Conspiracy theories aren't necessary to explain why Kamala lost

Apparently, conspiracy theories about Republicans stealing the election are running rampant online. The post I linked to says they're all over Threads, which is Meta/Facebook's version of Twitter, and I know they're gaining steam on TikTok too, because the algorithm there served up a bunch to Julia this weekend. (She handles all the TikTok viewing in our house, and I am in charge of watching all our LaserDiscs.)

I'm pretty sure the conspiracy theories are not true. It wouldn't surprise me if someday we found out that Republicans had stolen the election, if only because they so often get caught doing exactly the things they've accused Democrats of, but if they did it, I think it would involve some of the many state and local government positions they've filled over the last four years all across the country, rather than Elon Musk using his satellites to hack into computers and change vote counts. It also wouldn't surprise me—in fact, I would be even more not-surprised—if Kamala Harris just lost for real. Like I said the other day, incumbents have been losing all over the world, because voters are mad about inflation. (This makes no sense—presidents and prime ministers don't have buttons they can push to lower prices—but voters and votes don't have to make sense, and they often don't.) She was also a Black woman running for president in a country that doesn't have the best track record with people who are Black and people who are women.

One thing driving the conspiracy theories is the disparity a lot of liberals see between how well Harris campaigned and how decisively she lost to Donald Trump. I think this is partly an illusion: If you're liberal, she looked great to you; but I got a message the other day from a high school friend in Fargo who found her fake and packaged and empty—a typical slick politician. (Like me, he's a white Gen X man, the group that supported Trump most this time around.) But, Josh Marshall notes:

In the seven swing states, the swing to Trump from 2020 to 2024 was 3.1 percentage points. In the other 43 states and Washington, DC the swing was 6.7 points. That’s a big, big difference. Like a huge difference, frankly.

The swing states were where Harris spent by far the most time during the scant three months she had to campaign, where she ran the most ads, and where get-out-the-vote efforts were in overdrive. Based on how deeply she cut into Trump's gains in those states, it's fair to say she did campaign well. No matter what my friend thinks of her, she persuaded a lot of voters to get behind her. It just still wasn't enough.

Another driver of the conspiracy theories is the drop in turnout among Democratic voters compared to 2020. Again, it looks like in the swing states, where Harris was focusing her efforts, that drop was much lower. As for the rest of the country, a lot of liberals can't believe Dem voters would sit this election out, given that the future of American democracy was on the line. But I think it's important to remember that this is, like, the third or fourth election now in which the future of American democracy has been on the line. It may well have been true this time, but you can see how some voters might have stopped taking it seriously, especially given that the same Democratic leaders claiming Trump was an existential threat had completely failed to do anything about him since he left office. It likely just didn't add up in a lot of voters' minds: If Trump is so bad, why is he running for president instead of in prison? (It's also worth noting that 2020 was a highly anomalous election, in which voters had a lot more time to focus on political news and a lot of big reasons to want the incumbent out.)

So: Tempting as it is to believe that the election was stolen, I can't see that there's any actual evidence of it. Worrying about it is not where I would be directing my energy.

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The Fun Part

And here's Maxine being told it's time for dinner, if you haven't seen her yet. (Julia found this one, obviously, while I was busy with the LaserDiscs.)

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