I think there are four main reasons:
First,
Hillary Clinton was a poor overall candidate, and a terrible candidate
for the particular mood of the country. A few years ago, when President
Obama was talking about the 2016 election, he noted that after 8 years,
the American people would likely want a “new car smell” in the White
House. And he was absolutely right: even the most successful presidents
struggle to pass the baton to their party for a third consecutive term.
We’ve had numerous two-term presidents since WWII, but only Reagan’s
anointed successor, George H.W. Bush, was able to win an election (and
of course, he was ultimately a one-term president). So even though Obama
has been a reasonably popular president—and has been extremely popular
with Democrats—Democrats were always facing an uphill battle in 2016.
But
that being said, Clinton was a terrible choice; voters (both with Obama
in 2008 and 2012, and the Tea Party in 2010 and 2014) have been
screaming at the top of their lungs for years that they are dissatisfied
with the status quo and perceived corruption of Washington, so it was
strange to pick someone who more or less personifies the corrupt
Washington establishment. Add to it that Clinton had no core
message—“I’ll be Obama’s third term! No, wait! I’ve always been a strong
progressive who hates globalist policies!”—and is a poor “retail”
politician, and it’s amazing that she came as close to the presidency as
she ultimately did. A lot of blame for Clinton's defeat has been placed
on the FBI, Russia, and even the American people themselves, but
Clinton deserves the most blame, as a better candidate would have beaten
Trump and provided coattails to other candidates seeking office.
Second, for
all the talk over the past year about the GOP allegedly dying, the
Democrats’ civil war wreaked havoc on the party’s messaging. Hillary
Clinton, in my opinion, has few core principles, but leaked emails
regarding paid speeches showed some of them, namely that she is a free
trade loving globalist. Again, these were not the right views for 2016,
and Bernie Sanders's successful primary campaign forced Clinton (an
economic moderate) to rebrand herself as a lifelong progressive, a suit
that simply didn't fit and a message that most progressives didn't buy.
Instead of staking out a position in the political center, Clinton was
forced to take a sharp left turn to try to stave off Sanders and appease
his supporters. Again, this was not the campaign Clinton wanted to run,
and as a result, Democrats struggled at the high levels to find a
unifying message other than “we've got to make sure that Trump doesn't
win.”
Third, Democrats hadn't spent much
time working on their “bench” of young politicians since George W. Bush
was president. After 2004—a year Democrats thought they'd retake the
White House—the party worked very hard to up its ground game and recruit
better candidates. As a result, Democrats retook Congress and later
controlled the government for the first two Obama years. But the party
learned the wrong lessons, thinking that because Nancy Pelosi was so
good at raising money and Barack Obama was such a great campaigner,
developing the next generation of leadership would not be a major
issues. The last few years have also witnessed so many nonsensical
books/articles about how Democrats would enjoy permanent majorities
simply as a result of demographic changes. Partisans ignored, however,
that (1) party platforms aren’t static (Trump ran far to the left of
conventional GOP policies on many issues) and (2) talk of “never-ending
majorities” always seems to peak right before a fall, e.g. Republicans
making the same claims in 2005. What 2016 shows is that demographics
aren't destiny, and picking and supporting good candidates still matters
a great deal.
And fourth, the backlash
against political correctness and perceived liberal smugness hit
Democrats hard. Within the liberal echo chamber, things like “safe
spaces” and privilege theory may make sense, but in much of the country,
these concepts are offensive, to the extent they are even
comprehensible. People struggling to make ends meet do not want to be
lectured about their supposed privilege by finger painting rich kids.
Similarly, progressives experienced a lot of success during the Obama
years, but instead of being magnanimous, decided that people who opposed
them were worthy of contempt. Take LGBT rights as an example: over the
last 10 years, gay marriage went from being a fringe issue to something
that the majority of the country supported. This would seem to speak
highly of the compassion of the American people as well as their ability
to change views when confronted with compelling arguments. But not to
progressives: instead, there's always another battle to fight, always
new politically correct words to learn, and if people aren't on board
110%, they're scum. I live in Houston, for example, which was the first
major US city to elect an openly gay mayor (who was reelected twice).
New York has never had a gay mayor, nor has Chicago, nor has San
Francisco; nope, it's us hicks down in Texas. But when the city voted
down an ordinance over concerns about biological men using women's
bathrooms (a concern that was overblown, in my opinion, but nevertheless
mattered to a lot of people), we suddenly became the city of hate.
Never mind that the ordinance was initially passed in secret to avoid a
fair debate, or that the mayor's office was literally subpoenaing
churches in an attempt to stifle criticism. Nope, if you weren't on
board with the progressive agenda without question, it was only because
you are stupid and bigoted.
Is it any wonder
that Clinton's “basket of deplorables” remark had such staying power? It
wasn’t much of a surprise that a certain class of liberals disdains
much of the country; rather, the only surprise was that such a remark
was made openly. Again, I think the cause of gay rights illustrates that
given time and reasonable argument, the American people can change
their minds a great deal. But by 2016, too much liberal “discussion” was
along the lines of “we're good people, and here's what we want. If you
aren't on board, it's because you're a bad person.” Very few people
respond well to having their lives, their culture, and their faiths
attacked, and so a backlash was inevitable.
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