Hey Democrats, I know you’re going
to spend a lot of money on fancy consultants to figure out what went wrong in
2016 but let me tell you for free. It’s one word: vision. That’s what you never
had, except from Bernie and technically he isn’t really a Democrat even.
Most of the Democrats who win have
a vision: FDR, Kennedy, and Obama are the prime examples. They gave people a
vision of what they wanted to do and made people believe in it. Bill Clinton to
a lesser extent gave people a vision of a change from the stodgy old
Reagan-Bush machine.
All through this lengthy election
cycle Hillary had no vision. Just look at her slogans: Ready For Her basically
meant, “Vote for me, I Have a Vagina.” The later “Stronger Together” basically
meant, “I’m not Trump.” Neither really excited the masses.
The writing was on the wall in the
primaries. People like me flocked to Bernie not because we’re misogynists (most
of us anyway) but because Hillary was just running as an extension of Obama and
Bill Clinton. She probably didn’t think she would even need a platform and then
came Bernie with his democratic socialism, exposing her utter blandness.
Thanks to superdelegates and shady
practices rigging it (as Trump would say) she squeaked past Bernie. That only
disgruntled a lot of Bernie supporters instead of bringing them to her side.
Even by borrowing a couple of his ideas, she couldn’t swing a lot of them over
to her. They either voted 3rd party or stayed home.
As terrible as it might be, Trump
gave people a vision. Yes a horrible, apocalyptic vision for many of us, but
for desperate people in the Rust Belt yearning for the “good ol’ days” it was
enough to swing them his way no matter the horrible things he said and did.
By comparison, what was Hillary
going to do? Tweak Obamacare maybe but otherwise keep things the same. I doubt
a lot of Bernie supporters really bought into the idea she would tame Wall
Street or go through with her college plan. The former was especially
unbelievable with the speeches she made to Wall Street firms.
Which is another point: you should
have known better. You knew she was damaged goods. Benghazi and the email thing
had come up more than a year ago. You had plenty of time to find a better
candidate. It didn’t have to be Bernie, but someone who could articulate a
vision and didn’t carry the baggage of twenty-five years of phony scandals. But
you thought you could slip her through since Obama had favorable ratings and
she had name recognition. You tried to ram her down our throats in the
primaries, which only added to that “less of two evils” argument. And since the
convention running with the empty message, “I’m not as bad as him” only helped
to sell the false equivalency argument.
In 2018 and 2020, you have to give
people something to latch on to. Instead of focusing entirely on minorities and
city dwellers, try to throw the Trump supporters a bone. Promise to revive the
unions and the good paying, high benefit, low education jobs they provide. If
you can find a way to do more than promise that’s always good. Trump largely
won with the illusion that he’s the man of the people, despite that it makes no
sense for a billionaire trust fund kid to give half a shit about blue collar
folks. He was able to make people think he spoke for them and represented them.
That’s what you must do in the next election cycles. Instead of “elites” find
people who can be relatable. Hillary is a capable, experience politician but
she has little charisma or charm and is not a great speaker, all of which undoubtedly
hurt her.
Whatever you do, don’t just write
it off as “it was because she was a woman.” I remain hopeful that the right
woman will be able to go the distance. Michelle Obama should be at the top of
your list for 2020 because she’s all the things Hillary isn’t.
In the meantime, do everything you
can to obstruct the process; that seemed to work really well for Republicans
since 2008.
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