The sheriff’s famous line in the film Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” pretty much sums up the Harris/Walz campaign’s failure in the election. That’s the entire crux of the biscuit. Of course this simple statement would make for a very short piece without some additional elaboration.

You might think, as one of the many who were elated at Kamala’s entry into the race, that her presence, enthusiasm, palpable joy and obvious competence would have made her a shoe in. I know I thought that. So the idea that her campaign didn’t communicate well would seem to be a completely weird and contrary statement. But it is a fact.

The most important part of communicating is getting a message received, accepted and understood at the end of whatever channel you are sending through. And that’s where things broke down. We, who had always seen Trump as the criminal conman that he has been since his casino days and before, were not the people she failed to communicate to.

To communicate with anyone, at a one-on-one level or as a large group, you have to understand who you are talking to. This includes understanding what kind of communication they will be receptive to at an emotional level. The massive and enthusiastic rallies Kamala and Walz exhaustively ran created an illusion that they were hitting a home run. But these were folks who were already energized and on board. These people resonated at the emotional level of enthusiasm that the campaign projected. Meanwhile everyone convinced themselves that the polls showing a tight race were just wrong, part of the media’s intent of keeping the horse-race atmosphere alive for ratings. Hell, I thought that too.

But there were a lot of people already in the Trump campaign’s camp, and more that were leaning that way, for one reason: fear. These people were scared of losing whatever status quo they had so far been able to scrape together and needed something to hedge their bets. What resonates to people who are scared? It is not enthusiasm or joy. Not a chance. But anger and hate do. Think back. When has anyone ever heard Trump say something that was not hateful or angry? That’s right never. This is his specialty.

If you approach this analysis from a viewpoint of logic, what happened in our election makes no sense. By electing Trump, people voted against their best interests and swallowed unprecedented quantities of propaganda from Musk, Russia and you name it. Nothing about this makes sense.

But if you look at it from the viewpoint of how people respond emotionally, it becomes obvious. People in fear don’t really respond at all the messages of enthusiasm or cheerfulness. They view them with suspicion or distrust. In terms of communication management, the Harris/Walz campaign needed to be a lot angrier: angry that a convicted criminal and rapist was even considered by the Republican Party much less running him for president. Kamala’s bemused responses to his lies in their debate were not bad. But the correct response—especially considering that there really was no exchange of ideas—would have been to angrily attack his every utterance.

Kamala Harris is a badass and would have made a hell of a president. But her campaign screwed up terminally by not understanding these principles. The post-election hand wringing, circle of pointing fingers, blame game has also totally missed this boat. Democrats have blamed everything from the racism of Trump’s supporters to Ketamine-Elon’s deep pockets for their failure. The truth is that all failures in any organization of any type can be traced to internal actions rather than external ones. One can’t do anything at all about conditions outside your fence—you don’t have control of them. But one can certainly do a better job internally to understand what’s out there and work to properly address it.

Trump, even better than his managers, understood the power of outrage, hate and lies. Democrats were too focused on the fact that Trump kept lying with every breath. Media outlets spent lots of reporter salaries counting the number of times he lied like baseball stats. Reality check. No one ever expects an angry man to do anything but lie. He will only hammer and point and attack and denigrate and belittle with speech and action. This is the nature of that emotional level. But it reaches the fearful, the terrified and the cowering. Why else would people whose best interests were well and competently served—despite all the propaganda to the contrary—by the current administration vote for what may well become the end of the Republic?

Bigots, white supremacists and the like are by their very nature fearful people—their anger is a façade. But probably the most fearful segment of the American population is the middle class. And this is understandable. The middle class has been under concerted attack as a broad demographic for decades. Republicans and their billionaire backers have hated it since it was brought into existence by the programs of Roosevelt as he navigated the country out of the Depression.

But that nascent fear was enough for enough some middle class voters to cross over and elect a man who openly wants to shoot them in the foot while he deports their neighbors and friends, maybe even relatives.

Trump’s play was always about emotion. Hillary missed it in 2016. Biden may have won 2020, but his weak-ass Attorney General and his glacial cases against Trump set up the pathway to a much worse result now.

All because the Democrats really had no clue about how to talk to fearful and terrified people. Next time around, if there is one, maybe the Dems or another party will be willing to do the down and dirty work of understanding who they are talking to and figure out how to reach them.