Good post

Best thought provoking post since the election, Christopher.

Should've nominated Jim Webb.

The only (very small) consolation here is that all those with pristine consciences who refused to 'vote for the lesser evil' (many of whom spent months spreading Clinton FUD on social media) will soon, like the rest of us, learn what life is like under the greater evil. The vastly, exponentially greater evil.

@3
...said the person that offered absolutely nothing, no proof, no fact based argument, actually no argument at all, to dispute the content of either article.

Thank you.

People are ignoring how everything comes back to the huge presumptions the DNC made with Clinton. When almost half of you're presumed-D base doesn't want anything to do with your presumed-winner candidate, you don't keep plowing forward – which is what they did, and look what happened. Whether or not Bernie could have actually won is not the point so much as how much responsibility falls in the DNC's lap for mismanaging their own best bet in so many ways.

Biden would have won, I think, against Trump.

Since I vividly remember the outcome of the 2000 election and the role that Nader played in all of that (ugh), my main goal before the election was to try to help some of my younger facebook friends see the error of their thinking regarding Hillary, the DNC and the third-party vote. I used sane, rational argumentation, evidence, and many of the same points about Bernie that the author used above.

It didn't work. At all.

The far left was just as blinded by their media bubble and just as passionate against Hillary as the right.

All of the things I feared came to pass. I wish some of them would have listened to sanity and reason.

I tried.

If the Green Party wanted influence, it could have nominated Hillary Clinton. Then people could vote for Clinton on that ticket and Greens would have been in a position to influence policy directly in a Clinton administration, proportional to the number of votes they brought her. Like with a cabinet post or two. But either they don't understand how politics works, or they refuse to act on that knowledge.

A year ago, I was thinking it would be such a miracle if the Democrats could hold the White House for three terms in a row - something that hasn't happened since Harry Truman. Just accomplishing that one thing alone would have been the greatest accomplishment for social progress since the Civil Rights Act. And it was with a growing sense of dismay and foreboding that I saw the rise of this idealism. It was too much to hope for, a nominal Socialist as president. Anybody who has been paying attention for a while should know American politics isn't like that. And I say this as a person who's political prefs are well to the left of anything Bernie Sanders ever talked about in public.

People should remain focused on what is possible. And resist the temptations of idealism, which is a type of vanity.

The biggest 3rd party winner was Gary Johnson, of the Libertarian party. He got over 4 million votes. I haven't seen the numbers to show the people who would vote third party anyway would've gone more for Hillary than Trump. Did we even try to go after their votes? Did we even try to keep the Obama voters? Did we even know we were going to lose those Obama votes until too late? If not, why not?

Those are the questions to ask.

I was a Bernie supporter and a Hillary voter this election. Many Bernie supporters voted for Hillary despite after the primary being called petulant, whiners, crybabies, conspiracy theorists and so forth. None of that pushed us away. That should say a lot.

Suck on that between the hyperventilation.

If this all you've got to get out the vote for 2018, we are in deep shit.

There's plenty of blame to go around. The DNC, Clinton as the candidate, the Bernie or Bust people, the third party voters, etc.

Go ahead and lay some blame for a while, it'll feel stress-relieving.

Afterwards though, the democrats as a party really, truly need to join back together and find a way to rebuild the party and to be able to find common cause to unite both the "coastal elites" and the "rural rednecks." We DO have common goals and common values, we, the democrats should get around to what unites us together rather than what has split us apart.

Interesting and thought provoking post. I better keep quiet. :)

A slog post that's just someone else's work cut into pieces with hearty "hear hears!" interjected, great journalism. Speaking of great journalism, the piece Frizzle cut-n-pasted starts with one of those anecdotes that smells fake as hell, then claims to have insider knowledge of the GOP's mind-blowing opposition research that we didn't know about (that's all stuff I heard about during the primaries.)

Liberals didn't cost Hillary the election. Moderates cost the American people the election. Trying to blame the minuscule percentage of the electorate that voted Green for the Democrats failure to win the nearly half the electorate that didn't turn out at all is GOING TO MAKE THE DEMOCRATS LOSE AGAIN. Hillary won the popular vote with less votes than Obama got. The Democratic Party could not convince people it was worth showing up to vote for their candidate and that is not the fault of the liberals.

Hillary lost the electoral college because she lost a bunch of swing states where her trade policies, secret paid speaking gigs, etc... were really unpopular. People didn't have to believe Right Wing conspiracy theories (which a lot of people did, but they weren't voting for a Democrat anyway) to not be motivated to vote for her, her record was problematic. The Democratic Party did a terrible job of selling Clinton, but having a iffy product didn't help at all. They seemed content with being anti-Trump, which maybe drove turnout down on the GOP side, but I doubt it brought many out on the Democratic side. "Well at least we don't suck as much as them." isn't a good sales strategy when your consumer feels they don't need to buy, and clearly about half the electorate felt they didn't.

Stop bitching about Sanders and Stein, they neither won nor lost this election, start figuring out how to do better.

A vote for Jill Stein was really a vote for third parties. If the Green Party gets 5% of the vote, it becomes an established party which means federal funding and automatic inclusion on the ballot in every state.
Any vote for Jill Stein in a state that went for Hillary did not hurt her campaign and would not have made a difference in the election.

