An example from history

[hellofromreddit]

I pop back in and I see thread after thread around here blaming Sanders, berniebros, racist whites, Jill Stein, sexism, Russia, millennials, etc. for the dismal election result.

Hillary lost because her lousy campaign made some huge mistakes; the same mistakes the whole party has been making for some time now. No core message, othering potential voters, taking the base for granted, doing a bunch of the same shit that used to make the republicans "bad." This outcome was obvious months ago, and all those links in the first paragraph are examples of people doubling down on what fails.

So here's a brief history lesson; Texas, 1966, La Marcha (Rio Grande Valley Farm Workers March): Thousands of Mexican-Americans and allies marched from The Valley to Austin, but were stopped in New Braunfels by political leaders, including Waggoner Carr. Now, Carr was a great guy who they really liked and would normally support, but there he was, trying to put down the march right along with the others. The fallout of that insult was a total loss of support for Carr among the MA community. He lost his next run in a landslide and fairly soon after left politics for good. (in fact, the whole democrat party was pissing off their base around that time, which led to the split that brought Kennedy to Dallas a few years prior. Had he not been killed he likely would have worked on that very problem) These weren't a bunch of detached teenaged nobodies or klansmen. These were the very best of the best activists within the MA community of Texas at a time when their political activism was far more dangerous than anything we face now. It was the Chicano Movement. No writing them off as lazy.

Nowadays Texas is red, despite massive demographic shifts, because taking brown votes for granted just doesn't work. I happen to know a few kids and grandkids of those marchers, and they're still pissed off at the democrats because, frankly, not much has changed in the decades since. Look at the lame Wendy Davis campaign with its half-assed pandering and read up on how and why she got routed. Not just that, but the MA community is a hell of a lot more conservative than people seem to realize; they're not going to blindly vote for a democrat who rolls into town, saying, "Hi! I'm a Democrat!" Democrats would know that if they'd come down here and ask and listen instead of just assuming allegiance and spending their time sucking up to rich donors.

I bring that up because many around here obviously think that not getting automatic votes from pissed off voters in the rust belt is somehow a novel thing. As if today's voters are inferior or just incorrigible racists. They're not. This is the reality of the world we all live in: you win by winning votes; adapt to the voters' needs or lose to those who do (or at least look like they do). Insulting or attacking voters achieves the opposite. So cut that crap out, 2018 is on the way.

And before anyone says, "Oh, people will have their fill of Trump by then; it'll be a cakewalk!" Again, history, 2004: Bush reelected despite the fallout of Iraq. People don't fear the familiar, even if it's pain. Listen to your voters, cop your attitude, and have a coherent message. Or watch history repeat itself once again.