A lot of people are wondering where to go going forward. Some people are acting like the democratic party is done and that republicanism won out here. That liberalism is dead and conservatism is on the rise. I'm here to debunk this. First I'm going to show you some numbers.
Republican vote 2008: 59,948,323
Republican vote 2012: 60,933,504
Republican vote 2016: 59,639,462
Democratic vote 2008: 69,486,516
Democratic vote 2012: 65,915,795
Democratic vote 2016: 59,861,516
Notice any trends? Republican vote was static for every election, but the democratic vote declined. Obama had huge turnout, and won a commanding victory, up 7.2% in the popular vote (see above chart), and won 365-173 in the electoral college. He won again in 2012, but by a smaller margin: 4.9% in the popular vote, and 332-206 in the electoral college. In 2016, Clinton lost turnout, and lost the election. She won the popular vote by 0.2%, but lost the electoral college 306-232 looking at latest trends (results aren't final, but that's how it's shaping up.
This is a result of turnout. Republican turnout stayed the same, but the people who came out and delivered Obama the White House didn't do the same for Clinton. I tracked polling for the last, I don't know, 5 months? Something like that. And Clinton's margins were generally around Obama's 2012 margins, around 330-208 or something on average. At times, Clinton's were as high as Obama's 2008 margins. But then at the end, something happened, Clinton dropped like a rock. The race narrowed and even I predicted a narrow race with the possibility of a Trump win. I still expected Clinton to carry, but she didn't. Heck, she did far worse than polls indicated. Clinton got 0.2% of the popular vote, but polls indicated a lead of 3.3%. She underperformed by 3.1 points. And the electoral college reflected that. I estimated a 272-266 Clinton win if the polls were accurate. Instead, Trump won by 306-232. In my election predictions, I predicted around 299 electoral votes for Trump with a Trump + 2.9 trend, and 315 with a Trump + 3.4 trend. The states that made up this electoral victory were wrong, however, the trend is correct. Clinton underperformed by about 3 points, and the electoral college, on the aggregate, looks about where it would be with a Trump +3 model. It came down to the wire, and Clinton needed every vote she could get to win, but her base didn't show up. The people who came out for Obama and supported him didn't show up. They stayed home. They voted third party. Some might have supported Trump himself.
A problem with morale
It's clear the democrats had a morale problem. In 2008, they turned out for the guy who gave them hope and change, and supported them by a smaller margin in 2012 (some where disillusioned then, but others at least believed in what he was doing and were motivated against Romney). I think the 2014 mid terms had a similar outcome. If I recall it was one of the lowest turnouts that election since WWII.
Republicans seem to show up consistently regardless of who they have to vote for. Democrats are more choosey. They come out when a candidate motivates and inspires them and promises them change, but they don't come out to support turds. This is arguably why the democrats lost 2000 and 2004 too. They didn't come out to support candidates who were boring, uninspiring, and more notably: centrist.
The democrats went into this election with a morale problem. After 2012, people became disillusioned with an Obama presidency, realized it was not all it was cracked up to be, and wanted change. As someone who was among this crowd, I can say that my impression was the democrats needed to push something new. They needed a more far left candidate, one who would be like an FDR figure and approach the issues from a systemic perspective. While Obama was an improvement over Bush, he still advocated for band aids. His ACA is underwhelming, and while he helped a lot with the economy, he didn't make it all better.
Clinton came along and forced herself on the American public. The media portrayed her as inevitable, and the democrats had their fingers on the scales and in the primary and shut down a more promising candidate. The people tried to express their desire for change, but the democratic party turned around, told us to shut up, that we don't know what we're talking about, and need to take what we are given. They did nothing to appeal to us, and tried to make us turn out via fear. Gone were the inspirational messages of Obama and Sanders, and they were replaced by massive dystopian propaganda campaigns both in the media and on the internet, fear mongering, bullying, shaming, and tactics that tried to suppress opposition, not inspire people.
I was so disillusioned I refused to turn out for the democrats. And apparently, there were 6 million of us who didn't either. And we cost her the election.
I warned the democratic party I would be doing this for months. Heck, I started toying with it the second they started fear mongering about the court almost 2 years ago. I realized this is not okay and we need an inspirational candidate that will bring change and fix our country, not a corrupt centrist who will do nothing. They ignored us, they insisted we turn out for them, and we didn't. We called them on their bullcrap, they lost.
Democrats, I hope you learn from this defeat. Beating Trump should've been easy. He was a flawed candidate, and the turnout that propelled him into the white house was not above average for the republicans. It was par for the course. What happened was WE didn't support you. I hope you do some soul searching and understand what motivated us to stay home and vote third party. You try to force us to support a turd, and we won't. And no amount of blustering and intimidation can make us. You lost us when you tipped the scales against Sanders. When you shut us out at the democratic party convention. When you talked down and condescended to us. Have fun in the political wilderness. Come back next time with something to offer.
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