Autopsy - Current Summery

To be sure there will be more of these posts as things start to settle down. People like me also have a ton of work to do, trying to help people come to terms with Trump, and a GOP controlled government, who will do all the things we stand against. Really, if you think that Trump winning was the worst, let me tell you all something, we have to fight tooth and nail, all of us to see that things are not undone. If you want to place blame on people who voted third party, or failed to vote, then you need to sit down and really think about everything that happened in this election.

The ugly, brutal truth of this election is that the DNC, knowing that Clinton was suffering from vast amounts of personal and political baggage made a poor choice. Even after countless polls showed that she as not liked, was not trusted while running, they decided in their infinite wisdom to run with that candidate. They never addressed rumors about cooking the books with the media, “outside of we won't respond to stolen emails.” Media coverage in this regard gave the appearance that they were complicit with shenanigans within the primaries, along with the Wikileaks emails. The DNC itself doubled down in its response to a lawsuit stating that “People know that the primaries are rigged,” in nothing more than a stall tactic.

Rather than force their candidate to stand on her own merits, with her own policy, she tried to co-opt the policy of her only real opponent in the primary. Furthermore, her refusal to acknowledge poor choices, hide her speeches to Wall Street Banksters, and general temperament with protesters all conspired to the downfall we saw on Election Day.

Oh I wish I could just stop there, leave it at that, but I can't. No, the DNC went with a candidate that was so despised by her opponents voters, that it left them no choice than to vote for someone they didn't like themselves. Her supporters and surrogates took pleasure in deriding people who did not want to vote for her, and making matters worse, there were vocal Democrats and Democratic supporters who were independent who screamed they would never vote for her, but they played a numbers game, based on a failed assumption that this was going to evolve into a typical election cycle, and it never did.

So, who is to blame for all this, as if you cannot already tell what I am going to say... The DNC for propping up and pushing a flawed and disliked candidate. Going so far as to cheat to do it. Yeah, you can whine and cry that the primary wasn't rigged all you like, but it was. They response to the lawsuit over it says it all. But wait, there's more... People do not resign from positions based on only rumors, unless its something like sexual assault, even if they do resign, they are not immediately hired to some other function within a campaign, it gives the impression that they are being rewarded, or at the very least covered for their actions. The DNC failed to get in front of the leaked emails, rather than take the time to debunk them, to make an earnest effort to say that they acknowledged the problem, then held all parties accountable, they chose to ignore them, and hope they went away. I haven't even talked about the debate schedule, which by design gave her opponents as little time as possible to hash out differences between themselves and her. We went from 15+ debates in 2008 to less than 10 in 2016. There were also the problems at the convention, people protested and were ignored. Now there are Clinton supporters rioting, and I wonder, where were they at the convention? Oh yeah, I forgot, the DNC also failed to take into consideration the voices on the left who questioned the wisdom of running with a candidate who was so disliked, even if that disdain was based on bad information and rumors. There is also the question of pied piper candidates, of which Trump was one. You know, those candidates so utterly insane that everyone with two brain cells in their head would recoil at voting for... Whelp, that didn't work out so well...

Hillary Clinton, for not being able to get out of her own way. For looking down at the people she expected to vote for her. Rather than talk to protesters, to take time to answer their questions or address their concerns, she and her surrogates insulted, belittled, and did everything in their power to infuriate potential voters. For wanting to keep everything as secretive as possible, only to have the secrets come forth from other sources. What would have happened if she would have just released the speech transcripts back in April or May? If she would have just put it out there, maybe added some comments about them. Yeah, they would have hurt her, she might have lost the primary. Then again, it might have been forgotten by the General Election. Her secretiveness played into the belief that she is not to be trusted. In her own way, she doomed her candidacy from the start. I'm not even going to get into the other email investigations, or her insensitive boorish comments, because honestly that is beating a dead horse. This does not include her flopping around on several issues. Hey in the course of a week she changed her opinions on Single Payer no less than three times. I won't talk about the debates, I didn't watch them, I had seen enough in the primaries.

While I am blaming people, why not give some love (or hate) to her supporters. Most of them spent their free time saying why we had to vote for her, without giving specifics about her policy. Granted that is nearly impossible with a candidate whose political leanings are based on whichever way the wind blows. Instead we got rants about the Supreme Court, Russian hackers, the FBI, Republican witch hunts, and on and on and on. It was a never ending cycle of defending a candidate against constant scandals, and gaffes. All they were concerned about was winning, and discrediting anyone who said anything negative about her policy, or questioned her on being progressive. They hid behind the shield of ideological purity tests, sexism, and racism, while they constantly claimed that anyone who said anything about Clinton or her policy ideas were at least guilt of one of those three things. While constantly pining away that Sanders had no chance of winning, while those pesky polls showed otherwise. They also forgot that a vote is not owned by a candidate, it is not owed to a candidate based on political party. They might even think that is how it is supposed to work, but its not. I had one vote, and I used that vote as I saw fit, so I don't get to share in the blame here, I did not endorse Trump's vision for America, nor did I endorse Clinton's vision for America.

Now, this is the last thing, Trump was by no means a competent candidate. Scary isn't it? Trump is not a competent candidate and he still won handily, taking states that Obama had flipped. Clinton nearly lost Virginia, and other states that were solidly Democratic. She was the candidate of unity all right, she united the conservatives against her. Clinton ran with a platform that was disliked, no, outright hated by a large majority of people, while being distrusted. She chose a running mate who was for the things she proudly claimed to be against as a “progressive who gets things done.” Well, she got something done, she, with the held of the DNC and her supporters who refused to listen to others, handed over the keys to this nation to a loon, with a running mate who has half a deck to play with. So, yeah, lets just sit back and wonder just how bad it would have been if Trump had been a competent candidate, because when an incompetent candidate beats you, there are some serious issues, and they are not all related to sexism, racism, hatred, and naivety... When that happens, it is you. Clinton isn't the victim here, Americans are. Clinton lost because Clinton was that weak as a candidate, a weaker candidate than Trump.

Now moving forward, we will have to fight to not only pull the Democratic Party back from the right, but we will have to fight Trump and a GOP controlled congress, because of a sorry candidate that was forced upon us. I know that for the next few years some of Clinton's supporters will constantly scream third party candidates doomed her, same as they are doing with Nader. They would rather place blame than look in the mirror, or at the truth of this. In 2000 we could have started changing things, we could have defeated Bush had we taken what we knew from 2000. We have that chance again, but it means doing some leg work. It means holding people accountable over the next two years, and taking the fight to the GOP in 2018. The thing is, will the Democratic Party get on the train, or will they decide to remain on the tracks.