I want to challenge this "republican play-book" argument on why Bernie was unelectable. Would ad hominem arguments about character really have mattered when running against a personal trainwreck like Drumpf? Who's to say all that oppo research mightn't've been dismissed as false news, just as the other side did? Or that they wouldn't care, again like the R's? Isn't the lesson of 2016 that you have to fight demogoguery with demogoguery in times of economic uncertainty, and that like Spain in the '30's, that out choice in a two party system is now socialism versus fascism? I'm not saying I like any of this but isn't that the cold reality liberals need to accept if they ever hope to win?

I love you, Chris. And then I read the comments and I'm remember that...oh yea...Washington "progressives" are a bunch of know nothing douchebag with a regressive tax code. I'm worried for us!

Why do you guys keep bringing this up if you don't want to talk about it? Do you or don't you want to discuss Clinton's electability?

The fundamental error you're making here is treating the right wingnut attack portfolio as if it were legitimate. Like the truth value of their accusations mattered. The stuff they accused Hillary of was fucking made up. Almost all of it. So what if it's true or not? It's irrelevant whether or not they had truthful or half-truthful shit to say about Bernie. They'd have had plenty to say against him no matter what. They lied about Obama too but he still had good numbers. Is that fair? No. But you have to face facts whether it's fair or not.

The difference is that the stuff they've been saying about Hillary for 25 years has stuck. She's the one with the favorabliity deficit that she has never overcome. It cost her a couple points -- more like 10 -- along with Comey costing her a couple points, and bad polling costing her a couple points and offending the progresive wing of her party costing her a couple points. A couple points here, a couple points there, and pretty soon you're talking about real points. Enough to turn a blowout against a demagogue with no ground game, no organization, no discipline, no anything, in to a nail-biter.

Only a couple points would have won this election. There were many Democrats who were a couple points ahead of Clinton. Bernie was only one of them, and not even the best pick.

We need to stop focusing on one issue at a time. Hillary's loss manifested from myriad culminating factors that perhaps no one could control. Here are some of them: The voting rights act was gutted by the SCOTUS; republicans suppressed the vote; nationalism is on the rise; republicans gerrymandered the electoral college; mainstream media favored Trump and dogged Hillary with an irrelevant email scandal; professional journalism is failing; the FBI tampered with the election; both parties chose unpopular candidates in the best interest of themselves over their country; and democrats failed to get out the vote.

The upshot is there may be no fix to this. The enemy of our enemy is reason. Words won't win that battle.

I agree what @16 said.

It's interesting that Frizzelle calls people who are criticizing the DNC and Clinton's loosing campaign "conspiracy theorists." His evidence, citing conspiracies from DC Hacks like Eichenwald - A man, so progressive, he voted for the Bushes https://twitter.com/inthedollarbin/statu…

Hillary was a good candidate. The playbook against her is specious, and even if all of it were actually true, it is infinitesimal compared to Trump's baggage.

Trump won because we now have a stupid and angry electorate. The Republicans have been coaching that electorate for years. Their success was interrupted for 8 years by an unanticipated populist, but now they've been successful. It's unlikely they'll fail again.

remember when anyone believed polls?

Pretty poor attempt at discrediting the polls showing Sanders winning easily over Trump. These polls showed a close race between Clinton and Trump, which is what happened so why would the same polls showing Sanders beating Trump by double digits be false?

It's math that should be simple enough for even Greens to understand:

A vote for Jill Stein, Johnson, or write in for Sanders or Mickey Mouse -- who everyone knew were unelectable in this race (including Stein, Johnson, Sanders and you):

Was a vote for Trump.

Congratulations, your spite and resentments put Neo Nazis in the White House!

Now there's nothing you can do to stop the inevitable attacks on civil rights, the acceleration of climate change, the inevitable financial crash -- as in every Republican administration, but according to economists, Trump's will be a real looloo!

Also, too: a vast right wing conspiracy Supreme Court for the next 25 years, the destabilization of Europe -- perhaps, even nuclear war, or at the very least nuclear proliferation.

But wait, there's more!

I just don't have the heart to list all the evil you will have contributed to.

But you will cling to the conspiracies the Russians fed you, and like Naderites of yore, defensively attempt to lay blame anywhere but your own petulance.

A decade or so after Nader himself admitted he personally screwed two elections to Bush, Naderites are still naysaying their complicity.

And, if having learned nothing from your mistakes, you'll fuck up the next elections, too.

Clinton was a weak and ineffectual candidate who failed to connect with and energize the voters she needed. Trump was a strong candidate and very effective at connecting and energizing voters. By all means, Chris, blame me--a Sanders supporter, who believes the DNC acted corruptly, who voted for Clinton--if it makes you feel better. Trump. He's all my fault.

@25- "And, if having learned nothing from your mistakes, you'll fuck up the next elections, too."

Same to you. (Though I voted for Hillary, I still think you're delusional.)

We're talking about 50% of the potential votes that Hillary didn't get, you are talking about 2%, I'm addressing a bigger issue and a much more productive issue.

@23- If you believe your second paragraph to be true then your first paragraph must be false. Hillary was not a good candidate for the electorate that actually exists. That's the electorate the Democrats need to be addressing.

