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Nolan Finley is editorial page editor at The Detroit News.
Democrats who are reliving their worst nightmare with the pending return of Donald Trump to the White House have only themselves to blame.
Trump should have had no chance to win this election. He left office kicking and screaming at the end of his first term having presided over the Jan. 6 insurrection and with the nation angry and divided. He had been impeached twice. And he was a man disgraced, vilified and hated. But not humbled.
As soon as he flew out of Washington, he began plotting his return. Trump devoted himself to avenging what he saw as a great wrong by reclaiming the office he believed the Washington swamp had stolen from him.
For the next four years, he was the target of a relentless campaign by Democrats to destroy him for good. A barrage of civil suits and criminal charges were lodged against him, some timed to come to court at the height of the presidential campaign.
Network evening news coverage of Trump was 85 percent negative, compared with 78 percent positive for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to an analysis by the conservative Media Research Center.
Still, as improbable as it once seemed, Trump pulled off the most remarkable political comeback in American history. Going into Election Day, 52 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of Trump. Yet he won both the electoral vote and likely the popular vote — the first Republican to do so in this century. He also carried with him a new Republican Senate majority.
And he owes the Democratic Party much of the credit.
This election was not as much about Trump as it was Harris. I think her name should never have been on the ballot.
The Democratic Party power brokers, once they ousted President Joe Biden from the race, so underestimated Trump they believed they could win simply by marketing Harris as a next-generation leader with the youth, energy and vision the country craved. They also thought they could paper over the fact she was the No. 2 in an administration that many believe had destroyed household budgets, destabilized the world and enabled a flood of illegal immigration.
Harris likely would not have prevailed as the nominee in a competitive primary process. Democrats had stronger options, and during the early talk about replacing Biden, her name was well down the list.
And for good reason. She was an uninspiring leader who failed to grab the turkey leg as vice president. She was given an opportunity to take charge of the crisis at the border, and instead she largely walked away.
The billion-dollar campaign crafted for her centered on shielding Harris from scrutiny. It was late in the game before she began doing interviews, and then largely with friendly outlets. She also steadfastly refused to define herself beyond saying, “I’m not Joe Biden and I’m not Donald Trump.” Voters never figured out who she was.
Her vapid answers to tough questions and her stubborn adhesion to platitudes — “I’m from the middle class” — left voters with the perception she lacked depth.
As for Trump, his campaign was hardly masterful. He kept his foot in his mouth much of the time. He rambled and ranted at his rallies for so long he often lost focus. He made scores of unforced errors, including insulting Detroit’s comeback while speaking in Detroit. But he asked the same question that carried Ronald Reagan to victory: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Harris couldn’t come up with an answer. But voters did. They said, “Hell no.”
She wanted to talk about Trump’s many flaws. But his voters had already discounted his negatives. He talked about the things that troubled them — inflation, immigration and crime. And even though the delivery was often crude, the message touched the nation’s frustrations and fears.
The theoretical threat to democracy Trump presented didn’t play as well as the tangible threat they felt to their quality of life and hope for the future they experienced under Biden and Harris. He summed up his pitch with a solid punch: She broke it, I’ll fix it.
Democrats likely would have beaten Trump with a candidate vetted through a competitive primary process and able to credibly claim distance from the failed Biden administration.
Instead, they nominated Harris. And elected Trump.