There’s nothing wrong with me.
Or with anyone who told you that Hillary Clinton was a deeply flawed candidate that risked losing the White House.
But that’s just my opinion.
And no one here that supported Clinton for President gave a shit about it.
So, instead of me explaining what’s wrong with all of you who supported the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, Hillary Clinton, I will direct you to Fredrik deBoer. He wrote this piece that was published by the Washington Post (Full Disclosure: The Post endorsed Hillary Clinton for President and ran numerous, one might even say endless and redundant, articles criticizing Sanders) to explain what’s wrong with the Democrats, their party, and their selection of Hillary Clinton as the nominee (yes, selection — see, e.g., the DNCLeaks, Wikileaks, Podesta emails, ad nauseum) in my stead. As the subtitle to his essay says “We [i.e., the Democrats] Chose the Wrong Candidate.”
Donald Trump’s stunning victory is less surprising when we remember a simple fact: Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician. She won a hotly contested primary victory against a uniquely popular candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders. In her place, could he have beaten Trump?
That Clinton has unusually high unfavorables has been true for decades. Indeed, it has been a steady fact of her political life. She has annually ranked among the least-liked politicians on the national stage since she was the first lady. In recent years, her low favorability rating was matched only by that of her opponent, animated hate Muppet Donald Trump. In contrast, Sanders enjoys very high popularity, ranking as the most popular senator for two years in a row. [...]
Clinton’s inability to ever capture the approval of most Americans hurt her in a number of ways. Consider her performance in predominantly black, working-class counties in Michigan. These are precisely the kinds of areas that she was supposed to count on in the Rust Belt, the “blue wall” that would supposedly secure her victory even if she lost out in Florida and North Carolina. [...]
[T]urnout matters in a close election, and here she suffered significantly compared with President Obama in both 2008 and 2012. In Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties in Michigan, the heart of Detroit’s black voting bloc, Clinton won 55 percent of the vote — compared with 69 percent for Obama in 2012. Meanwhile, it was in Michigan that Sanders won his most shocking primary victory, probably through the same forces that hurt Clinton on Election Day: Her agenda did not seem to offer much hope to those hurt by deindustrialization and outsourcing. We can only guess how much better he might have performed there, or in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (which he also won in a surprising primary upset) had he been the nominee. But there is little doubt now that his success in the Rust Belt was a canary in the coal mine for the Clinton campaign, a now-obvious sign that she was in trouble. [...]
Even beyond his advantages in popularity, Sanders would have offered the Democrats advantages in the kind of race he could have run. The Clinton campaign was an incredibly smooth operation in a period of immense public distrust for smooth operators. Clinton’s campaign was defined by its slick Internet presentation and its celebrity endorsements. But neither of these things probably helped her play in the most essential parts of the country, where impeccable web design and Hollywood glamor don’t go as far. Her Twitter account was often masterful, pulling in likes and retweets by the hundreds of thousands — but it turns out retweets aren’t votes.[...]
By the end of the evening, Clinton’s biggest problem was clear: She needed to win suburban white voters in the Rust Belt, and she could not. Younger voters might not realize that these areas were once Democratic strongholds, thanks to high union rates and traditional support for the party among those working in manufacturing. But years of assaults on union rights by Republicans — often barely opposed by Democratic lawmakers who have seemingly lost interest in organized labor — and severe contractions in manufacturing as an employment base have turned that strength into a weakness. Democrats must now ask themselves: Who would have been a better representative for the party in that region? The millionaire from New York with an entourage of celebrities and the backing of the Democratic money machine? Or a small-city New Deal granddad from Vermont who has spent his political life working with unions and appealing to economic justice and populism?
Well, I don’t want to violate the fair use rules, so I will repeat teacherken’s mantra that you should read the entire article. It will be well worth your time.
Addendum: I understand that many of you do not wish to hear this message. You find it grating and irritating and insulting. I understand that because this site, and many, many people here did far worse than that to Sanders’ supporters, like me, after it was clear she would be the nominee, Indeed, even well before that was clear, both before, but especially after Kos’ Ides of March decree.
For myself, I take no delight in Trump’s victory. This is not a game for me. For many like me, who have known real economic and other suffering (for me, my ill health, loss of my livelihood, etc ), and for all those who have suffered far more than I, decimated by the actions of the infamous “New Democrats” exemplified by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and for those who lost jobs and homes and futures and health and hope because the Democratic party abandoned them, the unions and the core base of its supporters since the days of the New Deal in order to cater to the whims of Wall Street con men and mega-corporations, which the Democratic Party in league with their “patners in crime” among the Republicans, helped create with their “bipartisan” actions to promote a corporate agenda at odds with the needs of “we the people,” this is very personal.
Bernie Sanders offered the first true progressive vision for our country by a candidate for President in my lifetime since LBJ. The first shining light in decades to pierce the fog of despair so many of us experienced every day of our lives. But none of you who supported Hillary Clinton and the status quo establishment of “your party” wanted him. You despised him and those of us who advocated for his candidacy. And the end result is a victory by a despicable man, Donald Trump. That is the true loss that all of us must bear because the Democratic Party sold us out for pennies on the dime, for free dinners and junkets, and — to put a single phrase on it — filthy, dirty, lifeless money.
I only hope that after all the anger and scapegoating and blame-shifting and whatever the else is bothering you people is over, you will take a long hard look at what the Democratic Party stands for and what it represents rather than denying the truth. I hope you come to recognize that deep and fundamental change is necessary if we have any hope of making it a vehicle again to salvage our nation from the profound challenges we will face going forward and from the “economic royalists” that control our government, and make the decisions on so many issues that effect the quality of our lives: climate change, racism, sexism, political divisiveness, poverty, wars without end, and on and on and on. That is my prayer. The Democrats have in their ranks new leaders willing to step up and advance the policies and values so desperately needed in this time of tribulation. But will you give them that chance, or will you return to the wrong-headed and evil — yes, evil is the right word for it — policies and agenda of The Powers That Be who will fight to further tighten their their control of the party for their own selfish and greedy desires no matter who it harms?
I sure hope so.