What's the point of insisting that bigotry and Comey were the ONLY factors?

[Ken Burch]

We ALL agree that those played a major role, but why the insistence on trying to pressure everyone here into agreeing that nothing else mattered and nothing needs to change?

It's not as though running the exact same campaign in 2020 would produce any better results.

[Grey Lemercier]

1. I have not seen one person say that those were the ONLY things

[Ken Burch]

2. From what I've seen, it's been the response to nearly ANY argument that anything else played a role.

And virtually any poster who raises any other points gets accused of denying that bigotry and Comey were factors. We all agree that institutional bigotry is a blight and we need to keep fighting it. We all agree that what Comey did should get him fired.

It's just that there are some other things that need to change in order to get us a better result. It's not disrespect. It's not personal attacks on our nominee. It's not refighting the primary. It's wanting to make sure we end this nightmare in four years.

Is it really asking too much that the benefit of the doubt be given on this?

[frazzled]

3. Those aren't the only factors being mentioned

We've had long discussions on:

•voter suppression
•jaded non-voters or third-party voters
•geographical segregation with respect to electoral college strategy (i.e., winning popular vote by a large margin but losing the college because small states count for more than large ones, per capita)
•the media
•possible effects of Republican control of many of the states, especially swing states

There were multiple factors that fed into this shocking debacle. But you can't discount bigotry and the Comey effect among them.

[Ken Burch]

4. And I don't know of anyone here who IS discounting those two things.

What concerns me is the seeming insistence that we shouldn't change anything in our approach between now and 2020.

[denverbill]

5. The 'New Democrats' don't want to admit that they are failures.

God forbid we start actually side with blue collar workers and IT people whose jobs are being outsourced or taken over by illegal immigrants. God forbid we actually prosecute bankers to made catastrophic gambles and cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars. Lord knows single-payor is a fanciful pipe-dream that never works in reality except in every other advanced country in the world. And let's not forget those drug companies that Obama made a deal with to get their feeble support for his 'Affordable' Care act.

It wasn't racism that tilted the election or Obama never would have won once. The media fixated on Trump but they focus on train-wrecks as well. Nobody really gave a shit about Benghazi or the emails.

Bernie was leading Trump in the polls by double-digits, 10 points higher than Hillary at most points in the primaries. In my opinion, it was blue collar workers and independents who largely swung this election.

In the 1980's, Reagan and Bush kept pushing free trade deals and every time, Democrats in Congress blocked the deals. Then in 1992, Clinton became one of the first Democrats to support NAFTA. Both major party candidates supported it in 1992, which caused Ross Perot to run against it and become the most successful third party candidate since then. Clinton won, and with all Republicans and a handful of Democrats, passed NAFTA. He also got us into the WTO, and signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

I didn't buy that Hillary didn't support the TPP. She and Bill have supported agreement after agreement that have eroded workers job security in the US. Both she and Obama gave lip service to re-negotiating NAFTA in their primaries, but clearly they both had no intention of doing any such thing once elected.

So we now have a US where corporations ship jobs overseas, move offshore to dodge US taxes, pay no tariffs, and spend all their money lobbying for tax cuts and reduced regulation. And we have NO parties which make this an issue on a daily basis.

In the 1980's, one party supported business and the other supported labor. Now we have 2 parties which support business and none which support labor. There are exceptions, but not enough.

Bernie Sanders was right.
Democrats need to support workers first and oppose corporate greed. If they don't support workers, nothing else they support really matters.
It doesn't matter if they support women's rights.
It doesn't matter if they support minority civil rights.
It doesn't matter if they support LGBT rights.
It doesn't matter if they support environmental regulation.

[NCTraveler]

6. "We ALL agree that those played a major role"

I agree with you. It played a major roll in a close election.

"Bigotry and Comey were the ONLY reason."

I don't think people are saying that. What they are saying is that it was enough alone to swing the election. They are agreeing with you that it was major. You are making conflict where none exists.