The press postmortem of the 2024 general election is ongoing, and the grappling of the realities is something to behold. In the latest such example, Politico staffers drew up a list of trends they saw dying off as an effect of the results. The merits or accuracy are certainly debatable (which is always the intent of such lists), but what stands out here are the effects of the choices the publication selected.

In looking over the nine items offered, you can clearly see there is a sadness coming through on how these either did not work out in the Democrats’ favor or are presented as negative examples of things working out for the Republicans--often, specifically, Donald Trump. It is a revealing study, and most likely unintentionally so.

The first entry is Celebrity Endorsements, and how those did not work. They say that these have always been essential in elections, but the question here needs to be – really?! Consider the voters who were on the fence politically; after weighing all the issues, and still being unable to make the call, why would Cardi B coming out to tout the shallowest of socio-political opinions be the thing to tilt your scale? 

 “It’s getting harder and harder for any celebrity — even Taylor Swift — to move enough voters to sway an election,” Politico wrote. You can certainly feel the disappointment over the fact that these luminary opinions did not sway things the way they had hoped. 

Next we get Equal Justice Under The Law, which of course focuses entirely on Trump not being brought down by the four sham indictments. There is no explanation that they were legally spurious, nor any note concerning how Biden and the DOJ hoped to sway an election by targeting an opponent. And of course, you won't find exploration of how President Joe Biden skirted his own documents investigation, as well as slipping free of the various money scandals concerning his family. Nope, it is just Trump flouting the law.

Other items chosen by Politico were Abortion, DEI Programs, and Trusting The Experts. The dismay concerning how these did not work out is palpable, and you can see the emotional - rather than contemplative - conclusions they reached. Do they truly believe abortion is now a dead issue for the Democrats? All we have seen in recent years is that the party was becoming more militant about that procedure. 

With DEI, yes, it should die off, but the writers do not look objectively at the matter, saying “it’s clear that many Democrats don’t know what to do about these programs.” There is no introspection on why it is failing and being stripped away in so many sectors, just mourning that it is failing politically for the Dems. As for the lack of expert opinions swaying people, this one is on the press corps. They are the ones who determine who gets labeled as an “expert,” and it is always someone who can push a desired agenda. Then, when people see through the ruse and turn away, the press just lashes out to say they discard facts and “proven” conclusions.

One selection that raises an eyebrow is The Misinformation Industry. As we all know, this is the preferred, dual-impact tool for the press. The charge of “misinformation” for the press is used like a saber, and a cudgel, hoping to lacerate a talking point and discredit an opposing position in one swing of the device.

The reason this fails so often is another example of duality. We see them using it selectively, by being the ones who declare what is misinformation, all while never being expected to be held accountable for pushing false information. That this is an accusation almost exclusively pointed to the right is a known quality. One can only hope this free expression-threatening tactic is in fact dying off.

The piece also highlights the loss of The Kennedy Mystique, something long exclusive to the Left and supposedly waning now due to Robert F Kennedy Jr. wandering off of the gated community borders. We also get, maybe, the most neutral item, the failure of Traditional Canvassing. Early on Trump had been mocked in the press for his apparent lack of a ground game in the swing states, but he showed he was cagey by leveraging digital platforms, and outlets such as podcasts, to reach out to those areas simultaneously.

Lastly, they give an (ironically) amusing selection – “Saturday Night Live.” This show has long been a reliably pro-Democrat source, but they have shown a willingness of late to look to the left. Throughout his term Trump was a weekly target on the show, but during the ensuing four years, there had been hardly any hits made on the target-rich Joe Biden. Politico cites the importing of celebrities to play the prominent figures as a problem, for some reason. The truth is that after years of slamming only one side, the audience from that side has walked away; so the supposedly scathing satire is simply preaching to the choir. It is not moving a needle.

You see the feeling in this section that the show is supposed to be a weapon for the Democrats, in the way it is states SNL failed to properly spoof J.D. Vance. They decry the lack of content about his cat lady comments (a controversy cooked up by the press), and what they called “the couch thing.” This references the completely fake story that Vance allegedly wrote in his book of having pleasured himself with furniture. Politico bemoans about a comedy show not spreading a false rumor…after railing at length about misinformation and the travails that it brings to the country. Unreal, yet wholly expected.

This list of deposed electoral influences can really be summed up in a simple sentence: “We can’t believe all of these things failed to get Kamala elected!“ Meanwhile, we can believe that Politico still struggles with the election, given the way they cannot be objective in looking at the results.