Election night 2024 carried a hauntingly familiar tone for conservatives, echoing back to Trump’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. The sight of Trump pulling off yet another improbable win left the mainstream media grappling with disbelief and, at times, outright despair. Nowhere was this sentiment more vividly displayed than on CNN, where Van Jones’s raw, emotional response captured the night’s tone. Jones, visibly shaken as the results came in, seemed to sum up the Democratic sense of loss and frustration.
“There are African-American women who know a little bit about being talked down to,” Jones remarked, nearly in tears, “who tried to dream a big dream over the past couple of months. And tonight they’re trading in a lot of hope for a lot of hurt.” It was a visceral reaction to the wave of Trump victories rolling across the map, dashing the dreams of a Harris presidency that many liberals thought was within reach. “It’s not the elites that are going to pay the price,” Jones added solemnly. “It’s people who woke up this morning with a dream and are going to bed with a nightmare.”
Over at NBC, the tone was just as introspective, with longtime anchor Lester Holt leading a candid discussion on the Democratic Party’s decision to run Harris over Joe Biden. As early returns increasingly pointed toward Trump’s victory, panelists, including former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, wrestled with the potential consequences of nominating Harris instead of Biden. Holt raised the uncomfortable question of whether the Democrats would now regret their decision to step away from Biden’s incumbency, asking Psaki if the internal debates had already started.
Psaki didn’t hold back, noting that if Harris failed to secure victory, there would undoubtedly be questions about the timing and structure of her campaign. “She’s run a campaign over the course of 107 days,” Psaki pointed out, a compressed timeline stemming from Biden’s late decision to step aside. Psaki’s comments hinted at frustration within the Democratic establishment, pointing to the difficulties Harris faced in taking over for an increasingly unpopular president on such short notice.
As the night wore on, Trump appeared poised to capture 306 electoral votes to Harris’s 232—a repeat of the exact count he won in 2016. NBC panelists began speculating not only about the Democratic Party’s choice of candidate but about the messaging, strategy, and broader narrative that had brought them to this point. As the press’s assumptions about voter trends and party unity were shattered, a new question loomed over Democrats: where do they go from here?
In an election night reminiscent of 2016, the media and the Democratic establishment were left reeling, wondering what went wrong in a race they once thought they had under control. Guess they’ll think more carefully about calling 71 million Americans garbage and Nazis next time.
Leave a Comment