Eichenwald is a known liar whose weak overhyped hack pieces on Putin came to nothing. His "republican oppo research" has already been widely reported in right-wing hovels like Mother Jones which can't be sourced because then the lie of the "research" is exposed. People are grasping and desperate right now, but these same people will be arguing ("reluctantly") for accptance of the new new world order when it means they'll lose something financially.

Ever and always, elections are not about what you want. Elections are about what we get.

Now we're gonna get things that all of us put together ("us" meaning everyone here on earth, and everyone yet to come) may not be able to fix. Ever. No matter how much we learn. No matter how hard we try.

Additionally, regarding the DNC issue, it wasn't so much that the system was "rigged" as the perception that Dems were cheated out of a real primary because everyone parted to let the Clinton coronation happen. That's probably why Biden didn't run (who for all his rustic rudeness would have clobbered Trump in the rust belt). A truly open primary would have fielded many more choices than a few vanity candidates (Chafee, O'Malley). The fact that the grumpy socialist nearly took the nomination should have been a wake-up call, but the DNC never questioned the inevitably of "their" candidate. Yes, Clinton got more votes in the end and many Sanders supporters as political neophytes didn't understand how a primary actually works. But when the race started with a super-delegate advantage for Clinton, there was already a whiff of anti-democratic process in the air. Wikileaks e-mails exposed that indeed many in the DNC were pro-HRC (no surprises there) and yes that is different from "rigging" the system, but it still smells bad. The Newsweek article is more than a little disengenuous about how "impotent" the DNC really is. There are backroom decisions and party leadership obviously has influence over primary outcomes. We know Donna Brazil was unethical enough to steal questions ahead of time for a debate in the general and this article doesn't even mention Amy Dacey's resignation in the wake of revelations the DNC favored Clinton. It's easy to go after looney Bernie-or-Busters conspiracy theories but this totally ignores a reasoned criticism of how the Democratic Party favored a candidate with 50% disapproval without really giving their constituents a vigorous nomination contest. Is it just me or is there a lot of HRC and DNC apologism going on at the Stranger lately?

During primaries, Sanders supporters warned Frizelle about the very scenario that Trump used to win. Frizelle refused to listen claiming his candidate was invincible despite much evidence to the contrary. Now Frizelle claims that Sanders supporters are responsible for Clinton's loss.

@31 Frizzelle

@25 That's not how math works. Only a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump. Here's how math works: if Trump has 10 votes and someone votes for Trump, he now has 11 votes (10+1). If the next person in line votes for Johnson, Trump's total votes remains at 11 (11+0) while Johnson's went to 1. Now, because there are multiple candidates (And thank god there are, because this is a goddamn democracy) the effect of the johnson is felt equally among the remaining candidates, meaning that a vote for Johnson is not a vote for Clinton, nor is it a vote for Trump or Stein.

@23 is correct. Bernie worshipers need to accept that their boy would have lost too. Angry whites heard Trumps hate and agreed. They won. Your dad agrees with the klan.

On the bright side if Trump does get Bolton on as secretary of state and gins up a war out of lies suspicion and general itchy trigger finger that costs $500,000,000,000 in dollars and a half-million or so in lives he's still only in the middle of the list of worst presidents for this century.

Have yet to read an argument that Stein was anything but "laughably unqualified."

Trump waited until the last month to tell us "what a nasty woman" he thought she was. The Berners spent 18 months preaching that. And here we are.

I second what both 16 & 20 say.

The WaPo pointed out that Clinton's "Electoral College" defeat was effectively 107,000 votes across only three states: WI, MI, PA. In Wisconsin alone it is alleged that nearly 300,000 votes were suppressed due to racist-Right Scott Walker's "Voter ID" laws. Trumpkin won in WIS by 27,000 votes.

The Intercept has stories about polling places in the South being moved at the last minute, "monitored" by uniformed police officers outside telling actual election monitors they had to leave, "monitored" by red hatted men who intimidated people, and at least one polling place (in Macon Co. GA no less) inside a Sheriff's station. No intimidation there! There was a fuck of a lot dirty tricks going down, and this won't be the last of it.

Only 30% of all Americans voted. Only 50% of the registered electorate bothered to vote, and they were split nearly in half, so only 1/6th of Americans (~15%) managed to "choose" the winner. Blame 3rd parties all you want, but seriously, there's ALWAYS going to be some tiny percentage voting 3rd party every election. You can't expect 100% of your alleged lefty "allies" to vote in lockstep with your boring, establishmentarian candidate. Clinton was uninspiring and definitely meant more neoliberal punishment for Joe and Jane Everybody; à la "Saint" Alan Greenspan and his "growing worker insecurity" economic doctrines. (Yes, I voted for her with my nostrils held tightly shut.)

Trump was a vote for something, anything different... a true sign of the desperation in the parts of the country continually fucked over by "globalist" "'free'-trade" policies that have intentionally 'de-industrialized' and destroyed employment stability & dignity, only to force people to work servile part-time jobs w/ no benefits. No wonder life expectancy for white American men is dropping, especially in 'middle America'. Yes, they were conned yet again & more punishment is in store for them from Trumponomics, but they are so desperate that they are willing to try the devil they don't know. (Yes, and racism.)

