Trump’s triumph prompts Democratic soul-searching as shock gives way to anger

Democrats are facing a painful reckoning over Kamala Harris’s drubbing at the hands of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, as shock gives way to anger and recrimination in the aftermath of a devastating repudiation.

Lawmakers and strategists looking for someone to blame for Tuesday’s wipeout have so far been more likely to target President Joe Biden than Harris, who is regarded as having done a decent job with the short time she had to campaign.

The election night disaster – Trump’s triumph was accompanied by a Republican “red wave” in the Senate – has proved to be a Rorschach test, with rival factions each offering reasons for the defeat informed by their particular brand of Democratic politics.

The circular firing squad began with progressive senator Bernie Sanders arguing in a scathing statement that a party that had forsaken the working class should not be surprised to “find that the working class has abandoned them”.

“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said.

That prompted an angry rebuke from Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison, who dismissed Sanders’ thesis as “straight up BS” and posted a long list of Biden’s achievements for low income families.