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Michael Moore perfectly encapsulated why Trump won
That if is a mighty big if.
And the lessons you think they "need to learn" from this election are probably different from the lessons that the professional class (credit to Thomas Frank) thinks the Democrats need to learn. To them, it's not about getting a candidate that has a higher favorability rating than a meteor strike, but to find a candidate that maintains their status in society. They are the winners of "free trade" (see Rigged by Dean Baker) and globalisation, while a vast number of people have been thrown into debt peonage, wage slavery or worse.
Unless the Democratic Party emancipates itself from the donors and the professional class, I don't see them becoming a home to champions of the people. Look at how the DNC conspired with the Clinton campaign to crush the Sanders candidacy -- lots of juicy bits about that in the Podesta emails. Look at Corbyn, who is basically caught up in a civil war within Labour, despite overwhelming support by the party base.
The Third Way (Social-)Democrats have bought into neoliberalism at such a fundamental level that I just cannot see anyone turning them into a vessel for social equality without getting utterly corrupted or even crushed along the way.
The lesson they learn might be to not nominate a member of a dynasty with so much baggage attached to them. Yet even that depends on them actually recognising the baggage in the first place, which they seemed unwilling to during this election cycle. Everything was brushed off.
And then you're still stuck with a representative of a system that doesn't work for a lot of people. The situation of the rust belt is not a result of anything particular to the current or previous candidates, but of the Washington Consensus and the widespread acceptance of neoliberalism as gospel.
Without major outside pressure, I don't see the party changing its ways sufficiently enough to become a representative of the people again. Maybe a Trump presidency is enough to create such movements, maybe not. Occupy was promising, yet crushed by the establishment in bipartisan consensus.
Outside of the immediate setback that this represents to the Democrat party, I think the future of the party is actually extremely bright -- IF they learn the lesson that they need to from this election. Choose candidates that people like. People that are actually worth voting FOR, rather than propping up someone that you hope will be seen as the "lesser of two evils".
eric3579 (Member Profile)
I'm anxious to see the Faux Left coming out of the woods again during the reign of the Orange One. All the shit they opposed when the Bush administration did it only to shut up when the Obama administration continued, or even expanded it, are they going to oppose it again? Can we at least get opposition against the targetted killing of US citizens without due process (al-Awlaki)?
What of all the Dem sycophants in the liberal wing of the media (Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Operative K, Rachel Maddow, etc) who went on a pro-HRC binge over the last months in particular, will they return to reality?
And what is Alex Jones going to? Having raged against government in general only to have his guy now be in charge of the government... is he going to sell beauty products now?
Edit: Thomas Frank, again, to the rescue:
TYT Connecting the dots on Clinton Foundation corruption
Jordan Chariton and Emma Vigeland at TYT Politics covered the entire thing, every day, while also covering the Standing Rock resistance.
For a quick appetizer, read this piece by Thomas Frank in the Guardian.
eric3579 (Member Profile)
Have I mentioned how much I like reading pieces by Thomas Frank?
He had a piece in the Guardian two days ago about the Podesta emails and it's just brilliant. Excerpt:
Yap, as George Carlin used to say: it's a big club, and you ain't in it.
newtboy (Member Profile)
If you really want to add some fuel to your, shall we say, "dislike" of HRC, have a look at this. It's an excerpt of Thomas Frank's new book "Listen, Liberal!". Afterwards, you might have to reassure yourself that HRC is, in fact, not a creation of John Cleese's or Terry Jones'.
Edit: I should probably have provided an appetizer.
"For poor and working-class American women, the floor was pulled up and hauled off to the landfill some twenty years ago. There is no State Department somewhere to pay for their cell phones or to pick up their day-care expenses. And one of the people who helped to work this deed was the very woman I watched present herself as the champion of the world’s downtrodden femininity."