Later this month the Democrats will have themselves a new DNC chairperson. Nobody will be nostalgic for the divisive Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the pinch-hitting Donna Brazile. The various candidates have been sharing rationales in recapping what happened in November. It ranges from the flawed candidacy of Hillary Clinton to grass roots oversights and a lack of a 50-state strategy.
True, but there is also this.
Despite eight years of Republican obstructionism, it was still the Democrats’ race to lose–against a “populist” pop-culture charlatan–and they lost in 2016. Not bigly, but shockingly. And alarmingly. And embarrassingly.
Sure, there was the unforced error of Private-serverGate, the unlikely Vlad Putin-Julian Assange nexus and the meddlesome James Comey intrusion. But there was unassailably this: A Democratic electorate that somehow didn’t find the possibility of an outrageous, dangerously unprepared candidate assuming the presidency reason sufficient to get their progressive asses to the polls and vote for the alternative.
Hillary wasn’t Bernie. Hillary wasn’t Barack. Hillary wasn’t Elizabeth. Hell, Hillary wasn’t Bill back in the day. Yada, yada. So what? She wasn’t the existential threat that Trump was, is and will continue to be.
Trump has hit the ground stumbling–from staffing and nominee questions to constitutional farce and foreign-leader alienation. And it won’t get better because he can’t change his temperament, his values, his ethics, his aversion to briefings or his ALL-CAPS modus operandi.
For what it’s worth, I like the Dems’ and their somewhat-discredited “demographics-as-destiny” chances in 2020, but only as a visceral reaction to the unconscionable that never should have happened in the first place.
We now have the Resistance. Marches. Town hall push back. Emotion. Outrage. Moral high ground. And a provoked, motivated mainstream media. May we dodge the low-caliber, Trump bullet until the next election.