The aftermath of Kamala Harris' electoral defeat has followed a predictable pattern: First the political pundits and then the representatives of different factions within the Democratic coalition have all claimed that the result confirms their prior assumptions and beliefs. Big surprise!
But this year really is different. As social psychologist Jay Van Bavel summed up in a Bluesky post, it was simple: "Anti-incumbency bias." Electorates voted against incumbent parties not just in the U.S. but in virtually every country in the world this year, for the first time in more than 70 years. Van Bavel added, "This global trend was a tsunami that swamped ideology, gender, race, age, etc."
