Why I think 2024 is different than 2016 [View all]

[EnergizedLib]

I’ve seen this before in the last eight years. We lead in the polls, and we either get stunned like in 2016 or we pull off a squeaker in 2020.

Now, I’m not about to call 400 electoral votes for us, but I think 2024 is different than 2016 for different reasons.

1. Likability - You had two deeply unpopular candidates run against each other in 2016. One of them is still around, but just like President Biden in 2020, people just don’t hate Vice President Harris the way they hated Secretary Clinton, and she doesn’t come with the concerns Secretary Clinton did.

2. MAGA Fatigue - 2016 will go down as one of the biggest mistakes America ever made, and while it’s always been an awful election, I can somewhat see it in hindsight. People fell for the con, wanted something new and wanted something different from the Bushes/Clintons. MAGA isn’t new anymore and it’s dominated the news cycle for the last nine years.

3. Energy and Enthusiasm - Kamala’s crowds are being compared to President Obama in 2008. It’s a fury of excitement, that’s for sure. They had that in 2016, I’d say more than we did. I think we won in 2020 largely not on America being enamored without President Biden, but anti-trump. The prospect, however, of a first woman, first woman of color president, who isn’t as hated as Secretary Clinton, plus the anti-trump sentiment, that can only help us.

4. Running mate picks - Not that I necessarily have anything bad to say about Tim Kaine, but Tim Walz brings more inspiration and excitement than he did, while JD Vance looks like a historically unpopular pick that rivals the 2008 Sarah Palin blunder.

5. Attitudes - Secretary Clinton didn’t campaign in Wisconsin. We all thought she had it. Vice President Harris is campaigning in Wisconsin, she isn’t treating this like a coronation. She’s talking about the hard work that lies ahead on the campaign trail and seeing herself as the underdog. While this guarantees nothing, it gives me reason for optimism.

6. Threats - America was asleep at the wheel in 2016, leading to a drunken one night stand. The result has been the Dobbs disaster that awoke millions, a convicted felon having stenched up our White House, a corrupt, partisan Supreme Court who, even if they have their limits, has emboldened Republicans at the national and local level to want to encroach on freedoms and take rights away. They think they can get away with stuff since Dobbs was handed down. That’s how you’ve gotten Project 2025, that’s how you’ve gotten Draconian abortion bans and some states wanting to push for more. People don’t want to lose their rights and lose democracy. Now, people see. Dobbs and election denial/insurrection are not winners for them.

7. Subsequent elections - The pushback began in 2018, we took the White House and Senate back in 2020, added a Senate seat in 2022 and lost the House by only a thin margin. We also did well with governorships, and I’m old enough to remember the midterms of 2010 and 2018. He couldn’t inspire in 2018, 2020 or 2022, but he’s going to inspire in 2024 after people know what he’s about now?

We most certainly don’t have the presidency wrapped up, but it’s a different America, a different world, than 2016. I think a lot of people know now what so many of us knew and thought back in 2016. They see the disaster firsthand of what happens when you take people’s rights away, what could be worse and when you have only one deeply unpopular candidate instead of two.