The 2016 election was not a fluke - By Eugene Robinson

[DonViejo]

By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer September 18 at 7:46 PM

Leaders of both major parties are wrong to think of the 2016 election as some kind of fluke. I believe a political realignment is underway, and those who fail to discern its outlines could end up powerless and irrelevant.

With all respect to Hillary Clinton, her newly published memoir, “What Happened,” doesn’t really tell what happened. It is perhaps inevitable that she would focus on the daily twists and turns of the campaign. It is understandable that she would blame James B. Comey, Vladimir Putin and the media for damaging her prospects — and that she would play down her own strategic and tactical missteps.

But take a step back and look at the election through a wider lens. Clinton, with all her vast experience and proven ability, was defeated by Donald Trump, a reality-television star who had never before run for office, displayed near-total ignorance of the issues, broke every rule of political rhetoric and was caught on videotape bragging of how he sexually assaulted random women by grabbing their crotches.

That’s not just unlikely, it’s impossible. At least it should have been, according to everything we knew — or thought we knew — about politics. Yes, Comey’s last-minute revival of Clinton’s email scandal robbed her of momentum. Yes, her neglect of the Rust Belt was a terrible mistake. Yes, the Russians were working hard to defeat her, with the blessing — and at least the attempted collusion — of the Trump campaign. But the election never should have been close enough for relatively minor voting shifts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to elect the likes of Trump. The election never should have been close enough for Clinton to lose Florida and barely eke out a win in Virginia.

In retrospect, the alarming possibility of an election-night surprise should have been apparent. Trump never should have won the Republican nomination over a field that included so many talented politicians. And Clinton never should have had to work so hard to win the Democratic nomination over Bernie Sanders, an aging socialist from Vermont who wasn’t even a Democrat until he entered the race.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-2016-election-was-not-a-fluke/2017/09/18/b45a8a0e-9cb4-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html

[Botany]

1. Gene forgot the most important point.

They cheated.

[OhZone]

3. Yup and it really wasn't close either!

She got more votes than any white man in history

[Botany]

4. And it was down ticket races too.

Russ Feingold was @ >90% chance of winning back his senate seat in WI. The republicans and the
Trump people working in conjunction w/the Russians to rig our elections. How did McConnell know
that he would have a different person to vote for the SCOTUS after the election?

BTW https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections

[marylandblue]

5. You are missing the point

The point is, he shouldn't have even made it out of the primaries, he should have been this year's Herman Cain. If he did make it out of the primaries, the election should not have been close enough to steal, Hillary should have won in a huge landsllide. Trump should not have a 35-40% approval rating right now, it should be 20%. And even with all that, even if the election was stolen, a socialist from Vermont should not have been able to almost beat Clinton.

There is a need in the electorate that Trump and Sanders are filling, however imperfectly. Until Democrats figure a better way to meet that need, we will continue to lose. Although I do think we will figure it out.

[marylandblue]

2. He is right, there is an realignment

And the ongoing Bernie-Hillary wars reflect that. The fight is not about who should keep their mouth shut, but about what the Democratic Party of the future will look like.

[world wide wally]

6. The single most important factor in all of this is the the right wing is getting their voters out

and we're not.

[Nitram]

8. But they didn't! They lost the popular vote by millions!

[world wide wally]

9. It obviously takes more than that for us to win then.

[Nitram]

10. And an honest election would help too.

[JayhawkSD]

7. I'm going to go out on a limb here.

I think everyone is missing the point.

There actually is no longer any pattern. Everyone is looking for a pattern and everyone finds a different one because there is no pattern other than what exists in the mind of the pattern seeker.

Campaigns have been about pandering to individual voters for so long that every voter is voting based on individual self interest, and there is no pattern to individual self interest.

"Hillary will carry the blacks?" Not if the black worked in a factory and is now laid off.

"Hillary will carry Hispanics?" Not the Hispanics whose relatives were deported in record numbers by the Obama administration.

This country is not polarized left to right, or rich to poor, or city to rural. It is polarized in all those ways. It is polarized in 310 million ways of "me."

[StevieM]

11. There had been a lot of mythology about Trump's performance among Latinos in 2016.

You should read this article.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-92304395/

[BigmanPigman]

12. What about the apathetic and the willfully ignorant. Those two groups chose not to vote at all!

Half of the Americans did not even know that the ACA IS Obamacare. Face it, Americans know and care more about celebrities than any politician...the culture has become apathetic and dare I say STUPID, especially when it applies to politics. Fux News keeps them that way. This is the new (last 30 years) American culture. Oh joy!

[scarytomcat]

13. don't forget the cable media gave Trump unlimited time to spread his populist talk

which appears to have been lies
If a politician lies and no one calls him out, well what do you get. Trumped

[CTyankee]

15. Morning Joe should take a bow on that front! NOW they complain about TrumP loudly.

Now they are sadly shaking their heads. Well, Mika and Joe, what the f*** were you doing having Trump on every week to showcase his "new ideas" and getting all excited?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. I'm not convinced by his reading of the direction of the parties

"Are the parties adapting? Democrats seem to be inching toward support of truly universal health care, while Republicans have thus far thought better of taking health insurance away from millions of people. Perhaps this is a start."

A bare minimum of Republican senators have thought better - just enough to join the Democrats to block - while the vast majority of Republicans in Congress are desperate to take it away. Compared to them, the Democrats are charging towards a change in position, ie fully universal health care.