COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the weeks, months and now years since her 2016 presidential defeat, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly demonstrated in speeches and television interviews that she has no idea why she lost. She has blamed everything from racism to Russia, from the media to sexism, from the deplorables to stubborn, backward nostalgia.
Now she says Trump’s presidency is illegitimate and that she would defeat him again.
She clearly did not consider the implications of her stance on weapons, her anti-fossil fuels, and her open embrace of globalism. She clearly did not consider the political cost of living in the bubbles of Washington, New York, and Hollywood.
Talk to Democrats today who live outside her bubble, those who either put in countless hours to support elect her or voted for her, and they will tell you that Clinton has no idea why she lost. Worse, they see their party continuing down the same path that led to her defeat four years ago, blaming white resentment as well as Russia, the media, sexism, and the deplorables.
Look no further than audio clips from last week’s Democratic debate or recent town hall meetings: Confiscating guns, banning fracking, raising taxes, providing free health care to illegal immigrants, and eliminating religious freedom are all promises Democrats have made to compete for votes in the primaries.
Here’s what most Trump critics don’t understand: why this recent conservative populist coalition voted for Trump and not just Clinton but 17 highly qualified, distinguished, mostly establishment Republican Party candidates in the party primaries.
It was never about Trump. It was always about their communities. Trump was a symptom, not a cause.
These voters will not budge. It’s not that everyone who voted for him sees his first term as a huge success that improved America’s economy and made us safer. It’s that Democrats and Republicans who never supported Trump have done nothing to reflect on why they lost to this guy. They’d rather mock voters—it’s easier and more fun on Twitter—than acknowledge their part in this escape from normalcy.
Successful people, trying to recover from failure, ask themselves, “Well, what did I do wrong to get a job/life in this difficult situation?”
Never-Trump Democrats and Republicans will not accept any blame for the loss of public opinion. Instead, they blame public opinion. They will never cry out, “Oh my God! They chose him over us? Jesus, we need to get a grip on ourselves.”
Which brings us back to what we’ve seen on the debate stage over the past few months from the Democratic presidential candidates. They — with the exception of Amy Klobuchar and occasionally Pete Buttigieg — clearly haven’t figured out why Clinton lost.
Elizabeth Warren certainly isn’t. The national press considers her a sure bet, largely because they think she’s familiar. They know someone in their personal or professional lives who’s like her: a neighbor, a relative, someone who taught them in college. Warren’s views are also known in the newsroom, to put it mildly.
It’s not the same here.
Democrats have lost rural areas and are unmatched in urban areas, said Paul Sracic, a political science professor at Youngstown State University. “Klobuchar and Buttigieg seem to understand that raising taxes on the middle class to pay for health care is going to be a big issue for those voters,” he said of suburban middle-class voters who could be approachable to the Democratic presidential candidate.
There are a significant number of middle-class suburban voters looking for alternatives to their current options. Only two people on the scene seem to have understood the lessons of 2016 and 2018: a Midwest state senator and the mayor of a Midwest city.
The rest seem to be repeating the mistakes of the former senator from New York.
Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst and a reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches Everyman and Everywoman through leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the Beltway and everywhere in between.