Check this:

Those on the Left who have persisted in the naïve belief that the right government could solve the problems generated by global capitalism are partly to blame for this situation. The Democratic Party was foolish to back an establishment candidate at a time when so many people are desperate, angry, and rebellious. In legitimizing the idea that America is or should be great in the first place, Democrats smoothed the way for Trump to promise to make it great once more. Every tax dollar good liberals paid to the government hoping it would care for the poor, sick, elderly, and underprivileged has built the juggernaut that will now roll across their civil liberties. Every law they continue to obey will aid and abet that process. And if the media outlets and politicians that decried Trump as the candidate of the apocalypse accept him now in the name of the democratic process, this only confirms their complicity.

We'll have protests, and the pro-Trump Rightists will see those (re)actions as a just bunch of 'sore losers' and they'll feel even more alienated from the urban cores, and social division will deepen.

The question is: How does the compassionate Left, who actually gives a fuck about the social destruction wrought on people in the rural areas by 3 decades of catastrophic economic policies (supported gladly by BOTH Left and Righ--ahem-- Center and Center governments from Reagan to Obama) ... How do we work to dismantle those policies, make the top 10% pay their fair share, equalize economic inequality across the spectrum, and hold corporations in check? The Left needs to actually reach out and help everyone. Not just let "Democrap" candidates allow "'Free'-Market Capitalism" to continue to roll over the populace & stuff the pockets of the rich.

Democracy is slow. Authoritarianism is fast.
Democracy requires conversations. LOTS of conversations, REAL conversations.
Empathy, compromise.
Is this country too large for that now?

"Mr Trump, President elect: racist & unenlightened as are his supporters who have no legitimate complaints because reasons and hive-mind buzzwords, all who need to be re-educated in our propaganda gulags; Mrs Clinton: no direct evidence, clearly a saint like President Putin, but don't look at the parody between organised crime and the Democratic Party; Senator Sanders: used to be a Marxist, still calls himself democratic socialist, does mistakenly call the Nordic model democratic socialist, so clearly needs to be re-educated in our propaganda gulags; Governor Gary Johnson: cannabis, reefer, the reefer, weed, Aleppo, we never researched his credentials nor ideals; Dr Jill Stein: didn't sell out like Senator Sanders, and so needs to be erased by a drone just like Julian Assange & that other guy we never write about."

To believe yourself holy is to delude yourself to the point that you ignore you might be the "bad guy" after all.

Wake up: the Democratic Party is not a Left-wing political party, and is in fact both Right-wing fiscally--centre-Right, fiscally conservative, economically liberal, less over-regulation and overspending in international affairs--and Right-wing on an Old-scale as authoritarian. Centre-Right new-Right and moderate Old-Right-wing. "Progress" is a terrible excuse to ignore your own faults.

Oh Frizzelle-Bear, it's good, almost reassuring, to know you and your ilk are firmly in the "didn't learn a goddamned thing" camp following the election. Never change (not that you are even capable of it). If the DNC proceeds in the same direction that's currently making you feel so good and also doesn't learn a goddamned thing, I look forward to your milking of the third-party and Bernie-or-Busters well into 2018, 2020, and beyond!

What drivel! Almost everybody who caucused for Sanders voted for Hillary. Nominating old Hill was a mistake, and it will cost America hell only knows how much or what.

#27 Fuck you, too!

I lived through the election of 2000, vainly attempting to talk liberals out of their "protest" votes (Gore wasn't liberal enough, dontcha know.)

Nader on the ballot in 2004, also spelled doom with useful idiot liberals still not having learned, well, any fucking thing.

I even remember, back before I was old enough to vote, when liberals who didn't feel Humphreys was far left enough, helped elect Nixon!

Yupperooni, those liberal "protest" votes sure worked: in electing troglodyte Republican administrations!

You know the old saying: those who don't study history, will be forced to relive it.

And force the rest of us to relive that awful history with the useful (for Republicans) idiot far left liberals.

@25 and @44: Very unfortunately, you're right.

Jeb Lund (@mobute) and @crushingbort on Twitter pretty thoroughly factually eviscerated Kurt's piece. Wish I could say I'm surprised to see the stranger so credulously linking to it.

So this is where the Stranger turns for wisdom: a Bush supporter at Newsweek, and (in Mudede's earlier post) Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat. Sure is great to have "alternative media."

Puhleez don't phoney up math, to cover up the complicity of Stein, Johnson, Sanders and their petulant alt left voters.

I tried to talk reason to too many, who told me they'd vote for the Democrat, but (1) Russian propaganda talking point, (2) unelectable third party candidate was their protest vote, because Democrat not far left enough.

None would have voted for Trump, instead.

Republicans voted for the Republican on offer, didn't write in Ben Carson.

And you think Republicans are stupid?

Here's real world math: every one of the alt left votes not for Clinton was one less vote for Clinton.

Throw in voter suppression, the FBI's heavy thumb, that she managed to win the popular vote despite those idiots, is amazing.

"Nominating old Hill was a mistake," aaaaaand we've hit the alt left useful idiot trifecta: not left enuf, plus sexism and ageism.

But mostly sexism, otherwise they'd have noticed both Trump and Bernie were older than the hills.

I can't stop laughing at Christopher's post. (A) Any post advocating a subscription to Newsweek not written by a elementary school librarian should be ignored on it's face; and (B) anyone who wants to jump in line w/ fail-son extraordinaire Kurt Eichenwald's might be beyond help.

