Political pundits and pollsters continue to dissect the data, looking for clues about why a well-funded campaign for a highly qualified, competent, articulate, joyful, honest and compelling candidate, who exemplifies equality and decency, and defends the rule-of-law could lose to a convicted felon who lies incessantly, is rude, insulting, hateful, vengeful, and defies the rule-of-law.

Harris didn’t have enough time to campaign, didn’t distance herself enough from Biden, didn’t give enough policy details, paid too much attention to Black voters and not enough to Latino voters and didn’t reach out to men.  She waffled on fracking and lost the middle class, and the price of eggs was too high.

The experts have largely missed the most fundamental reasons for the loss, which they will not find in the data, because it lives in the culture of our country.

Vice President Kamala Harris did not lose the election on November 5th, 2024.  She lost it October 20th, 1964—the day she was born.

Kamala was born a Black-East Indian girl, in the midst of civil rights chaos, 4 years before Martin Luther King was murdered, 10 years before women could open bank accounts or get credit cards, 44 years after women won the legal right to vote, though Black women could not exercise the right until 1965. 

As a society we have come so far in the last 60 years.  At least half of us believe and want to live in a counrty that can elect someone like Kamala Harris to the highest office in the land.  

The truth is, this country cannot elect a Kamala Harris because we have not yet overcome the deep biases, blatant and subtle, that have always defined our culture.  That is a cold, hard, unpleasant, unjust reality.

It is worth reminding ourselves that:

• Most church-going people in this country worship in places where God is male. Women cannot be ordained, preach, serve in leadership or even collect the offering.  How could these parishioners ever imagine a woman in the most powerful position on earth?

• In business and politics, the vast majority of leaders and billionaires are white men.

• Most cultural content and entertainment is created, produced and performed by men, in most sectors white men.  Women can barely break into comedy, and certainly not fill the important role of hosting a late night talk show.

• Women’s sports are not equal to men’s in coverage, compensation or viewership.  I need to click at least 7 levels into my TV to even find women’s sports.

• Women are still judged more by how they look than how they think or perform.  Many of us will not even leave home without make-up.

• Every woman who works in an organization knows that her opinions matter less than her male counterparts.  Black women are hardly heard at all.  Disabled women are invisible.

With this amount of bias baked into the culture, how could we have ever believed Kamala Harris could become the President of the United States of America?  It was an aspirational, inspiring, hopeful, but ultimately, delusional belief. 

There was nothing Kamala Harris could have done to win, because winning was not possible.  The fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton got more votes than her opponent is not instructive to the 2024 election.  First, because Hillary is white, and second because, brutal as it may seem, 2016 was a more progressive time than 2024.  

Only one person, Joe Biden, could beat the most unqualified, immoral man to sit in the oval office.  Biden was well-qualified, but not very articulate, and old, even in 2020.  But he had the qualifications needed to win.  He is white and male.

My advice to the DFL, and all who support them, is to stop nominating women to run in Presidential elections until the majority of churches embrace a female God and ordain women, until half of the CEOs, elected officials and late-night hosts are women, and proportionally, women of color.  Then, maybe, maybe we will be ready.