committee Why I’m Running for Vice-Chair of the Democratic National Committee

Party building begins from the bottom up. But in the fight to make the DNC more accountable, and to get dark money out of Democratic primaries, who is in office also matters.

James Zogby