Am I the only Dem who was lukewarm on both candidates and am watching while partisans on both sides go nuts? Feel free both Hillary and Bernie fans to rail on me.
The election was lost by a perfect storm of stupid crap by DNC, Wikileaks, and crappy candidates. And even then with Dem turnout way down, Hillary barely lost and got the popular vote.
1) Bernie was a populist but not a perfect or even great candidate. Like Trump, he presented liberal ideas that sounded so good, but without any elaboration of how to pay for them or make them happen. That's why he lost Pennsylvania in the primary (none of my Pennsylvania friends voted for Bernie for this reason), a state the Trumpy won in the general election. Highly educated voters went for Hillary. And Bernie appealed pretty much only to young voters, who typically dream but don't think about how to make dreams real. See graphics.wsj.com/... for stats. There is no reason to believe that Bernie would have done any better in the general election than Hillary. He would have gotten part of Trump's white turnout, but would have lost minorities, people in cities, and pragmatic dems. He burned many bridges with Hillary voters late in the primaries. For many dems, he would have been another unenthusiastic candidate.
2) I think it’s clear what Hillary’s flaws are. But for the Hillary partisans out there: The use of institutions that are supposed to stay out of the selection process (DNC), the instinctual urge to turn away from transparency (e-mails, Wall street speeches), the inability to connect with common voters but seeming ease with wealthy contributors, her terrible delivery of speeches. Her gender is not a shield to be used for these big flaws. They are very real. From my perspective, she had too little faith in herself to be open with voters and not use the machinations of the party to get ahead.
3) What the DNC did was inexcusable and idiotic. Combined with the Podesta emails, it killed a lot enthusiasm for Hillary. It was high-risk, as evidenced by what happened with all the leaks and anger it created with grassroots supporters. And, frankly, it was low reward. Contrary to what Bernie fans say, Bernie had real flaws that lost him MILLIONS of votes, which had nothing to do with when debates were scheduled or what questions were asked at the debates. Do you really think that debates that most people don’t watch even when scheduled on the right day and time swung millions of votes? See #1 above.
4) Wikileaks actually had all the DNC emails way BEFORE the primary was over, and decided to publish them AFTER the primary, near the convention, to adhere to their "maximum effect" editorial policy. You can bet that Bernie would have won if Wikileaks had released the information before critical primaries. Or Hillary would have beat Trump if Wikileaks never leaked the emails at all. We were played by pseudo-tranparency organizations like Wikileaks just like the establishment DNC played us.
My advice for you partisans: Never get too invested in a single candidate. They are always flawed in some way. They either will get screwed over in some way in your view (as you think happened to Bernie), or will screw you over in some ways in the future (see Hillary’s inability to fix her flaws in the general election). Move on, and if necessary, come together to support the most progressive candidate. The fact is that this year, our candidates were flawed and just not good enough at bringing party back together after the primary.
While you partisans are at each others’ throats, there are real problems that need to be fixed going forward. For me, it is the lack of a single candidate going forward who can be both progressive, pragmatic, and likable. It wasn’t there this year, and I don’t see it coming soon in the future. It’s the broken Democratic institutional apparatus (DNC and state party structures) that need to be rebuilt from the grassroots up. It’s the swing of the party toward corporations and way from common person.
Why can’t we start talking and working towards fixing that?