Matt, thanks for reading and responding. I recognize responding to every single comment is dumb but this struck another note — so want to key in on a few things you mention.
A. I’m glad you voted for Clinton in the general but let’s discuss this warning/scandal issue, because it’s a recurring comment I see cropping up in various iterations:
“I was a Sanders supporter, and WE tried to warn the Democratic establishment that Clinton’s scandal-plagued past (even though yes, the vast majority of them were complete B.S.) would doom her in a campaign cycle that was most definitely anti-establishment.”
How did you try and warn the democratic establishment? With votes? With rallies? With social media? Regardless of how you tried to warn them, the Democrats and democratic party were more than well aware of the Clinton’s “scandal-plaged past” and as you mention — were also well aware that “the vast majority of them were complete B.S.” I’ll take it a step further and say that majority of the “scandals” were ABSOLUTELY BS. Did you notice how the Benghazi hearing committee just quietly closed down last week? Have we learned all there is to learn now about Benghazi OR is it that Hillary Clinton is no longer running for office and thusly, there is no point in maintaining a smear campaign?
I lived in NYC, I can tell you the overwhelming number of people I saw at Bernie rallies seemed impressive! And then New York voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. People really liked his message, he spoke to a number of people, but, when it came time to vote — it really wasn’t even close. Bernie won more contests than expected, sure. But vote tallies did not indicate a message was being sent to the DNC or the party which overwhelmingly voted for Clinton.
B. We’ll never know if Sanders would have won or lost.
“Now, we’ll never know if Sanders would have won or lost, but personally I think he would have had a better chance in those key battlegrounds states that Trump took due to his well-deserved reputation of standing up for workers.”
This is a lovely opinion. I hate to be so blunt and I truly don’t mean any offense, but anyone who thinks Bernie Sanders — an athiest, Jew with his own baggage (socialism, castro, wife bankrupting private college, son out of wedlock, etc.) would have faired better in a race mired in dog whistles to the alt-right, KKK coupled with Russia’s involvement, is being willfully thick. Maybe you’re all magnificent optimists? Maybe that’s it? I’m a realist. And looking at the election for what it was, in retrospect the argument that Trump some how appealed to “working class whites” has been debunked over, and over again. Thus, I don’t think Bernie’s platform — which was solely based on wage inequalities and free education, I don’t think that would have made an impact in battleground states OR regular states.
Trump’s victory actually came down to wealthy, college-educated white people. The voters Clinton lost were the ones whose number one issues were immigration and terrorism. We’ve got to stop the notion that Clinton lost because the Working Class didn’t vote for her — they did. If you would argue that Bernie’s chief issue was the economy — she got those voters too, rust belt and nationwide.
C. Clinton didn’t do a really great job of explaining why she should be President.
I also have to say that I don’t feel Clinton ever did a really great job of explaining why she should be President. The campaign, especially in the last couple of months before the election, just focused on attacking Trump.
….
Clinton had a website that explained her policies in fantastic detail, but she had a hard time really wrapping it up into a concise, clear message that she could deliver at campaign rallies, in debates, and in TV ads. There was no clear “vote for me because I will do X and it will be great for you.”
Woof. Man. Please don’t conflate how the media decided to COVER Clinton with her not having a message or doing a job to convey why she should be president. This is a massive problem. Here’s a quick breakdown on policy from both candidates:
Words on policy pages:
Clinton — 113k
Trump — 9k
Policy fact sheets:
Clinton — 65
Trump — 0
Policy issue pages:
Clinton — 38
Trump — 6
Clinton did rallies, held events with voters and continued releasing policies based on what she was hearing from people she met throughout the campaign. She too had a message which she hammered home at every rally, it was called “Stronger Together.” She was going to revitalize the economy/get the country working again, make college free for most and affordable for others in addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for a lot of people, because when everyone works together, we’re STRONGER TOGETHER. This was a concise message which she communicated daily. Other policies would be addressed (i.e. Crime Bill or Clean Energy) based on who she was talking to at any given day.
Hillary wiped the floor with Donald Trump at three debates — this isn’t my opinion, it fact. If a presidential campaign is two candidates running for a job, then the debates represent the most public job interviews possible. She clearly explained what she would do for the country and how she would do it. Donald Trump mostly sniffled and acted like a massive prat.
“Hillary didn’t do a good job of explaining why she should be president” is a laughably bad excuse of why she didn’t win. The only thing Hillary Clinton did not do was get on stage and say, “Vote for me because i’m the motherfucking boss with decades of political experience and foreign policy knowledge or because i’m not a reality TV star!” She communicated it a much nicer manner.
D. Why Trump Won
But the problem is, it’s all about perception. Trump had a sales pitch for why he should be President. It was a scary one and mostly made up B.S. with no real policy proposals, but he hammered it home at every rally, and people listened.
Double woof. I don’t think it’s fair that people want it both ways — you can’t say a candidate loss because they didn’t talk about the issues enough and then say the other guy won because even though he had jack shit, he wouldn’t shut up about it. I find it odd that you aren’t mentioning the role sexism, xenophobia or racism played when we break down Trump’s “BS” you get the following:
- Make America Great Again (sure, catchy slogan(?), means jack shit without policy to back it up)
- Build the wall (get the Mexicans out of here — Xenophobia)
- We’re gonna bring back the good old days (you liked America when white people were the majority and everyone else was lower on the totem pole — Racism)
- I alone can fix it (this is legit just facism and it’s scary)
It’s scary that you genuinely thing it’s a perception problem. I think the perception problem is that you don’t want to call a spade a spade. Trump lost the popular vote, won the electoral college. Yes, I get it. But if you’re going to casually overlook the fact that a man with zero goverment experience won on a sales pitch that got people to listen, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
E. I’m one person, don’t take me venting frustration as speaking for the Democratic Party.
I don’t disagree with most of the points you make here, but I think the broad tone is a scary one, because it worries me that the Democratic party is not really doing a close look at why it lost. Most of what I see is Democrats blaming external factors — it was the FBI, the media, Russia, the “Bernie Bros,” fake news, etc. All of that played a role. But in a loss like this, when everyone expected Clinton to win by a significant margin, it’s time for a little introspection. A little self-examination of what the Democrats did wrong and could do better next time.
This is an incredible paragraph and it’s pretty condescending! One — i’m on person, I don’t represent the Democratic Party. What I wrote, I mentioned in maybe the second or third paragraph, that the Democrats and HRC did not run a perfect campaign or an error-free campaign BUT what I wrote wasn’t an autopsy on the loss. It was about how people are suddenly waking up to what we said all along. This guy is unqualified, his administration will result in catastrophe. Guess what? He’s not even President yet and it’s already happening.
You say the following sentence: “But in a loss like this, when everyone expected Clinton to win by a significant margin…” Can you send some data over to back up that claim? I WORKED on the campaign and I never once read anything that said this wasn’t going to be a close race, a nailbiter even. You’re framing this like Hillary Clinton somehow blew a double-digit lead! That was never the case, so you positioning a self-righteous request for Democrats to go sit in a corner and do some hard thinking after an unexpected loss feels a little off-base.
That’s not to say the Democratic Party isn’t in the middle of regrouping or analyzing the loss. I believe whoever takes over the DNC has a lot of challenges ahead and a lot to learn from perhaps the most unprecedented presidential election in American history. I don’t think anyone is without error, but I want to be careful because misinformation and “fake news” or perhaps even headline-scanning is just as damaging on the left as it is on the right. Some of your claims have a lot of evidence online. But yet you make some pretty wide generalizations in your response. So just one more thing to be mindful of as we move forward and rebuild.
