Missing The Forest

Hilary Clinton blames her loss to Donald Trump on FBI Director James Comey's bombshell letter about new emails and Russian interference in Trump's favor.  She makes a valid point, along with other Democrats.  In a close election, which this one was in several key states, just about any unfavorable intervention is likely to affect the final result.  So Clinton's conclusion is not incorrect.

It is, however, beside the point.  With Donald Trump as a candidate, the election should have never been close.  That is where Democrats and all of the other "if only..." counterfactualists err in blaming Clinton's loss on outside interventions.  Those interventions may have made a difference at the margin but their impact was only possible due to Clinton's flaws as a candidate and a poorly run campaign.  Democrats chose to run an establishment candidate with a serious deficit of trustworthiness in a year where the electorate was clamoring for change.  Even so, Clinton won the popular vote but failed to win the vote according to America's baroque eletoral college system.

The point of all this is that blaming external factors for Clinton's loss is a sure path to continued irrelevance for the Democratic Party.  It will continue to be the only likely avenue for progressive social, economic and foreign policy to be presented to the American electorate.

One opportunity to steer the Democratic Party in a more effective direction is to encourage Democratic National Committee members to select a new Chair who will support organizing in all 50 states rather than relying on its "Blue Wall" and a few swing states for winning national elections.  Aside from abandoning no part of America to the Republicans, the 50 state strategy will ensure that Democrats reach out to the dispossed American workers who made Donald Trump president.  The band of incorrigible spitballers at Mock Paper Scissors have provided a set of resources for making your voice heard at this critical time.

Make your voice heard.  Our backs are against the wall.