THEY ALL LEAD TO THE WRONG PLACE
They say victory has a thousand mothers, but really it is the failure of 2016 that has spawned multiple explanations tempting us to fight the last war.
If only she’s spent more time in Wisconsin. If only the New York Times had treated her fairly.
If only Comey hadn’t taken matters into his own hands with that remarkable statement just before the election. If only she’d have turned and punched the big creep in the nose when he started staking her on the debate stage.
No doubt it is the narrowness of the loss that inspires this thinking. And the question, How could we have shifted a mere 107,00 votes in the rust belt?
But it’s the wrong question. It leads to obsession over the wrong thing.
Here’s the right question
Why wasn’t it a landslide? Why didn’t Clinton crush Trump everywhere?
I really want to hear the so-called moderates explain how someone like Trump could come to power in the status quo they so palpably want to return to.
The 107k-votes-in-the-rustbelt question leads logically to Joe Biden. Can anyone then explain why he is doing so poorly? If they can spare the time from the mad scramble to replace him with someone, anyone, of his ilk.
The party needs to come to terms with what happened or it will happen again.
I uprated this diary because I think it’s an important discussion. I think it’s particularly important that we not attempt to force 2020 into the mold of 2016.
There will never be another Hillary Clinton, for better or worse. There will never be another woman subjected to so many lies from the right wing over such a long period at such an extreme cost. No first family will ever again provoke so much vitriol for so little substance.
It is very unlikely that there will be another Richard Mellon Scaife so eager to spend so much money to destroy a sitting president. It is unlikely that they’ll join forces with similar right-wing crackpots like William and Joseph Coors (who made the Koch brothers look like wimpy moderates).
It is very unlikely that we’ll ever see another high-profile, ambitious, and politically skilled woman attempt to follow her impeached and acquitted two-term president husband into the oval office after a distinguished 16 year career in the Senate and State Department.
We will never again have a major party nominate the first woman for President on the heels of successfully electing the first black for two successive terms.
It’s true that 2016 should have been a landslide. It’s true that it wasn’t.
In my view, it is important to look at the American electorate of 2016, then and now. It is important to look at the world’s mass media, then and now. It’s crucially important to know how far into our government the cancer of Russian money and corruption had eaten in 2016 and has eaten now.
I can’t remember a time when the losing contender in a hard-fought primary battle in one election has been nominated and gone on to win in the next election following. When I look at the Democratic Presidents of my lifetime — JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama — none of them were rejected by primary voters in a prior election. I think the same is true on the GOP side of the aisle — only Richard Nixon had lost any presidential contest and later come back to win the presidency.
I hear lots of Monday-morning quarterbacks say that the biggest mistake Democrats made in 2016 was nominating a candidate that the entire world knew was, rightly or wrongly, widely disliked.
I think that nominating Bernie Sanders amounts to doubling down on that decision.
I was just asked by a Sanders supporter if I feel that workers should not have a say in their jobs because I’m not ready to sign up for replacing the US economy with Denmark-style socialism.
That mindset is how we will lose in November.
Oh, I think that your’re optimistically discounting the possibility that Melania is elected to the Senate in 2025, and is a candidate for President in 2040.
Melania Trump being elected President would require a constitutional amendment.
I have to admit that I’ll consider it a win if we HAVE an election in 2025, and I’ll feel lucky to be alive if I make it to 2040 (I’ll be 88 then).
I know I’m nit-picking, but do you really think the Trumpists will amend the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to be President?
When you come up with the answer to the landslide question let us know. I still can’t believe that 90% of the people did not stampede the polls just for the privilege of voting against such an obviously awful human being.
Biden’s pitch is “I can talk to your dumb midwestern relatives.” His appeal is kind of like an old Beto . Not a terrible candidate but never been really inspiring. A great speaker when he was younger.
The problem for him is that the Dem primary voters are nuts. They basically want your midwestern relatives to die, or they believe the demonological explanation for 2016: Russia.