If you've read my blog since the election, it's pretty obvious what my perspective of the recent failure of the democratic party is. I think they screwed up, and that they shouldn't have run Clinton, and should've run a much more positive message/candidate that motivated people to get out and vote. But looking online in echo chambers like Hillary Clinton, and turning on stations like CNN, I get a much different narrative, and it really involves blaming everyone but the people who really are ultimately responsible.
Before I get to these causes of blame though, I really do want to spend some time discussing this echo chamber. Mainstream democrats: WAKE UP! Remember when the republicans were in an echo chamber in 2012, and it was so obvious to us on the left, and people were shocked when Romney lost? This is kind of what happened here. Now, granted, not even I expected a Trump win, although in my last election predictions, it looked like the race was narrowing to the point where he COULD. Regardless of this, I'm talking deeper than just the election results. I'm talking about the echo chamber the media and some aspects of social media have created that have manipulated peoples' perception of the issues and reality, and how these institutions are what really pushed Hillary Clinton and a narrative favorable to her in the first place.
This was obvious to me from the beginning. I wanted Sanders since mid 2014 or so, by the end of 2014, I was noticing CNN, a network up to that time I respected, starting to go all in for Clinton. Christmas Eve 2014. I was watching CNN, and the subject of 2016 came up. They started discussing the democratic side, and started floating Clinton as the nominee. Then the guest on suggested that Clinton might face a challenge from the left. Right at that point, CNN claimed it had to go to "commercial", ended the interview, and spent a good 30 seconds talking about NORAD tracking Santa Claus (this is why I know it was Christmas eve). I was eating with my family at the time, and I looked at them, and started saying...they didn't want to talk about Sanders. They ended the conversation right when the subject of Sanders or Warren was about to come up. They wanted to push Clinton, they didn't want to discuss Sanders.
It only went downhill from there. CNN is to the point it has no credibility, and constantly frames its coverage to favor Clinton, and always makes the "commercial" or "lost satellite" feed excuse whenever an uncomfortable topic comes up. Honestly, from an outsider's perspective, CNN is no better than Fox News this election cycle. While it might outright lie less, it shapes coverage just the same and manipulates peoples' perceptions. It's just less subtle.
The media this election was propaganda, and it strongly shaped peoples' perceptions to make them vote Hillary. They had explicit links with the DNC and Clinton campaign this election as exposed by leaks, and they were manipulating people in insane ways. They also tried to do the same thing on the internet with things like CTR, which tried to basically astroturf whole reddit subs and turn them into pro Hillary echo chambers, much to the frustration of the regulars on there like myself. While reddit is largely going back to normal now, a few subs that inevitably were pro Clinton to begin with are remaining safe spaces for them, which is inevitable, but the stuff I see in these spaces are just mind boggling to me and so full of latent ideology.
All in all, this election has turned the democratic base into their own echo chamber, kind of like what Jon Stewart referred to as "bull**** mountain" in referring to the republicans in 2012. Not everyone bought it of course, many of us on the left were aware of this manipulation and rejected the blatant programming forced upon us. But so many more people bought into it, and they bought into Clinton completely, and they don't understand why Trump won, and they are blaming everyone but the right causes in a staggering display of brainwashing. Some of these causes may be legitimate, but they ignore the elephant in the room: that Clinton was a horrible candidate. If we can't understand this root cause that ties all other causes together, we can't move on, the democrats can't learn what went wrong, and they can't do better next time.
Causes, according to the media and Clinton supporters:
1) James Comey- Yes, starting up the FBI investigation in the last days of the campaign may have cost her votes. However, once again, the question comes up as to why we're running such a flawed candidate who is being investigated by the FBI to begin with? I really think there was more to it than Comey. It was a factor, but we saw similar dips when Clinton's health was in question and honestly, there were a lot of other factors that may have played a role.
2) Those darned Russians and Assange- Yes, wikileaks did have an impact, as it should, but once again, instead of asking why we had such a corrupt candidate that did all the things mentioned in the emails, the democratic echo chamber is again deflecting from the obvious: that they ran a turd of a candidate and that they did shady things to try to put her in power.
3) Third party shaming...again- Yes, third party voters such as myself deprived Clinton of votes, but once again, the blame is misplaced. It's not my darned responsibility to vote for a candidate I don't like. Stop blaming me, and once again blame yourself for the message that you sent people that turned them off from you to begin with.
4) Themselves- I see some weird social justice warrior thing where people blame themselves for not speaking enough about Clinton or not raising enough awareness. This seems to be related to the whole "be a better ally" thing where they think they need to constantly talk about issues important to them all the time. Essentially, some Clinton supporters are blaming themselves for not talking more about Clinton with people. Um...okay, look. I'm of the opinion that the people who did try to push Hillary are some of the most obnoxious and toxic people in this race. They are every bit as bad as the actual racists on Trump's side of the aisle. While you have a right to free speech, more people talking about how great Clinton is wasn't going to win it for you. We all are aware of her, and have enough information to make our own judgments about her.
Listen, these guys aren't totally wrong. They're right...but only from a really really biased perspective that assumes that Clinton is a positive nominee and that most criticisms of her are illegitimate and that anyone who doesn't support her should be blamed for her defeat. In reality, Clinton just wasn't liked. These criticisms were legitimate, and they alienated many of us from supporting her. No amount of dressing up Clinton would have made her palatable to me. She wasn't what the country needed, she was a fundamentally flawed nominee, and a lot of people were either unenthusiastic about her or even hated her. What the democrats in their echo chamber are doing seems to be the equivalent of shooting the messenger. This isn't productive, especially considering a stronger nominee wouldn't have had these problems.
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