@interfluidity I agree with most of this but not the knock against Harris's campaign. Her task was not to position the party for future victory, but to win (which would have positioned much better than any campaign speeches via labor & industrial policy).
The "opportunity society" messaging was on mainstream media, which reach middle-class Rs but few Trump-leaning workers. In western PA where I doorknocked, the TV ads and lit were heavily into jobs and anti-plutocrat.

@BenRossTransit i mostly think the campaign was lost not because of bad targeting or particular issues, but because the Trump campaign used new media to create a kind of tribe, in which belonging and (mostly false) worldview reinforced one another, in which the tools of a confidence man did their core work, engendering trust. https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/08/its-the-parasocials-stupid/index.html

@interfluidity On the issues, I think voters were overwhelmingly persuaded that Harris would protect abortion more and Trump would cut immigration more.
You may be right about the second part, but the reason Trump could make "gaffes" is that he had a closed right-wing information system that hid them. To me, an equally plausible theory about non-issues voters is that Trump filled a human yearning for the strong man who will fix everything.

@BenRossTransit yeah. i think that’s right too. although i think by emphasizing “strong man” rather than “fix everything” we deny for ourselves an ethical path to compete. he said he would fix everything! he said things would be great, a new golden age. dems are too “reality based” to let themselves promise that anything will fundamentally change. it’s hard to get people excited over the slow boring of hard boards when the other guy is offering an amazing (if brave) new world.

@interfluidity I doubt the "fix everything" works without the "strong man." Americans are inured to the confidence man who promises everything, and can see through it.
If you believed the promises on both candidates' TV ads and lawn signs, Trump's ads were overwhelmingly superior to Harris's. He failed to persuade 48% percent of the voters in Pennsylvania and nationally.