2016 Postmortem

It's not somethingnto worry about as far as future elections go, I think. The 46% or so who didn't vote at all are who we should be thinking about, and implementing a 50 state strategy. Clinton won the popular vote, and Trump had less votes than Romney.

The positive is that this was in the face of a 40 year smear campaign, and the unprecedented event of both Russia and the FBI actively working against her, and massive voter suppression efforts by thr opposition.

Now think about how a few basic changes in the party could have overcome all that. If the supreme court and enviromental issues didn't make this past election so devastating, and Trump weren't so dangerously stupid and evil, I'd feel pretty good about the future.

There are real issues with corporate corruption inluencing the party that need dealt with, and a real 50 state strategy needs to be implemented.

I worry about overcorrecting on the issue of "identity politics" though. There's a lot of Bernie's message I like, which is why I voted for him in the primaries. The problem is that the idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats" is not really true. Lots of minorities in the U.S. have been left out of past periods of prosperity, and have been actively beat down when they do experience that. Talking about abandoning identity politics in favor of a pure economic message ignores reality. Identity and ecomimics is linked. You need both messages.