Hot take: the Democrats lost the 2020 election.

Now I know what you’re thinking: Biden probably won the election, so why would Democrats lose?

Well, the answer is that politics are a little more complicated than that. Between 2020 election demographic trends, congressional races, and the challenges a Biden administration will face in governing the country, it’s pretty clear that the Democrats lost.

First and foremost: the presidential election. While Biden may have won this election, when we delve into individualized demographics the results become fascinating. Why? Well, let’s see.
If Donald Trump lost this election, it’s because of white males. They are the only demographic who turned out less for him than they did in 2016. Alternatively, the white male demographic is the only group that really showed for Biden. Every other demographic voted a net increase for Trump and a net decrease for Biden.
For Biden, this factor proves that any chance of reassembling the Obama coalition of minority votes is impossible. Barack Obama was an exception, not a dream, and no figure (not his former VP, nor his spiritual successor) can replicate his success.
For Trump, it proves the opposite. Trump assembled a diverse coalition of votes for Republicans – something no Republican since Nixon has been able to accomplish. And this coalition was assembled in a year of racial unrest and division, a year of re-evaluation and wokeness. While the majority of minorities still voted Blue, politics is a study of trends, not numbers. And if this trend continues, Democrats will continue to lose groups integral to their support base, and with it, chances of controlling the country.
Secondly, congressional races trended Republicans. So-called “close” Senate races were mostly blown out of the water by Republicans, and Republicans, specifically young Republicans, have closed the gap of Pelosi’s majority in the House.
What does this fact prove? It proves that the Republican agenda is overwhelmingly popular despite the divisiveness of Donald Trump. A recent Gallup poll indicated that 56% of Americans are currently happier with their current standing than they were four years ago — in the midst of a pandemic and a racial uprising. That number is astronomically high, especially considering popular presidents like Barack Obama only garnered roughly 40% on this same poll during his re-election.
Republicans will hold the Senate, effectively blocking any legislative action to be undertaken by Biden or Pelosi, and maintain control of the judiciary (so “packing the court” cannot occur). Republicans hold a significant minority in the House of Representatives, despite the fact that the party is currently led by potentially the most divisive president in American history. And given that the House typically flips against the president for the next election cycle, Republicans and their agenda remain popular and present despite the divisiveness of Trump.
Lastly, and perhaps most crucially, Biden has a difficult, maybe even impossible task set ahead of him. For 4 years, Biden’s party, which has come to include congressional Democrats, coastal liberals, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, big tech, and higher education, have pushed two narratives forward: that evil starts and ends with Donald Trump, and that every person who has ever voted Republican, or happens to live in the middle of the country, is a racist, backwater, uneducated pig.
How are people going to react when they wake up the day after Biden’s inauguration and COVID still exists? When police brutality still exists? When climate change is still around? When wealth inequality still exists? All of these injustices have become linked to Donald Trump, and so voting him out became synonymous with removing these injustices. Democrats have created a situation they cannot resolve, which is a mistake they cannot afford to make with minority support waning.
More importantly, how will people in the middle of the country react to Biden? Will they have any reason to obey the coalition of groups who called them KKK supporters just a few short months ago? Democrats have no appeals left to the middle of the country once Trump leaves the political stage. How will Texas react when Biden tries to issue a ban on assault weapons? How will Nebraska react when Biden tries to throttle the cattle industry?
Despite his aspirations, Joe Biden and the Democrats have been just as divisive as Donald Trump, and so Biden cannot be the “Great Unifier” as promised. After slandering the middle of the country with every existing power structure, Democrats have no social currency with half the country anymore.
And so, for the next four years, the Democrats are doomed.