Anyone remember when pederast Eichenwald tweeted the following:

> I admired Reagan. I voted for bush 1, first term. I voted for bush 2, first term. But Romney's the worst prez candidate ever. Dangerous man. —https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/statu…

I'd recommend reading any of the now growing rebuttals to Eichenwald's pathetic and childish rants. Here are two:

- https://shadowproof.com/2016/11/14/go-fu…
- https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2…

@44- "You know the old saying: those who don't study history, will be forced to relive it."

That's exactly what I was saying months ago about nominating Hillary months ago. If only people had listened. Gore was the boring centrist who's turn it was, and he couldn't gin up enough turnout to win the electoral college against Bush Jr. 16 years later the Democratic Party elected a boring centrist who's turn had come AND was widely (perhaps unjustly, but still widely) disliked and distrusted.

#47, it's call ad hominem, look it up.

@45 I wouldn't say anything if I were you. Back in April, you wanted Trump as the Republican nominee because you thought he was the most defeat able candidate. At the same time, during the primaries, you were already rallying against Sanders, and creating a divisive atmosphere where you wanted Sanders supporters to fall in line before the primaries had finished.

You were doubly wrong.

@48- Hillary Clinton is a very old name in national politics.

Hillary Clinton lost, half the electorate didn't show up. The Democratic Party fucked up somehow.

Hmmm, let's see what those two not-entertaining-enough-for-you Democratic nominees had in common: unelectable third party candidates.

So sorry you couldn't get yourself excited by competance, sanity and Democratic governance: apparently, you preferred masturbation.

Congrats! You spilled your seed and created an insane golem for President of this here United States!

I'm probably older than you, so won't have to live as long as you will with your mistakes.

Thank heaven for that small blessing

#49

It's called ad hominem, look it up.

@53 It's called a straw man. Look it up.

I'm sorry you didn't get a woman president, Jude. Perhaps next time we'll vote on the basis of character and not whether they have a vagina or not.

It was obvious from the outset the DNC had cleared the path for Clinton and discouraged any formidable challengers from running, and I think that was the fundamental error of this election. A proper and fair contest with more than 2 viable choices (Chafee and the hot dad whose name I can't even remember don't count) would have energized voters more than a coronation.

At this stage the best we can hope for is to learn something from this loss. Republicans are coasting on the thrill of an upset but it won't take much for the masses to revolt once things go south, and it won't take long for that to happen. Warren is already stepping up by holding Trump to his promises to the working class he has no intention of keeping. There will be enough opportunities for others to join her in that fight. But for now, making excuses for Clinton isn't helpful.

@54 And here come the logic nerds. "By your logic ...." "Oh! Proves my point..."

The Eichenwald article in question is written by a hack, and a doofus of the beltway press who recently cashed in on writing a few adversarial and conspiratorial articles about the most laughable GOP candidate since the one's he last voted for. Now, this self-centered asshole wants to write articles about how the law keeps him from taking violent action against those who don't share his political opinions.

Fuck Kurt Eichenwald, in the strongest possible terms, and all of these chest-thumping pundits who write things like this about the Drone Program: “It would be nice if these guys were in Afghanistan where we could capture them ... Or it would be nice if the Pakistanis would help capture them, rather than tipping them off. But that’s not going to happen. So kill them. And that’s where we are. It’s a tough judgment but it’s the right judgment.”

The championing of Eichenwald by Christopher Frizzelle as some brave truth-teller is repulsive to me.

Kurt Eichenwald once tweeted that 650k emails couldn't fit on a laptop.

Fuck Newsweek for paying him.

#56 Fuck you.

Because I never get tired of being told I voted with my vagina, which still doesn't explain why I DIDN'T vote for the vagina of useful (to Republicans) idiot, the unelectable Jill Stein.

Or explain why so many of the alt left useful idiots DID vote for Stein's completely unelectable vagina.

Your sexism is showing, Alt Left Useful (to Republicans) Idiot.

#57
Making excuses for the Alt Left Useful (to Republicans) Idiots who voted third party isn't helpful, because they'll just go out and do it again in 2020.

#58 & 59

It's called ad hominem, look it up.

Here's the breakdown of votes by state and party for you to analyze.

http://www.politico.com/2016-election/re…

The Libetarians outvoted the Greens in just about every state.

Libertarian Party is NOT alt-left. Check out their platform.

Getting beyond the blame game, what really energizes me right now is advancing Democratic seats in 2018. (I'll take Independents too at this point.) If you want to build an effective coalition to check Trump's ambitions, you'll need allies, like those Libetarians, Independents, people who didn't vote this time and former Obama voters.

I think priority #1 is how to advance the Dems number in Congress and in state and local elections. Policies at the grassroots level reverberate upward. We have a good opportunity to showcase how Trump's election rhetoric is far different than his governing policies. If Washington's Hillary supporters want to punish non-Hillary voters in WA, that's fine. This state went blue for her even without those votes and safe for that kind of gambit. I'm not sure that gambit plays well in swing states like WI, MI, NC, CO and PA.

So can we move on?

Ack, sorry. It's libertarians. Better know how to spell if I'm hoping for their votes.

@61 You're hilarious.

Your candidate lost.

You can either follow the new blood coming in, or we'll steamroll over you.

@62, no, apparently we can't move on. It's only been 7 days, what do you expect? There's still blame to be apportioned.

