Based on reports I have seen, it is not an understatement to declare that the 2020 US national election shocked US Democrats (here). Reason? The election simply did not turn out the way Democrats believed it would.
But Democrat Joe Biden won, didn't he? If so, why would Democrats be shocked?
They were shocked because they wanted more. Much more.
For example, just before the election, serious Democrats seriously believed that election night would bring them euphoria (here). That is, they expected that this election would prove to be a complete repudiation of Trump and his policies (ibid).
But that didn't happen. Instead, it was the Democrat agenda that was 'absolutely repudiated' (here).
Democrats were livid. Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Ortez (D-New York) blasted Democrats and called them, "incompetent" (here). Democrat Congressman Conor Lamb (D-PA) said that Democrats' call to defund the police and--in Pennsylvania (where fracking brings in many, many jobs)--the Democrat call to ban fracking cost Democrats seats in Congress (here). Democrat US senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) said the Democrats' "radical Leftist" agenda scared the "Bejeezus out of people" (here). Anti-Trump TV commentator Joe Scarborough complained that the election results demonstrated a "complete [voter] repudiation of the "Democrat 'brand' (not the Trump brand) (here). Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said that the far-Left messaging that came from some in the Democrat Party "did not play well" in his district (here). Finally, no less an authority than Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond repeated the idea that the Democrats' 'defund the police' message hurt Democrats (here).
These words were reported after the election. They were made for public consumption. No one even hinted at what Democrats were saying in private.
After the election, if there was any consensus among many Democrats, it was that the election was a disaster. Or, as one internet outlet put it, this 2020 election was a "Dumpster fire" for Democrats (here).
By the morning after the election, not one GOP in the House had been ousted. Indeed, the GOP actually picked up new seats (here)--exactly when some high ranking Democrats expected to see a major increase in the current (pre-election) Democratic majority in the House.
That was why this election had become a dumpster fire. The expectation of gaining more Democrat House seats had exploded in Democrats' faces. Democrats had lost seats in the House, not gained.
As this Democrat "dumpster fire" story unfolded, one question seemed obvious: if the Democrat 'brand' frightened the "bejeezus" out of people, how did Democrat Joe Biden win the election?
Remember, Biden, as the Presidential candidate, represented the 'Democrat brand'. In fact, he was more than just a "representative" of the Democrat Party brand. As he himself said during the campaign's first Presidential debate--before millions of US vewers-- "I am (Biden's apparent emphasis)the Democratic Party (here and here). He and his Party agenda are linked.. So if his Party's agenda was so soundly repudiated, how did Biden win?
That repudiation, by the way, is no surprise. Watching the evening news, many American TV watchers saw the Democrat Party--fairly or not--as the Party of defund-the-police, open-the-borders, give-illegal-immigrants-free-stuff-that-everyone-else-must-pay-for. Fairly or not, TV viewers this past summer saw how Democrats (most certainly at the local level, and occasionally at the national level) seemed to embrace the Black Lives Matters protests.
In short, voters didn't buy what some came to call a 'radical-Leftist message'. This message indeed "scared the bejeezus" out of people.
So if both serious Democrats and anti-Trumpers openly reported (as noted above) that the Democrat agenda clearly didn't sell well on election day--and if the Democrat agenda was actually 'repudiated' by voters, as some said (and if Biden was the Democrat Party)--who voted for him?
How did he win?
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