We lost bigly, and we are going to keep losing unless we face the reality of why we lost. I read and hear daily pundits opinions of why the election went the way it did. For the House and Senate it is pretty easy, turnout. Progressives always seem to have a turnout problem and probably always will, even when people do turn out big chunks don’t vote down ballot. But what in the hell happened in the race for the white house….all the polls showed a tighter than was comfortable race but still easily winnable. All the projections showed large margins of confidence. Republicans fielded a terrible candidate. What happened? Well, I am not a highly paid political pundit, not even a wonk unless you want to talk about computers or craft beer. I am a regular guy who is more informed than the average Joe, that’s it. Even so, I have an opinion on what happened; I have waited quite a while to post anything in the hopes that the Bernie/Hillary rift would calm down….I am not sure that is ever going to happen so this diary is my “to hell with it” piece. This is why I think we lost:
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Our candidate. We also fielded a terrible candidate. I don’t think that Hillary Clinton the person is a bad person, and I think that Hillary Clinton the President would make anywhere from a good to great President. But here's the thing; I was born in 1977 and became vaguely aware of politics right about the time Bill Clinton was sworn into his first term. The following 33 years were just chock full of a misinformation campaign to paint democrats (big and little d) and specifically the Clintons in the worst light possible. They did this on the Internet, on the radio, and on TV. I didn’t pay any serious attention to politics until I was in my late 20’s and didn’t bother to vote until 2008. But I did hear about how horrible Bill and Hillary were on a daily basis, it wasn’t until much later in life that I began to actually fact check. At this point I find that even though I agree with her policies for the most part and acknowledge her obvious qualifications, I just have a visceral dislike for her. I can even acknowledge that this dislike is most likely due to the indoctrination I got from living around a bunch of conservative asses and being exposed to a media that enables those conservative asses my whole life. Still disliked her though. And for any who might be dismissive thinking I am a Bernie Bro or that somehow I just dislike her because she lacks a penis; I am a big fan of Senator Warren and do not have the same 'dislike’ for her. I don’t believe this feeling comes from a place of sexism….but regardless of where it comes from, it is there. That is the reality that we have to deal with. So, even though I disliked her (not hated, just a mild dislike) I so much wanted her to be president rather than Trump. In my late 20’s decided to pay more attention to politics and start fact checking things. I would bet dollars to donuts that the average person my age doesn’t and many of those folks disliked Hillary, took the shit that they heard about her at face value and then voted. Could we have done better with Bernie? Maybe, I personally liked Bernie better and his message and populism seemed to resonate well in the key areas Hillary lost, but Communist is scary to a lot of Americans and plus Bernie physically appears old and frail next both Hillary and Trump, so maybe not. Could Warren have won? I think probably so.
At the end of the day we have to face facts. With her qualifications and name recognition against the slate of competitors she had in the primary she should have walked away with a 50 state win or darned close to it. We should have known we were in trouble when a nearly unheard of senator with crazy hair gave her a run for her money.
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Honesty and scandals. While Hillary was demonstrably the most honest candidate in the race it didn’t appear that way. The fake scandals that related to Hillary were met with denials. Of course they were, the scandals were fake, or trumped up (pun not intended). The very real Trump scandals were met largely with “yeah, so what?” I agree that this is totally ass-backwards but people saw this brazen ass-holishness as refreshing honesty, while they saw Clinton’s denials as more political dishonesty. Even if the denials were in reality another example of honesty people didn’t see it that way. Why? Go back to 1. America has been steadily poisoned about Clinton for 2 decades. Another thing, even when politicians don’t lie everybody thinks they are, ever heard the one about who’s more dishonest than a lawyer? A politician. Not very logical and maybe not based in fact but definitely based in a mythology that is an American truth. People expect politicians to be dirty dishonest and adulterers. This is just an American truth, then suddenly we have some quasi-politician who comes out and basically says, “yes I am a horrible person, but I can fix your economic woes” a big chunk of Middle America said “Wow what a breath of fresh air, this guy is being honest about being a dick.”