For political junkies, a friend who used to cover the WH and Capitol Hill point me to this news site -The Hill.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/305…

About Bannon and Breitbart's ambition

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/305999-…

@65, gotcha. Well have at it and get it out of your system. We can all use a little toughening up for a tough fight ahead.

@61 I think if you're desperate for someone to carry your weak, factually false, political argument(s) and you are unwilling to take into consideration who it's coming from and where they've stood on issues in the past: you represent exactly the type of masochist/ostrich voters that won this election.

"Any post advocating a subscription to Newsweek not written by a elementary school librarian should be ignored on it's face" wins.

All the handwaving cannot obscure the facts that:

1) Clinton was the nominee, and

2) Clinton failed to close the deal.

Why do you keep making excuses for her? Is this what feminism means, that if a Democratic woman runs, she's owed the office? Because that's what it sounds like you're trying to sell.

If that's what you think, then frankly, you all deserve President Trump.

Clinton was the leader. Clinton lost. Her responsibility.

Incidentally, pointing out the weaknesses if a poor candidate who was running on a pro-Wall Street, pro-corporate, status quo agenda does not constitute "infighting on the left"

I love Stein and Baraka and am very glad I voted for them, they are awesome. Maybe now that "bad guys" are in charge the otherwise racist and brutal but polite Democrats will have to pretend they give a drip about the horrors US foreign policy requires. Not holding ny breath tho, they blame everyone but themselves, it's a sick joke.

Bernie Bros are cut from the same misogynist cloth as Trump supporters. They think change will happen by voting for another wealthy white guy.....because that's just so subversive.

@71, it didn't matter what she said or supported, nor would it have mattered what any other Democratic candidate said or supported. Trump was the garbage that the populace wanted this time. No true Republican could have beaten him, either. He's in a class all his own in this country. Creatures like him have shown up in other countries, though; we just thought we were immune.

@21: How do you gerrymander the electoral college?

@74 I disagree. She lost Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by 1% or less. And, lest we forget, she was ahead in the polls for most of the election. There was nothing at all inevitable about this election. A stronger candidate, a better strategy, a real agenda beyond "my opponent's scary!"...any of those things could have tipped the balance.

She figured she could win by saying, "If you vote for Trump, you're deplorable!" Just as I keep telling people over and over again—Surprise!—telling people they're idiots for voting however they do isn't exactly a recipe for success.

I've noticed there are a hell of a lot of liberals who seem to think that doubling down on their fantastic name-calling strategy is exactly what they are determined to do.

I don't care that "my candidate lost," this isn't some frigging boys versus girls video game.

It may be Gamergate for the leftover Bernie Bros or libertarians or greens or whatever the hell you're calling yourselves now.

But elections have consequences for your actual lives.

I care about the blood letting to come because a Republicon won -- and there's always more blood and gore and treasure spilled when a Republican has won the Oval Office, for nearly 100 years of U.S. history.

This particularly nasty piece of work is on a course for extraordinary amounts of damage to occur. Buckets of blood, gallons of gore, vast treasure wasted.

That will affect your life and the lives of all around you.

And if you voted Third Party, or not at all, you're complicit.

Which is.bad enough, but if you don't wake up, this is an eight year nightmare, instead of a four year nightmare.

And that many more years for a sane Democrat to try to clean up the mess, as sane Democratic adminisrations have had to do for nearly the last 100 years.

In that century, no third party candidate has won the presidency, nor is there any possibility one will any decade anytime soon.

The only lessons learned by Democratic politicians when third party candidates elected Republicans, is the appearance that voters wanted Republicans.

So Democrats acted more like Republicans.

Way back when the Democrats routinely elected Democratic administrations and Congress, ta dah! Republicans became more moderate, if they wanted to be able to govern at all.

And Democrats got things done that created a middle class and strengthened civil rights.

But if you don't know history, you will be forced to relive it.

And you're forcing the rest of us to join your sleigh ride to hell.

So Hillary calling racists deplorable lost the election?

After Trump had egged his crowds to assasinate her, riled his white fans to physical violence against any "other?"

You expect a goddess, and not a real woman, or a politician not to acknowledge the truth?

Ignoring bigotry has never stopped the bleeding.

And bigotry inevitably produces a body count.

We're on that slide to hell, stop blaming the person who warned you, and don't make the mistake again of choosing more evil.

@76 they are determined to learn nothing, and it's not just the name calling, it's more left punching, ignoring class, ignoring opiates, pretending trade is going well and American exceptionalism has no consequences.

@77 by your own logic, you are complicit in starving millions in Yemen, and its destructuon, the destruction of Libya, Syria, and the resulting migrant crisis in the greater Middle East that blead into Europe encouraging an ascendant racist right. Same for the US and NAFTA, that created our migrant issues. Own this, solve this, don't blame anyone but your own party's intentional destabilizations that create the conditions for authoritarianism. (You won't, you're stuck in a fantasy that the ~4% who voted 3rds wouldn't other wise be a part of the 47% that didn't vote at all because business as usual are the only "winning" options.)

Oh give the false equivalancies a rest.

You've got what you wanted: Trump and Neo Nazis in the White House as payback for nobody but you riding your unicorn.

@64 Yeah you'll be steamrolling alright champ. What are you huffing tonight? Did you switch from ether to gasoline?

