The opinions in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Liberal America.
“Hillary 2016” was a mantra that we adopted, a belief that we shared, and a dream that we wished for. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the first woman president. That would have been good.
She might have been a great president. Who knows? We certainly never shall.
Because the fact of the matter is that aside from president-elect Donald Trump, she was one of the least popular candidates of all time. We can’t blame her for that. She was victimized by the right; she was unfairly blamed for her husband’s mistakes.
She was accused of exhibiting a sense of entitlement. That’s code for being a woman who is good at her job – in case you were wondering. And though it looks like she won the popular vote, she failed to win over key battle.
We can acknowledge these things, but the fact remains that an election is popularity contest.
Tiny Fists And Big Red Buttons
So, we have four years of Trump’s ham-fisted mismanagement to look forward to and although things look bleaker than a Scottish moor right now, there is a silver lining. There always is.
There are always ways in which victory can be harvested from defeat, ways in which our opponents’ Schadenfreude can strengthen our resolve. The U.S. has faced its moment of Brexit, and that initial ice-cold splash of shock, that was the worst part. The fight back is better, it always is.
We’ll get through the stomach cramps, the tears, the moments of rage, and the silent despair. And we will do so by looking forward; recriminations, name-calling, back biting, they are of no use. Leave such things to the opposition.
Who to blame?
We can blame those who supported Trump of course. Those people who ignored the painfully obvious defects in his character are as Clinton noted, deplorable. Such musings only take us so far though. Painful though it might be we have to look closer to home as well.
The primary season saw Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) win 21 states despite the fact that the Democratic National Committee actively conspired to derail his campaign.
The WikiLeaks email releases, timed though they were to damage Clinton’s chances, nevertheless granted insight. We got to see just how dismissive the Democratic Party had become of its own base.
In their arrogance, the leadership no longer considered the rank and file to be part of the political equation.
In January 2016, in an email exchange, Clinton speech writer Dan Schwerin worried that Clinton was failing to connect with younger voters stating that they needed to:
“…Disaggregate Bernie’s voters from Bernie himself, so the former feel like they can keep shaping the party even after the latter rides off into the sunset … None of this changes the basic problem that compared to Bernie we’re never going to be the ‘change candidate’ and so we’re either confident in our own identity or we’re chasing him and offering ourselves as a pale imitation.”
The Good, The Bad, And The Bigly
The DNC’s job is not to pre-select nominees. They are there to organize and assist, to facilitate the selection of the candidate by the rank and file. They lost sight of that somewhere. To them, the primaries were a rubber stamp, nothing more.
They had forgotten the lessons of 2008 when Obama snatched victory from Clinton’s jaws. They had neglected to pay attention to the GOP’s favorite son, former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, as he spent hundreds of millions of dollars and barely made any headway whatsoever. The Super Delegate system created controversy where none was needed. One member, one vote always did have a nice ring to it.
Fully cognizant of the fact that the electorate — on both sides of the political divide — was screaming for change, the DNC opted to back a candidate who couldn’t delver any without seeming to be turning on the incumbent president.
Her defeat smarts. But within that pain lies a mote of opportunity. The Democratic Party can learn from this, grow from this. And become stronger for all that.
A Loss Is As Good As a Victory
We had to lose sooner or later. It’s a simple fact of the democratic process that no one party can hold onto power indefinitely. Indeed, since the party system began, there have been 88 years of Republican Presidents and 91 years of Democratic Presidents. That’s pretty close to a 50/50 split. In a very real way, we’re all of us losers at some point.
But it also means that within the cycle of defeat there exits worse times to lose than others.
This is one such time.
Trump’s rise to power did not exist in a vacuum. Such things never do. Although his ideas are repugnant, there is no question that some of them stuck a nerve with the American people. Some voted for him in spite of his rhetoric not because of it. Had Trump lost last night he would only have handed the GOP a victory formula for next time. They would have fielded a Trump light; someone extolling much of the same rhetoric but denuded of the baggage. Perhaps even someone possessing a modicum of self-restraint.
And that would be bad.
Trump 2.0
Because this Trump’s ideas are untenable. Even from an objective standpoint, he has simply promised too much.
With the Republicans in control of Congress, he might get his wall. He might hit a few of his other fantasist soundbites too.
But will he make American great again? That seems unlikely. His plans to double trade read like the script from an early J.K. Rowling novel. Come 2020, even his most ardent supporters might start wondering if a failed real estate developer was what the country really needed.
Spoiler alert. It definitely was not.
The failure of Hillary 2016 might well become the success of 2020.
Because, in the meantime, we need to remind political parties that they owe their allegiance to the people. We don’t want massaged job figures that show growth in employment but hide underemployment. We don’t want a minimum wage we want a living wage. We don’t want healthcare for some we want it for all. We want tax dollars invested in young people not in offshore tax havens and we want education provided for all the way up to an including college. And that’s just for starters. We want progressive criminal justice reform; we want urban renewal.
We want to give pharmaceutical companies the mother of all wedgies.
When Trump makes a mess of things, the Democrats will be on hand to step in and clean things up, just like always.
Only this time, they can put forward a candidate who represents the party faithful. Someone who combines intelligence, drive and ambition with the most important characteristic of all.
Popular appeal.
Watch President Obama and his reaction to the 2016 election outcome:
And this from the final presidential debate:
https://youtu.be/VLdmEDOAA4A
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