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Americans are assholes. Be honest, you’re an asshole, at least sometimes. I’m an asshole sometimes. And I quite enjoy when some other asshole gets his comeuppance by someone else who is being an asshole. Admit you do too, half this site is people being righteously indignant over some stupid or evil shit that a republican somewhere has said or done. We are snarky and sometimes shout out mean spirited barbs to the other side. Look at the nastiness that occurred between Bernie and Hillary supporters. That was a case where I think any objective observer could say…”both sides.” And we’re ostensibly the “good guys” we have very nearly the same goals but by god if you don’t like my candidate you are a misogynistic mansplaining asshole…and you if you don’t like mine you are a corporate loving, establishment idiot….etc. etc. Now, all that being said nothing really wrong with being a jerk from time to time, just pointing out that all of us are at some point in our lives an asshole to someone, and someone being an asshole isn’t always repulsive to folks. And in fact many folks think it is just good fun.
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Americans are stupid. I have always been above average in my studies, tested above average on my tests and have an IQ that has been tested as above average. Not really far above average but some. I am no genius, I make mistakes, frequently. I do stupid things, frequently. I have on occasion believed things that had no basis in reality. I don’t really think that I am all that smart…only in comparison to those around me. Now, this isn’t just to talk myself up, it is to illustrate a point. Slightly over half of America is dumber than me. If you knew me that would really scare you.
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We like people who talk “dumb.” Larry the cable guy is not just funny, he is downright likable. That is if you can get past his abhorrent politics. Allot of people like Bush the lesser; I think not so much despite his obvious idiocy but because of it. I don’t know why; but fuck me if people don’t find a big dumb grinning guy endearing. Case in point I have avoided my usual writing style in this diary and have really just been typing from the heart. Just trying to put out there an unfiltered opinion. Some of you have already been offended by my frequent cursing and confused by my kind of scattered thought processes; but, some of you have read my kind of “folksy” style and thought, “yeah, this guy really gets me.” And some have disagreed with the content but enjoyed the relatability of the piece. Not many people can pull off likeable while speaking above a 6th grade level. Former President Obama was one person who could do that. People get offended when they think that I think I am smarter than them.
“Your degree doesn’t mean you’re smarter than me.”
“No the fact I am smarter than you makes me smarter than you, my degree is simply a single piece of evidence amongst many that indicates I may be smarter than you. The proof that I am smarter than you is a preponderance of evidence that includes, but is not limited to, my degree”
For some reason this conversation never makes the person feel any better.
People like small easy to digest sound bites. There is even some research on this in the education world. Conservatism is easy to understand and identify with, especially if you never dig deeper than the surface. People don’t want to dig deeper. As a child of 16 I was a full on conservative, it made sense on the surface; especially when I looked at my first paycheck and saw all the taxes gone. I was not able to understand at the time that my 6 bucks paid to Medicare were helping to keep my grandmother as comfortable as possible in her last year of life. Or that it would help to provide a much needed knee replacement for my maternal grandfather a few years later. I was not able to connect the federal taxes I paid to the roads I traveled on or to the goods my family sold or the BLM land I spent so much time enjoying. To some extent I still feel like a conservative. I never did by into the racism aspect of modern conservatism, not even the casual racism of my grandparents; but the fiscal policy made sense when you wanted to put no effort into understanding fiscal policy. To be a liberal or a progressive or even some crazy combination of the two a person must understand nuance. None of that is required to be a conservative. The policies are simple and viewed in a vacuum. Conservative - Yes it sounds great to me to pay less in taxes, I will have more money that way.
Progressive- Yes it sounds great to me to pay less in taxes; but, If we each pay a dollar more to help pay for education of the younger generation, I won’t have to pay several dollars more for welfare and increased healthcare costs.
There is that nuance; good policy is complicated. It is complicated because health and education are connected and the economy twenty years down the road is connected to health and education and corrections policy today.
So, if you made it this far, thank you for powering through my rant. I think we need to acknowledge that these roadblocks exist. Though Former Secretary Clinton was one of the best candidates for the office of the President, she was one of the worst candidates to run and actually win the election. For all of you who dislike Bernie I fully acknowledge that he would have been terrible too, I mean he proudly proclaims that he is a Democratic Socialist, most of America still thinks of breadlines and Red China and totalitarianism etc. it would have been tough to educate the electorate about what he actually meant by it…..probably should come up with a more PC term like Social Capitalist, then anyone who did not actually know the meaning would think he is a chatty fan of business. Until we can acknowledge all of that we will have a tough time winning consistently regardless of demographics. If we can acknowledge our obstacles we can begin to discuss how to address them and once we do that, we will walk away with the Whitehouse and probably the senate nearly every time at least until an opposition party starts coming up with actual better ideas.
