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There is a difference between not campaigning on trans issues and being against trans interests.
The Dems should have campaigned on issues that the electorate cared about like the economy, rather than focusing on issues like trans rights.
For example Gay marriage has never been a central issue in a presidential election campaign, yet it was delivered. They can look after trans interests without falling into the Republican trap of focusing on it in a campaign.
The dems would have been better parking the polarising issues like abortion, and focusing on winning votes from the 1/3 of the electorate who didn't vote by listening to what their priorities were.
The republicans vote is not much up on 2020 despite all the media hysteria - about 74m in both 2020 and 2024. Whats changed is the democratic vote has dropped massively from 81m to 71m - 10m votes lost. Those voters didn't vote Republican, they just didn't vote.
So the Dems needs to appeal to the huge number of non-voters. They're not never voters - they've voted before but they could not bring themselves to vote Democrat.
The question is why the dems lost those votes. I'd contend that most people don't follow politics and are not interested in abortion or trans rights or "threats to democracy". What they care about is their own lives - can they work, are they paid enough, can they afford housing and food. The Democrats should have focused on a positive message and ideas for the economy to counter trumps economic message.
Instead the Dems mostly ignored the economy and I even continue to hear them complaining that the stats show they did a good job on the economy. But people with low paid jobs don't care if you created new jobs, and they don't care that inflation has slowed - they care about their own low paid job, their now higher rents and living costs without pay rises to catch up. Inflation has slowed but not gone into reverse - the cost of living is much higher than it was 4 years ago and that's what the Dems needed to address for voters.
The dems could have won this. They don't need to go to the right and be like Trump, they just need to have a clear message and plan to address the things that worry the american voters. Not just talk to themselves about issues they care about.
They mostly ignored trans issues too aside from to punch back at Trump's ads on sport networks.
And I say that as somebody that paid a lot of attention to those issues because I'm trans.
The Trump campaign spread hate speech about me and a ton of misinformation about my health care.
Should the Democrats have just said nothing?
The whole argument reminds me of gay men pretending like I don't exist so they could advance their own rights, even though it was women like me that started the riots as Stonewall. Throwing trans comrades under the bus just like your post is doing.
But trans rights weren't a big focus for Dems. In fact we were routinely dismissed or outright thrown under the bus. The article talks about that, the GOP completely outspent on trans rights by 9x. At best, Dems promised to simply keep our existing rights. We showed up despite that, so they managed to reach us and our loved ones by virtue of promising not to try to kill us.
Your suggestion that Dems should focus on jobs and stuff is valid. How does supporting trans folk have anything to do with that? And, considering how rock-bottom the response was against these anti-trans ads, why is this even being discussed as part the problem?
They could have won this by... doing exactly what they did? Brilliant! Like, where/when did you see the campaign focus on trans rights rather than the economy? I mean, I didn't think her economic plan was all that, but at least I heard about it.. I only heard about trans anything from the right, and it certainly wasn't them campaigning on trans rights! Do you really think the Democratic presidential campaign was just Democrats talking to themselves about trans rights? I'm dying to know what media you consume!
You know what? I don't think you have any idea about what Harris ran on, though it sounds like you're aware of the FOX news caricature of her campaign. Which, honestly, puts you in probably about the same place as the average American voter.
You are right about the need to reach non-voters, but I'd include never-voters. Personally, I think the addiction to fat-cat money is the biggest obstacle to attracting old and new voters. I reckon it's not easy to want to fix problems that major donors don't want fixed.