@80 obama helped actual neo-nazis get control in ukraine government, but thay's ok because putin or something. i don't agree with your logic,,,but apply it to yourself, your own party, while you condem everyone but those without $63m+ on hand as of october 19 2016. maybe you'll see the empty calories of these sterile whining narratives you keep reeating.

@79 yes, as a Obama supporter I am complicit in what is happening in Yemen. But I figured I, combination with others, would have more leverage with a Clinton regime to influence that. Plus there is absolutely no way to counter the argument that with Trump in the White House - any late desperate efforts to address climate change are dead.

I know you are enjoying this though. I'm getting tired of sarcasm. I don't think you will have more influence regarding Yemen with a Trump administration over a Clinton administration and I have to figure you don't think climate change is important enough to even worry about.

Seems like most of the comments against this article miss the central point:
If you did not vote for HRC and you are now unhappy to be living in a PRESIDENT TRUMP
Reality, you have yourself to blame. There came a time in which only 1 of 2 possibilities were available. All the work people are now spending gathering forces to battle trump is energy we could've spent trying to uphold the HRC administration to its highest standard. But now people are running around scared shitless because an entire crew of inexperienced, bumbling, anti semite, misogynist, white supremacists are in the Oval Office.

- and we are going to be making nothing but lessor of 2 evil choices moving forward, trying to stem the tide of devastating, world destroying legislation that is going to be pouring out of Washington, D.C. So please, try to make decisions with realistic objectives in mind.

- we have much less time than we thought to put the brakes on the kind of climate change that will see destruction of life as we know it. This is an emergency. The energy policy trump has promised will send us into a nightmare future. If you didn't know before, if you have children, or if you care about the NEAR TERM survival of our species... Get ready to fight for it.

@77 Stop fronting. You absolutely do care that Hillary lost. But, if you don't wake up to why she lost, you're dooming us to 8 years of Trump. And, hint, it's not exclusively the "Basket of Deplorables." It's not exclusively the racists and conspiracy theorists. It's the people who got shat on in the 90s by Clinton. Its the ones whose unions have been severely weakened by NAFTA and fear even more of their factories going to Mexico or China. These are people who lost their houses in 2009-2012 (or at least saw their friends lose them) under a Democratic administration who did little to help and didn't jail the criminals who perpetrated the crimes (including the banks who participated in falsified foreclosures). If they do live in the profiled house, they might be renters. They're not bad people, they're just looking out for themselves. And no amount of identity politic wankery (of which I have been guilty in the past) is going to persuade them.

FFS, a jargon-laden movie about the fucking financial crisis made $70m at the box office. People are still fucking pissed off and they didn't want to vote for a "third way" democrat who was in the White House with a man who had a troubling history of bank deregulation, trade agreements, increasing the prison population, and signing off on the rise of corporate singularity. The Democrats couldn't/wouldnt prosecute anybody in the 8 years of Obama, and then they outright bragged about passing TPP, a policy neither candidate wanted (or, in Hillary's case, claimed to want). And, to top it off, her goddamned email server was a test of her character to see if she could tell the truth, and they deemed her lacking there too.

Hillary was a terrible candidate, and no amount of bullshit from a Clinton-humping former-Republican Newsweek author like Kurt Fucking Eichenwald is going to change that. What it has the chance to do is dupe poor saps like you and Dan Savage and Savage's boyfriend and Frizzelle into thinking that moderate democrats are not the enemy. And you will continue to lose across America.

Right now, Republicans are only a couple of states away from having a constitutional congress. If the Democrats are so perfect, why do we keep losing?

@83 "But I figured I, combination with others, would have more leverage with a Clinton regime to influence that."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Thanks. I needed that.

Eichenwald is a hack. The democratic party is a sclerotic organization and they're circling the wagons following the iron law of institutions where people would rather lose and keep it all the same rather than admit they're wrong.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz lost her job, tried to hang around and was booed out of rooms and they still kept her around. AND it must be said that she lost her job for trying to get Hamilton tickets (that stupid Father Christmas poem made musical) and NOT for ceding 33 of the state legislatures. WTF??

Also Michael fucking Bloomberg spoke at the DNC. F you.

Burn the entire Democratic party to the ground because Charles Schumer and dipshits "occupying" the house over stupid wedge issues like guns are putting up a spectacle in place of resistance. They will not save you.

BTW Trump now is trying to get his sons security clearance in a world where dems have spied on citizens and droned citizens. Thanks, now fuck off.

Confidential to the Stranger Editors: Leave political writing to your younger staff. They do a decent job and seem to be up on the issues of our times The older Stranger writers should stay clear of politics. The are and Richard Conlin Democrats. Not cool. Your paper is now less hip than the Weekly. It's been sad watching your descent.

This thread is hilarious.

I only have one question, that no one has been able to answer so far: What was Hillary's message?

Obama told us that "Yes, we can" achieve great things.

Trump told us that we could all "Make America Great Again."

Clinton told us "I'm with her."

See the problem here? Her message was "I'm Hillary Clinton."

That is not very inspiring, is it? And the ballots told that story loud and clear.

It's astounding how much Slog loves the Wall St Wing of the Democratic Party. I swear, you all must hate Bernie Sanders more than you hate Trump.

Life is hard. Life is scary. Life is complex. When it all becomes too much, we escape into fantasy, which can be therapeutic, unless we forget that it’s fantasy. When Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Donald Trump step out from the fantasy world and tell us they are here IRL, it’s tempting to believe that the ages-old-but-nonetheless-juvenile savior fantasy is true. These characters, and they are characters, affirm us in what we know about how hard and scary life is, but then they offer salvation, quick and easy salvation. “Life is not complex,” they tell us, “It’s simple. You’ve seen me demonstrate that. You’ve seen me handle big problems. You’ve seen me cut down the bad guys. I’ve got this.” It’s pure fantasy. How do the Dems counter that? With their own super heroes. Like Barack Obama, to whom the Swedes gave the Nobel Peace Prize for the same reason the Americans gave Donald Trump the presidency: “Our savior has come.”

@53- Do you really not understand that a couple percentage points are far smaller than dozens of percentage points? You really, really, really don't get the magnitude of that? That there's a giant pool of potential voters who didn't vote for ANYBODY? Why do you insist on fighting the Greens for scraps when there's a smorgasbord sitting right there?

@84- "If you did not vote for HRC and you are now unhappy to be living in a PRESIDENT TRUMP "

I voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton and fuck that bullshit article. The Democratic Party needs to fix itself in the next two years or it will lose horribly in 2018. If they pick another middle-of-the-road hack who's "turn it is" then we'll get 8 years of Trump. The point is the Democratic Party has failed badly and if it keeps blaming the voters (any group of voters) then they'll keep failing.

@73- And Hillary Clinton losing to Trump was so progressive. I wanted a better President than the one we got, does that make me sexist?

"Clinton was a weak and ineffectual candidate who failed to connect with and energize the voters she needed."

I'm so fucking sick of this idiot argument. Oy vey this group of narcissistic voters that need a candidate to personally come to their homes and eat their assholes before they can be inspired. Clinton put the farthest left platform ever out there. Even if she waffled on half of it that makes her a superb candidate well worth getting behind. But you arrogant twats didn't feel inspired. Now we get a petulant, lunging idiot with the finger on the nukes, either the warmonger to end all warmongers or a thin-skinned shouting mouth as SOS, Breitbart News setting our policy, an arch-corporo-religious supreme court, and a Republican legislative branch interested in nothing but pandering to these monster.

So don't fucking tell me the candidate wasn't good enough - she's immeasurably better than what we ended up with. What's not good enough are all you asshats who thought you could have your little snit-for-public-display-of-pure-political-superiority because the election would still turn out okay. Feelin' pure and good about yourselves you cool political know-it-alls? (of course - you and self-important Sawant aren't the types to ever accept a single grain of responsibility for OBVIOUSLY contributing to this national disaster - you're too good for that too). Enjoy your time with President pussy-grabber, and with his judiciary for basically the rest of your life.

@95: Sorry, but it is the candidate's job to convince people to get out and vote for them, not the voter's job to line up behind whoever Clara T thinks is best, or "whose turn" it happens to be according to the DNC.

Funny how you are angry that people you believe won't "accept a single grain of responsibility" for Trump's win, but seem to think Clinton and the DNC share not a grain of responsibility.

I am sorry that you are "fucking sick" of reality, but tantrums won't change that.

@95 How come you didn't know that being President is at least 33% salesmanship? Did Bob Dole, John Kerry, Al Gore, John McCain, or Mitt Fucking Romney not teach you that? The most boring guy loses. That's been the case for a quarter century. 24 years. These are the new politics and you better get on board.

@95: "I'm so fucking sick of this idiot argument. Oy vey this group of narcissistic voters that need a candidate to personally come to their homes and eat their assholes before they can be inspired."

The candidate didn't (and doesn't normally) run on or hardly acknowledge the platform. The only people who even knew about it were die-hard dems and Sandernistas, and they (we, the asshats you're yelling at) nearly all ended up voting for Her.

The electorate is made up of largely politically uninvolved people. If you want their vote, you have to appeal to them. She didn't do that. Stop yelling at the wrong asshats.

Oh as Marco would say, let's just dispense with the misguided notion that Bernie was a candidate of higher character, like that doesn't mean "the candidate with a penis"! Bernie was an opportunist who straight up lied to his supporters about his chances of winning.

He was recalcitrant as fuck, refusing to back away from a healthcare policy his own state had to abandon because it had no way to pay for, a healthcare policy dreamed up in the white, aging, utopian playground of Vermont and then shoehorned into social justice narratives after Bernie figured out he needed actual outreach to LGBTs and PoC.

As a gay on PrEP, I certainly harbor no love for Blue Shield. But I'd sure as fuck rather have Blue Shield in charge of my healthcare 100% of the time than who ever Trump is going to put in HHS 50% of the time.

A man with a joke understanding of regulating Wall Street who somehow found the balls to make it his defining issue, and who openly campaigned for the interests of the affluent and privileged. Hayek might not have agreed with Bernie's college plan, but he certainly wouldn't have argued with the economics. It's basic supply-side. Give the money to the job creators! Yea...no...fuck that. Trickle down doesn't start working just because you start in the middle, y'all!

As if being a hack wasn't bad enough, Eichenwald is a fucking idiot or a liar

hey look it's Kurt Eichenwald casually lying. pic.twitter.com/6ZolBD43yw

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) November 16, 2016

What an asshole.